(Image by NEIVANMADE)
Someone in Kyiv lost home tonight pic.twitter.com/q0Lpw53Drr
— Daryna Antoniuk (@daryna_antoniuk) July 12, 2023
Buzzing of the Shahed over my house woke me up tonight. The third attack in a row on Kyiv. All 20 drones downed. Debris fell all over the city. This was someone’s kitchen before. pic.twitter.com/kHdrvRO06w
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) July 13, 2023
It was a horrible night in Kyiv. One more. Many more yet to come.
Since the full scale invasion solely in Kyiv more than 170 civilians have been killed, among them – 7 kids.
400 houses damaged.
Photo: 24 of June, 2023, Kyiv, missile parts fell on the multi-story building. pic.twitter.com/FehjstHNzP
— Oleksandr Mykhed (@mykhed_o) July 13, 2023
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
Six states have already joined the G7 countries with which we agreed on security guarantees for Ukraine yesterday – address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
13 July 2023 – 22:32
I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!
A brief report on this day.
First. A meeting with Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Malyuk. A meeting with the heads of intelligence: Main Intelligence Directorate – Budanov, foreign intelligence – Lytvynenko. We analyze the situation very carefully – everything related to the war and everything important for internal security.
Second. A meeting with the international relations experts. The Government, the Office. We are already starting to prepare for the next NATO Summit in Washington. At the Vilnius Summit, we have reached good agreements for Ukraine with almost all partners. We had a very good meeting with President Biden and his team: Secretary of Defense Austin and National Security Advisor Sullivan.
With everyone in the G7, and we managed to meet with many partners in NATO. Now it is time to turn each such agreement into a concrete result. We have the NATO-Ukraine Council, and this format should work in a meaningful way. We are preparing proposals for our partners. There are new agreements on weapons, on equipment, on aviation, and we are now specifying them. Today we also discussed the preparation of the Crimea Platform.
We continue our very successful agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine on its way to NATO by preparing treaties with countries. Bilateral treaties. Only a day after Vilnius, six countries have already joined the seven largest democracies of the world with which we agreed on security guarantees yesterday: the Czech Republic, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden. Thank you! I am confident that the number of guarantors will increase. Ukraine and the United States will keep a list of states that will join our joint declaration with the G7 on security guarantees on the path to NATO.
During the time period before the Washington Summit, we have to elaborate with our partners everything we discussed in Vilnius and form new common positions that Ukraine and our warriors clearly deserve.
I spoke today with President of the Republic of South Africa Ramaphosa. We do not lose focus on the Peace Formula and everything that is needed to implement the Formula for a single day. I invited Mr. President to join our “Grain from Ukraine” humanitarian initiative.
We equally see the need to continue the Black Sea Grain Initiative. It is very important that there are no threats to food security anywhere in the world. And Russia must clearly realize that anyone who increases the threat of famine, particularly in critical regions of Africa, is terrorizing the whole world with hunger, not just a single nation.
Recently, representatives of presidents and foreign policy and national security advisors met in the Danish capital. Different countries. The meeting was dedicated to the Peace Formula and the preparation of the Global Peace Summit. I am grateful that the meeting was attended by a representative of the Republic of South Africa. We are already preparing for the next such meeting.
And, of course, I would like to thank each and every one of our warriors, all Ukrainian defenders. These days in Vilnius, at the NATO Summit, in the margins of the NATO Summit, at all the meetings, Ukraine enjoyed – and still enjoys – the greatest respect and support from our partners in all the years of our independence. Respect is always a derivative of courage, and attention to any country is always a consequence of the capabilities of that country. Ukraine is in the center of our partners’ attention. No longer Russia, as it was decades ago. And when we put an end to this war by establishing Russia’s defeat, respect and attention to Ukraine will be forever established in history – for all future generations of our people. But this is being achieved now, in battles for Ukraine, in offense and defense.
I thank everyone who is in combat, at combat posts and on combat missions! I thank everyone who defends our skies and who moves our positions on the ground forward. I thank everyone who works to ensure that our warriors have everything they need!
Glory to Ukraine!
🚀 Ukraine will receive over €1.5 billion in military aid from its international partners.
