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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 880: Russia Attacks A Nikopol School with Flechette Rounds!

War for Ukraine Day 880: Russia Attacks A Nikopol School with Flechette Rounds!

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(Image by NEIVANMADE)

A quick housekeeping note. Rosie had her second treatment of round three today. So far she’s doing great. Thank you all for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations.

The Russians shot flechette rounds into a school in Nikopol today.

Euromaidan Press has the details:

On Saturday, 20 July 2024, Russian forces targeted a school in Ukraine’s Nikopol district, Dnipropetrovsk oblast, using artillery shells containing flechettes – thousands of sharp steel darts designed to inflict maximum damage on human targets.

Yevhen Yevtushenko, head of the Nikopol District Military Administration, reported the attack on Telegram on Sunday. He stated, “Yesterday, the Russians shelled a settlement of the Marhanets community with tube artillery. Many shells hit an educational institution.”

The school suffered significant damage, but fortunately, no casualties were reported. Yevtushenko emphasized that this was not an isolated incident, noting that the villages of Illinka and Dobra Nadiia “suffer from armed aggression almost daily.”

The use of flechette rounds in this attack is particularly concerning. These artillery shells can contain up to 9,000 small, sharp darts capable of causing severe injuries and fatalities. Yevtushenko highlighted the indiscriminate nature of these weapons, stating, “By shelling a settlement where civilians live, the occupiers used ammunition designed for maximum damage to people.”

This incident is not the first time flechettes have been used in the area. Yevtushenko revealed that over two years of shelling, residents of coastal settlements have frequently found these darts on streets, fences, roofs, and vehicles, underscoring the ongoing danger to civilians even after attacks have ceased.

The attack on the school in Marhanets community serves as a stark reminder of the continued threat faced by Ukrainian civilians in areas near the front lines, as the war in Ukraine enters its third year since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

Our Team Is Preparing Four New Security Agreements for Ukraine – Address by the President

22 July 2024 – 19:31

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

A brief summary of the day.

Our team is preparing four new security agreements for Ukraine. Very soon, we will begin negotiations and quite promptly prepare the documents for signing. These agreements will cover defense support, finances, and humanitarian cooperation. With these, we will have almost thirty such agreements with our partners. We aimed to include various countries, not just NATO members. However, all of them are equally ready to help us defend our shared values. And this will happen. No matter what happens in the world, we need our own tools to support our people and state, our own security agreements that will work under any conditions. This is exactly what we are doing.

And the most important thing for today. I want to thank all our people, all our rescuers from the State Emergency Service of Ukraine working to protect people’s lives in different regions of our country, both in the rear and in the frontline and border areas of Ukraine. These are the people who always, under any circumstances, arrive at the scene after Russian attacks and shelling and do absolutely everything to help as quickly as possible. Our state services remain functional in all regions. I especially want to mention the employees of the State Emergency Service in the Kharkiv region – the entire team of rescuers in the region, particularly Andriy Sydorchenko, Yevhen Popov, Maksym Hunko, Viktor Koval, and Serhiy Lysytsia. Thank you and all your colleagues! Also, the State Emergency Service in the Kherson region – all the employees of the department, especially Ivan Smolenskyi, Taras Staryshchak, Serhiy Yachmeniov, Vladyslav Pylypenko, and Oleksandr Vasechko… Thank you! And our Sumy region – a region that, unfortunately, is also constantly suffering from Russian terror. But there, as elsewhere, our rescuers always help. Thank you to the entire team of the main department of the State Emergency Service in the Sumy region, especially Yaroslav Samoylenko, Oleh Moroz, Andriy Shchennikov, Andriy Pokydiuk, Oleksandr Klochkov, and Ruslan Pylypets.

Thank you to everyone who protects our state, our people, and our Ukrainian interests!

Thank you to everyone in the world who helps us!

Glory to Ukraine!

Here’s the video:

Illia Ponomarenko is absolutely correct in his assessment below:

When it comes to Ukraine, Joe Biden made a lot of mistakes.

The most painful thing about that is that so many of those mistakes could have been easily avoided if Biden had people in his team who genuinely understood what Putin’s Russia was and how things worked with the Kremlin mafia.

