WAR IN UKRAINE: August 23, 2022
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 181
Amid heightened tensions, two days of nationwide celebrations get underway today, starting with national flag day. The two-colour flag has become one of the most recognizable in the world since Russia’s invasion - with the blue representing the sky over yellow wheat fields.
Separately, the US state department warns Russia is planning to launch fresh attacks against Ukraine's civilian infrastructure and government buildings, the BBC reports. “Given Russia’s track record in Ukraine, we are concerned about the continued threat that Russian strikes pose to civilians and civilian infrastructure,” an official said.
Nearly 9,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia's invasion began, Ukraine's commander-in-chief has said. Valeriy Zaluzhny told a forum that his country's children needed particular attention "because their fathers have gone to the front and are maybe among the nearly 9,000 heroes who have been killed", according to Interfax-Ukraine news agency - The Telegraph
An update on the brazen car bomb killing of Dasha Dugina in Moscow over the weekend: security services reportedly told Russian media that a Ukrainian woman blamed for the killing had moved to Russia in July alongside her young daughter - but that she was in fact a Ukrainian special services contractor. The woman, it said, rented an apartment in the same building as Ms Dugina for a month, preparing for the attack. In that time, she allegedly followed the journalist through Moscow in a Mini Cooper - for which she used three different licence plates. The suspect then escaped to Estonia after the explosion, the FSB said - BBC
Even if the FSB security services account is to believed it would rival tactics used by Israel’s Mossad or Shin Bet in such dramatic reenactments as seen as Apple TV’s Tehran. The narrative produced by the Kremlin suggests this was an operation that was a long time in coming - or hastily pasted together to provide cover for the sloppy behaviour of the FSB.
Kyiv School of Economics: Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused direct losses worth $113 billion since Feb. 24. Maksym Nefyodov, head of reform support projects at the Kyiv School of Economics, said that the team is actively collecting satellite images to analyze the destruction caused by the Russian military and using those in the “Russia will pay” project to assess needs for future recovery - Kyiv Independent
Ukraine plans to export about 4-million tonnes of grain by sea and land in August. According to the Ministry of Infrastructure, over 27 vessels have already departed from Odesa seaports, carrying about 670,000 tonnes of food products. About 40 vessels are planning to arrive for loading at seaports are known to have been registered.
Required reading…
Russia’s war in Ukraine: Six surprises six months in
Six months ago, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since then, Russia has occupied 13% more of the country, killed thousands of Ukrainians, leveled major cities along with countless towns and villages, strangulated Ukraine’s economy, taken Europe’s largest nuclear plant hostage, and caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage. Russian soldiers have committed unspeakable war crimes and thousands of Ukrainian children have been forcibly relocated to Russia. One-third of Ukrainians have left their homes, sparking the largest refugee crisis since World War II.
Read the full analysis by the Atlantic Council’s Melinda Haring here