✳️ Long-range SCALP missiles, Leopard tanks, additional Patriots, F-16 pilot training are just some of the things that can be announced publicly.
We can mention at least seven packages…
— Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) July 13, 2023
🚀 Ukraine will receive over €1.5 billion in military aid from its international partners.
✳️ Long-range SCALP missiles, Leopard tanks, additional Patriots, F-16 pilot training are just some of the things that can be announced publicly.
We can mention at least seven packages of military aid:
🇩🇪 Germany: new €700 million aid package includes 25 Leopard 1A5 tanks, 40 Marder 1A3 IFVs, 2 Patriot air defense systems, 5 Bergepanzer 2 SAMs, 20,000 155-mm artillery shells, 5,000 smoke shells;
🇦🇺 Australia: new defense package includes 30 Bushmaster APCs;
🇳🇴 Norway: 1,000 Black Hornet micro-drones, NASAMS support package (2 additional fire control centers, two launchers and spare parts); Norway also increased the size of the military aid budget to Ukraine from $240 to $930 million; there are agreements on strengthening air defense and artillery capabilities;
🇬🇧 United Kingdom: more than 70 combat vehicles, thousands of ammunition for tanks, a $64.7 million package of military aid for the repair of equipment;
🇫🇷 France: SCALP missiles and additional engineering equipment for demining;
🇳🇱 the Netherlands: agreement to start pilot training in August, contribution to strengthening Ukrainian air defense and artillery capabilities;
🇨🇦 Canada: $410 million in new funding and projects to support Ukraine and strengthen transatlantic security; reinforcement of the Ukrainian Armed Forces with armored vehicles.
Meetings in Vilnius were very productive 💪
Stay tuned.
Apparently Presidently Zelenskyy’s predictable anger over the initial statements, as well as the communique language regarding Ukraine’s potential future ascension into NATO created a fair amount of unhappiness among President Biden’s senior national security appointees. And, as one could predict, they went running to The Washington Post to vent. Anonymously.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s confrontational tweet this week challenging NATO leaders on the glacial pace of his war-torn country’s admission into the alliance so roiled the White House that U.S. officials involved with the process considered scaling back the “invitation” for Kyiv to join, according to six people familiar with the matter.
Ultimately, the United States and its allies agreed they would preserve the declaration’s language as eventually presented Tuesday at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. The declaration lacks a timeline for Ukraine’s accession into the bloc but was the product of hard-won efforts to move the Biden administration and other European leaders to grant more-specific offers to Kyiv amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.
The incident illustrates the frustration inside NATO with Zelensky’s pressure tactics, where even some of his strongest backers questioned this week whether he was serving Ukraine’s interests with his outburst. At the same time, the backroom scramble it set off shows how little the alliance can do about it: NATO nations are all-in on the war effort, and many member states remain deeply sympathetic to Zelensky’s demands for a greater level of support. And while many officials expressed annoyance with the tweet, there was an understanding that the leader of an embattled nation must demonstrate he will do anything to extract the maximum on behalf of his people.
Zelensky’s missive, launched as NATO leaders were gathering for the two-day summit, denounced as “unprecedented and absurd” what was then a draft of the membership language.
The Ukrainian leader’s public rebuke of the alliance stunned those assembled in the summit venue, an exposition hall on the outskirts of the Lithuanian capital, leaving the U.S. delegation “furious,” according to one official familiar with the situation. Like others, the person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks.
Ambassadors, ministers and other senior policymakers held informal talks about how the alliance should respond. U.S. officials raised the possibility of revisiting or striking the passage to which Zelensky had so forcefully objected: “We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met,” according to European officials involved in the negotiations.
Although Washington has given Kyiv billions of dollars worth of military aid and other support since the war began early last year, President Biden has favored a cautious approach, fearful that doing too much too quickly could risk escalating the crisis and drawing NATO into direct conflict with Russia. Biden attended the Vilnius summit with his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who has traveled on to Jakarta, Indonesia, for a meeting of foreign ministers from Southeast Asia.
A U.S. official familiar with the conversations acknowledged that revisions to the declaration had been considered, saying the Biden administration was sensitive to Zelensky’s concerns and had hoped they might address them somehow.