Heaven knows, and we know it too, that the Biden administration, along with other Western leaders, spent way too much time in vain trying to talk Putin out of invading Ukraine.

We all remember those endless, humiliating summits, diplomatic powwows, meetings, calls, and conversations behind closed doors that resulted in nothing in the winter of 2021-22— nothing but Putin and his cronies openly jesting at their frantic attempts and spitting at their faces.

The decision to invade and devour Ukraine had been made a long time ago. Putin’s TV propaganda within Russia was only using those pictures to send a message to the domestic audience: Look, the American president is now seeking Putin’s attention and is reasoning with Russia, but who is he in the face of the inevitable?

(Yes, the galaxy brains who keep saying that Biden “never tried diplomacy with Russia” are either fucking utterly dumb, or extraordinarily shameless, or just never actually followed the developments at all).

I think it would be honest and true to say that the U.S. administration in the days of February 2022 was ready to accept the option of Ukraine going down, establishing a national government in exile somewhere in Poland, and gradually coming to terms with “new territorial realities in Europe.”

They decided to go the easiest way and take as little action as possible, assume as little responsibility as possible, and make decisions as free from risk as possible. Moreover, the administration appeared to be very, very reluctant to change its course due to new circumstances and opportunities.

That was one of the Biden administration’s key mistakes regarding Ukraine, which, in a certain way, has affected Biden today’s electoral chances.

A very unexpected and catastrophic Russian defeat at Kyiv (which essentially spelled the failure of Putin’s “special military operation”) in 2022 should have destroyed a lot of long-ingrained illusions.

And it shouldn’t have taken months of Ukrainian begging to start providing Ukraine with artillery to stand against Russian “walls of fire,” destroying everything on their way in Donbas.

It shouldn’t have taken months of Ukrainian begging to provide Ukraine with a handful of HIMARS systems that effectively derailed Russian offensive campaigns in the summer of 2022 and precipitated the liberation of Kherson in November 2022.

It shouldn’t have taken months and years of Ukrainian begging to provide Ukraine with PATRIOT missile defense systems, which not only did not lead to “World War III” but instead demonstrated the greatest results in the type’s entire operational history and set a number of milestones in defending the Ukrainian capital from Russian missiles and saving lives.

It shouldn’t have taken months and years of Ukrainian begging to give the green light to provide Ukraine with armored vehicles, particularly M2 Bradleys, which demonstrated extraordinary results in Ukrainian hands. The same goes with tanks, particularly a handful of M1 Abrams, which unblocked the scarce deliveries of Leopard tanks from European nations.

It shouldn’t have taken years of Ukrainian begging to get long-outdated ATACMS missiles that not only did not trigger “a major escalation” but effectively wiped out Russian military airfields and sophisticated air defense systems used against Ukraine.

And, of course, it shouldn’t have taken years to finally admit the fact that the policy of not allowing Ukraine to use American weapons to strike Russia’s military infrastructure in Russian territory is deeply absurd and ineffective; it only provides the aggressor with a safe haven for escalating its offensive operations and terror bombing campaigns in Ukraine and only encourages to move on unpunished.

This list can be continued for a long time.

The problem is that way too much authority was given to people who graduated from the most elite universities and read all of Kissinger — but never had the experience of fighting back to street thugs and discouraging them from harassing someone with a good old punch in the face.

Amid endless “escalation management” and heeding Russia’s “nuclear threats,” way too much time was given to Putin to recover from the initial stress of the failure in Ukraine, to restructure production and economy, to adapt to sanctions, to find allies in Iran and North Korea, and reshape Russia into a totalitarian state obsessed with exterminating a neighboring country.

This is what our military has had to deal with for more than a decade since Russia invaded Ukraine for the first time in 2014.

Even in the final months before the resignation from the presidential race, the Biden administration was still placing way too much hope on trying to reason with Putin or trying to motivate Putin to get reasonable to strike a fair deal on Ukraine via the tactics of slow bites. So, after two years of war, Putin is still not ready to talk serious business and leave Ukraine alone? Okay, we let Ukraine use ATACMS, but only in Crimea and not against Russian territory.

Many months later, Putin is still defiant as always? Okay, let’s let Ukrainians strike targets in Russian territory, but only within 100 miles of the Ukrainian border and no ATACMS.