Three other senior policymakers, however, two of whom were direct participants in the talks, said their strong perception was that the United States was getting ready to water down the document’s language — to make it less welcoming to a speedy Ukrainian accession to the alliance.
“Some wanted to withdraw the reference to ‘invitation,’” or find another place to put that word, said one of the senior policymakers, a NATO diplomat who took part in the talks.
Spokespeople for the White House and the Ukrainian presidency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Another senior NATO diplomat who took part in the frantic negotiations said that, although “several people” supported removing the phrasing that had upset Zelensky, the U.S. delegation “did not specifically want to take that promise” of an invitation out of the declaration. There was a consensus that reworking the document would delay its release and, “in the end, those most concerned about the Ukrainian reaction came to the conclusion that it would be better to stick with the text” as drafted.
“It sends a very clear and strong message,” this person said, “both to Ukraine and Russia.”
The Associated Press brings us a deep dive into how Ukrainian civilians are being forcibly removed to Russia and placed in prisons there. This is, of course, both a war crime and a clear indicator of genocide.
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — The Ukrainian civilians woke long before dawn in the bitter cold, lined up for the single toilet and were loaded at gunpoint into the livestock trailer. They spent the next 12 hours or more digging trenches on the front lines for Russian soldiers.
Many were forced to wear overlarge Russian military uniforms that could make them a target, and a former city administrator trudged around in boots five sizes too big. By the end of the day, their hands curled into icy claws.
Nearby, in the occupied region of Zaporizhzhia, other Ukrainian civilians dug mass graves into the frozen ground for fellow prisoners who had not survived. One man who refused to dig was shot on the spot — yet another body for the grave.
Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are being detained across Russia and the Ukrainian territories it occupies, in centers ranging from brand-new wings in Russian prisons to clammy basements. Most have no status under Russian law.
And Russia is planning to hold possibly thousands more. A Russian government document obtained by The Associated Press dating to January outlined plans to create 25 new prison colonies and six other detention centers in occupied Ukraine by 2026.
In addition, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree in May allowing Russia to send people from territories with martial law, which includes all of occupied Ukraine, to those without, such as Russia. This makes it easier to deport Ukrainians who resist Russian occupation deep into Russia indefinitely, which has happened in multiple cases documented by the AP.
Many civilians are picked up for alleged transgressions as minor as speaking Ukrainian or simply being a young man in an occupied region, and are often held without charge. Others are charged as terrorists, combatants, or people who “resist the special military operation.” Hundreds are used for slave labor by Russia’s military, for digging trenches and other fortifications, as well as mass graves.
Torture is routine, including repeated electrical shocks, beatings that crack skulls and fracture ribs, and simulated suffocation. Many former prisoners told the AP they witnessed deaths. A United Nations report from late June documented 77 summary executions of civilian captives and the death of one man due to torture.
Russia does not acknowledge holding civilians at all, let alone its reasons for doing so. But the prisoners serve as future bargaining chips in exchanges for Russian soldiers, and the U.N. has said there is evidence of civilians being used as human shields near the front lines.
The AP spoke with dozens of people, including 20 former detainees, along with ex-prisoners of war, the families of more than a dozen civilians in detention, two Ukrainian intelligence officials and a government negotiator. Their accounts, as well as satellite imagery, social media, government documents and copies of letters delivered by the Red Cross, confirm a widescale Russian system of detention and abuse of civilians that stands in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Some civilians were held for days or weeks, while others have vanished for well over a year. Nearly everyone freed said they experienced or witnessed torture, and most described being shifted from one place to another without explanation.
“It’s a business of human trafficking,” said Olena Yahupova, the city administrator who was forced to dig trenches for the Russians in Zaporizhzhia. “If we don’t talk about it and keep silent, then tomorrow anyone can be there — my neighbor, acquaintance, child.”
INVISIBLE PRISONERS
The new building in the compound of Prison Colony No. 2 is at least two stories tall, separated from the main prison by a thick wall.
This facility in Russia’s eastern Rostov region has gone up since the war started in February 2022, according to satellite imagery analyzed by the AP. It could easily house the hundreds of Ukrainian civilians who are believed detained there, according to former captives, families of the missing, human rights activists and Russian lawyers. Two exiled Russian human rights advocates said it is heavily guarded by soldiers and armored vehicles.
The building in Rostov is among at least 40 detention facilities in Russia and Belarus, and there are 63 makeshift and formal ones in occupied Ukrainian territory where Ukrainian civilians are held, according to an AP map built on data from former captives, the Ukrainian Media Initiative for Human Rights, and the Russian human rights group Gulagu.net. The recent U.N. report counted a total of 37 facilities in Russia and Belarus and 125 in occupied Ukraine.
There is much, much, much more at the link including photojournalism.
I have something of a sub-specialty in Russian prison culture. The conditions are brutal and the prisons are controlled not just by Russian officials, but also by the criminal hierarchy of the vory, the thiefs in law. Many, if not most of the Ukrainian civilians that go in will not come out. Those that do will never be what they were before the Russians illegally incarcerated them.
Zaporizhzhia:
Why is it difficult for Ukrainians to keep "strategic patience"? Cause literally, for every day of our life we pay with blood, every day we suffer the consequences of enormous russian terror. The number of wounded in yesterday's attack on Zaporizhzhia rose to 20. Eight are kids pic.twitter.com/CQKTOOa9pL
— Olena Halushka (@OlenaHalushka) July 13, 2023
ORIKHIV AXIS / 1645 UTC 13 APL/ ON 12 JUL, RU forces launched a series of offensive operations against the UKR salient: these attacks failed. Ukrainian forces are consolidating their positions and conducting counter-battery fire on RU artillery and striking command posts and air… pic.twitter.com/JuWdeVnr5D
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) July 13, 2023
Orikhiv:
ORIKHIV AXIS / 1645 UTC 13 APL/ ON 12 JUL, RU forces launched a series of offensive operations against the UKR salient: these attacks failed. Ukrainian forces are consolidating their positions and conducting counter-battery fire on RU artillery and striking command posts and air defense systems.
Bakhmut:
BAKHMUT AXIS /1900 UTC 13 JUL/ Gen’l Staff reports that under heavy artillery fire, UKR forces repelled numerous combined arms RU attacks in the vicinity of Bakhmut. Points of contact were not disclosed, though the usual threat axes are Orikhovo-Vasylivka, Hyrhorivka, Bohdanivka,… pic.twitter.com/yirrz1vJBj
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) July 13, 2023
BAKHMUT AXIS /1900 UTC 13 JUL/ Gen’l Staff reports that under heavy artillery fire, UKR forces repelled numerous combined arms RU attacks in the vicinity of Bakhmut. Points of contact were not disclosed, though the usual threat axes are Orikhovo-Vasylivka, Hyrhorivka, Bohdanivka, Khromove, and Ivanivske.
Velyka Novosila:
VELYKA NOVOSILA /1830 UTC 13 JUL/ Frontline sources indicate that UKR counter battery fire has targeted 23 RU artillery systems on all axes of contact. UKR forces consolidated positions north of Starornnaiorske and are pressing contact across the Mokri Yaly River at Urozhaine.… pic.twitter.com/OE8E6cAlWj
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) July 13, 2023
The Dnipro River:
Soldiers of the 73rd Marine Center of the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine describe one of their operations in the Dnipro River Delta.
(46.5243582, 32.3619350)https://t.co/YvfETO7ZQt pic.twitter.com/z8Cv54H2vs— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) July 13, 2023
Time to buy more Frito-Lays stock!
President Zelensky himself has pushed for medical marijuana to be legalized. And recently there has been significant and growing support among Ukraine’s civil society for legislation to be passed so it can be used to treat the country’s wounded soldiers. https://t.co/5j9KEv8YMi
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) July 13, 2023
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
@patron__dsns У мене для вас сюрприз! Вирішив подарувати нові іграшки з мультику за три найкращі історії про мої пригоди (пишіть їх у коментарях на YouTube). Тому мерщій вигадувати, а я вже через тиждень особисто оберу трьох переможців💛
Here’s the machine translation of the caption:
I have a surprise for you! I’ve decided to give away new cartoon toys for the three best stories about my adventures (write them in the comments on YouTube). So get to writing, and in a week I will personally select three winners 💛
Open thread!
War for Ukraine Day 505: Russia Bombards Kyiv AgainPost + Comments (34)