And this drags on, and on, and on. And failure to realize that the moment when Putin says “Okay, now I’m ready to leave Ukraine alone” would never come unless Putin is forced to stop and calm down was among Biden biggest mistakes.

Yet — even though so many mistakes were made, every Ukrainian should remember that we owe a lot to the old man.

Even though there have been a lot of incompetent Putin appeasers whispering things in his ear, without his faith and without his decisions — even though many of them were half-hearted, terribly belated, and questionable — there wouldn’t be the Ukraine as we know it now.

Half of us would have been rotting in mass graves with Russian bullets in our foreheads and with our heads tied behind our backs.

For this, we will always be thankful as we should.

But there were critical, terrible mistakes that prevented Joe Biden from having a large geopolitical victory right now.

I really, really hope that whoever replaces the old man in the Oval Office will be smart enough to draw conclusions.

Kyiv:

From The Financial Times:

Ukraine has struck a deal with international bondholders to restructure about $20bn of debt, boosting Kyiv’s drive to use private capital to finance its war effort against Russia.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government said on Monday that it won support from investors to reduce the face value of the debt by more than a third, paving the way for a formal restructuring in the coming weeks.

The agreement will replace a two-year moratorium on bond payments that was granted after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 but was due to expire next month.

Ukraine sought debt relief as part of its conditions for continuing bailout loans from the IMF, which said it had endorsed Monday’s deal alongside backing from the US, UK and other allies that are financing Kyiv’s war effort.

Ukraine finalised terms last week during talks with a committee of bondholders, as well as other investors, which together own about a quarter of the debt.

“As long-term investors in Ukraine, we are pleased to be able to provide significant debt relief to Ukraine, assist its efforts to regain its access to international capital markets, and support the future reconstruction of the country to the benefit of the Ukrainian people,” the committee said.

The terms of the deal reflect deep uncertainty over the impact of a longer conflict on Ukraine’s economy and its ability to bear significant amounts of debt.

In return for writing off 37 cents per dollar of the old debt, bondholders will firstly receive bonds worth 40 cents of their original claim. These will restore interest payments immediately, rising from 1.75 per cent over the next year to 4.5 per cent from 2026, with later increases.

They will also receive a bond worth 23 cents, which will not pay interest for the next three years, but could increase to 35 cents if Ukraine’s nominal gross domestic product exceeds IMF targets by at least 3 per cent, and up to 7.5 per cent, in 2028.

Overall, the restructuring will slash Ukraine’s previously scheduled bond payments by more than $11bn, or 90 per cent, in the next three years.

By restarting payments to private investors after the moratorium, Ukraine hopes it can entice them to finance reconstruction, people familiar with the talks said.

Ukraine’s full return to bond markets is seen as unlikely as long as the war continues, but it could attract other sources of private capital such as loans guaranteed by development banks. Such funding could mitigate a feared reduction in support if Republican nominee Donald Trump wins the US presidential election, investors and analysts have said.

Ukraine and the bondholder committee broke off initial discussions last month with positions far apart on the level of debt reduction that was needed, before formal talks restarted in the past two weeks.

More at the link.

Severodonetsk, Russian occupied Donetsk Oblast:

Derhachi, Kharkiv Oblast:

Russian occupied Crimea:

Another example of #Russia’s systematic policy of discrimination against Ukrainians on the basis of nationality under occupation. Metropolitan Klyment said that the last Ukrainian church is being dismantled in occupied Crimea. The occupying city authorities of Yevpatoria have begun dismantling the Holy Cross Church of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
#GenevaConvention IV stipulates that citizens in the occupied territories have the right to respect for religious beliefs, and the occupying power must allow religious ministers to provide spiritual support to their fellow believers. Discrimination on the basis of nationality and religion is unacceptable. The actions of the occupation administrations and the inspirers of such state policy should be given a legal assessment.

Pokrovsk:

Ukrainian Defenders destroyed a Russian Zemledeliye remote minelaying system by using drones.

Its detonation is impressive.

A rare complex was spotted near Avdiivka Coke Plant at night by command and artillery reconnaissance battery pilots of the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade in the Pokrovsk direction.

Glory!

📹: 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade “Magura”

The Ukrainians unleashed a swarm of attack drones overnight on targets in Russia.

Russians report that last night and in the morning, 80 Ukrainian drones were shot down over the territory of the Russian Federation.

Most of the drones – 47 units – were intercepted and destroyed over the Rostov region, eight – over the Krasnodar region, five – over the Astrakhan region, one each – over the Belgorod, Voronezh and Smolensk regions.

Another 17 UAVs were shot down over the Black and Azov Seas.

The extent of the damage is unclear, yet an oil depot in Tuapse is on fire, and another stockpile of flammable materials is on fire in Morozovsk.

Morozovsk air field, Russia:

#Ukraine continues its campaign to force Russia’s air force to abandon airfields in western Russia. The military airfield at Morozovsk is some 140km from Ukraine’s border & around 250km from the frontline. Maria’s video shows the view from a basket ball court in the city (pic 2).

The assumed Ukrainian drone strike shows subsequent burning of something sizable – maybe the ammo dump (red), but possibly the large fuel storage area (white). One assumes Russia still has numerous fighter jets (blue) there also. So plenty of juicy undefended targets.

Tuapse, Krasnodar Krai, Russia:


Murom, Belgorod Oblast, Russia:

That’s enough for tonight.

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Reader Interactions

18Comments

  1. 1.

    J. Arthur Crank

    I can’t say that I have heard of a flechette before.  Firing them at schools?  Christ Almighty, I have no words…

  4. 4.

    Subsole

    @J. Arthur Crank:

    Basically a paving nail designed to fly like a bullet. Really horrid stuff.

    Designed to shred what they call ‘soft’ targets. That’s anything that isn’t an armored vehicle (tank, IFV, etc). Kind of a modern evolution of grapeshot  (buckshot for cannons). Jeeps, trucks, light vehicles, humans. That stuff gets literally shredded.

    In the U.S. we called them beehive rounds, because they make a hellish buzzing noise.

  5. 5.

    Jay

    Flechette rounds and bombs have been around since WWI.

    Historically, they are an anti-personal weapon used against massed infantry.

    The US used then in Korea and Vietnam.

    ruZZia used them against massed civilians in Chechnia and Syria.

    Man’s ability to create and use horrible weapons is endless. There are shells and bombs that spray almost microscopic tungsten balls. They don’t travel very far, but everyone in the blast zone winds up with thousands of deep wounds. As far as I am aware, no one who has ever been hit by one, even with immediate medical care, has ever survived, because there are too many micro wounds, they are too deep, and it is impossible to stop the internal and external bleeding Patients bleed out either that day, or a week or two later.

  6. 6.

    NotoriousJRT

    Hmmm. I suppose it would have been better to have Trump at the top. What a country!

  9. 9.

    Gin & Tonic

    Road trip…

    I’ve mentioned that during our visit we borrowed a car from a friend, so we’d have freedom to maneuver. In many, many visits over the last quarter-century or so, we’ve never been in this position. Early on, it was made quite clear that independent driving by foreigners was not recommended – the roads were shit, and you were quite likely to be stopped for some reason (or no reason) and shaken down for bribes. So we always ended up going places with a local, or taking public transport, or being engaged in a project which included transportation. Or we flew in and stayed in one city, never really leaving. So in the past I may not have been as observant as I was when behind the wheel.

    At any rate, there was a question from someone about roads. There are very few miles of US- or Western-European-style multi-lane, divided, controlled-access highways. Nearly every mile of our travels was on a two-lane road with just a stripe down the middle and no shoulder, running through every town on the way, with roundabouts and traffic lights to control the flow. The quality of the road surface has generally improved quite a bit in the last 10-15 years, so they are generally smooth (in the past the surfaces were more like the surface of the moon, due to sub-standard construction most likely due to corruption.) The national highway patrol has also been seriously professionalized, so being pulled over and shaken down is almost inconceivable.

    Driving through towns and villages requires one to slow down considerably, since houses come almost right up to the road, and it’s not that unusual to find livestock in the road or some local in a horse or donkey cart.

    There are (now) military checkpoints, primarily at the borders between oblasts, but in some other places as well. We were never stopped or checked; the soldiers seemed busy drinking coffee, chatting and checking their phones, and let us drive through without comment. But license plates are different by city/oblast, so they knew we were “local.”

    Once outside city limits, the key impression is agriculture. The topography in the areas we drove was rolling hills, like maybe eastern Pennsylvania or the Southern Tier of NY, but it seemed a much higher percentage of the land was cleared and cultivated – in the US you’ll encounter significant stands of forest, whereas there, such stands were much more circumscribed. East of the Dnipro (where we didn’t go) is mostly flat steppe, like the US Great Plains. Fields were planted in wheat, rye, buckwheat (a real staple there), flax, some corn (not a lot, frankly), beets, potatoes. While there were smallish plots here and there, most were really quite large, meaning significant agribusiness. In one area we saw the largest apple orchard I’ve ever seen (and I’ve driven around NY State a lot) – very clearly relatively new, very clearly with a *lot* of investment in trellises, screens, etc. This may be the place: about 1500 acres, producing 20,000 tons a year.

    In a lot of areas, fallow fields or strips between fields were infested with hogweed (Heracleum sosnowskyi), a very close relative of the Giant Hogweed found in the US. If you’re unaware, this is a very dangerous plant due to the phototoxicity of its sap – it can cause very severe burns on exposed human skin. During the Stalin era this was intended as silage, now it is classed as a dangerous invasive (called “Stalin’s Revenge.”) Not uncommon to read local stories about eradication efforts, which are very difficult.

    This series is winding down, I think, maybe just one more installment covering general impressions and political views. Haven’t gotten a lot of engagement, so I’m not sure if I’m boring people.

  10. 10.

    Bill Arnold

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Reading every word.
    I poked google maps to get a street-view look (western Ukraine) of the roads you describe. Other than the single white center line (I prefer a wider center), not so bad. Would drive. Have seen worse roads in the northern northeast USA. (Kenya was the worst I’ve seen.)
    That’s a biggish orchard; I’m in an apple orchard area in the mid Hudson Valley NY (several within a kilometer of my house) and they get up to several hundred acres in this area.

  12. 12.

    Kyle Rayner

    Thank you, Adam.

    Great essay from Illia. Sometimes I’m still baffled by how relatively recently Ukraine’s been “allowed” to so much as look at Russian territory. Has anyone ever really deflected a post-Napoleonic invader by never stepping one foot out of bounds? Bonkers expectation to have ever set for Ukraine.

    @Gin & Tonic: This is a good write-up! I don’t think you could bore people with a topic like that.

  14. 14.

    M Hall

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Mostly I’m a silent reading lurker here and am finding your travelogues well written, informative, and educational. Thank You G&T!

  15. 15.

    wjca

    @Gin & Tonic: This series is winding down, I think, maybe just one more installment covering general impressions and political views. Haven’t gotten a lot of engagement, so I’m not sure if I’m boring people.

    Absolutely NOT bored!

  17. 17.

    wu ming

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Please keep going, your posts are fascinating! I spent a couple of summers on an archaeological dig in Crimea back in the 90s, and we took a long slow bus ride from the airport in Odessa to get there and go back home. I loved just sitting by the window and watching all those fields roll by, it reminded me a lot of the Central Valley of California, but with more rolling hills. I love reading your descriptions of your trip.

    OK,  back to lurking.

  18. 18.

    Traveller

    @wu ming:
    @Gin & Tonic:
    This is difficult, but let me try (quickly):
    I consider your travel posts to be so readable, so valuable…I have considered stealing them and connecting them all together in a single read…but with like chapters.
    Yet there are problems with this idea…it is theft, even with attribution I would still be stealing, (there are some real moral difficulties here).
    Secondly, but maybe more importantly, I was considering posting this at my private travel site…I  am certain it would go no further…but (!) there is a South American contingent, very anti-American…which is fine of course, but there have been some bitter break ups of some serious friendships…and then there is the pro-Russian members…not many but they are there.
    As good as your writing is I think it will rekindle some of these past bitter battles. I  do objectively write on the war…but your writing is of a different level, it has a different quality and as noted, I think both fascinating and important.
    Your writing is that….Let me add my voice in praise of your writing. I hope you continue this series…maybe a year from now…in some form, it will be publishable….who knows? (But it is good), but I am also certain that you will always get pleasure looking over this from time to time. Best Wishes, Traveller​

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