Everyone who captures the occupiers at the front speeds up freedom for Ukrainians – address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

7 August 2023 – 22:31

Dear Ukrainians!

A rescue operation is underway in Pokrovsk, Donetsk region. After Russian missile strikes. Iskander missiles against ordinary residential buildings. All our services are working on the scene.

Unfortunately, there are victims. There are wounded, there are casualties. My condolences to the families and friends… Unfortunately, the second missile strike resulted in the death of an employee of the State Emergency Service. Colonel Andriy Omelchenko, Deputy Head of the State Emergency Service Main Department in Donetsk region. May he always be remembered…

I would like to recognize the rescuers today. Our employees of the State Emergency Service. Those who work in different cities of Ukraine for the sake of life. To make the Russian terror lose, because lives are saved.

Employees of the State Emergency Service of Kherson region: civil protection service Sergeant Vitaliy Murzenko and civil protection service Lieutenant Volodymyr Yavtushenko. Employees of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine of Kharkiv region: civil protection service Master Sergeant Serhiy Hladkyi and civil protection service Colonel Andriy Solianikov. Employees of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine of Dnipropetrovsk region: civil protection service Sergeant Kostiantyn Poturaiko and civil protection service Captain Vitaliy Denysenko.

All of them have repeatedly participated – directly participated – in eliminating the consequences of terrorist attacks, in saving the lives of our people. And, of course, all the employees of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Zaporizhzhia and Odesa regions. I thank the entire staff of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine!

Today we have an important result for our team that deals with exchanges. 22 more men are back home in Ukraine. 20 of them are soldiers and sergeants, two are officers. They are servicemen of the Armed Forces. There are wounded among them. They were captured in different areas of the front. But now they are home. And we will do everything to bring back to Ukraine all our people who are now in Russian captivity. We remember everyone and are looking for everyone on the list of missing persons.

Fortunately, we manage to bring our people back. And it is important that this is a common task. It is a task for those who organize the exchanges: Yermak, Budanov, Malyuk, Klymenko. Thank you, guys! And the task of those who replenish the exchange fund for our country. Everyone who captures the occupiers at the front, who is active on the frontline. Each such warrior of ours speeds up freedom for Ukrainians. It is important to remember this.

The day began with a conference call. First of all, the military. A report on the situation at the front – our offensive actions, the capabilities of our movement and the dynamics of the movement. The Commander-in-Chief delivered the report.

Of course, there were reports on the supply of munitions and equipment, on our weapons production. The Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Strategic Industries. We are constantly increasing volumes! Both in supply and production. And we are constantly removing bureaucracy and making regulations more flexible. Our defense industry will reach the level that the state needs. Ukraine has this power. And I thank everyone who is working on Ukrainian production for this power!

Frontline. I would like to mention the Bakhmut direction. The 3rd and 5th separate assault brigades, “Fury” assault brigade of the National Police, the 92nd separate mechanized brigade. There are successes in destroying the occupiers, important successes. I thank you, warriors!

One more thing.

August 7. Every year on this day, the world remembers Russia’s aggression against Georgia. 15 years have passed. The Russian occupation remains – this wound on the body of the Georgian state remains. Many words have already been said that if the world had been decisive back in 2008, many things would have been different. Back then already Russia should have realized that the aggressor pays the highest price for aggression. It must definitely realize this now.

When Ukraine wins this war, it will not only stop the expansion of Russia’s aggressive appetites, it will not only save other nations from what we are going through – Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. Our victory will return normalcy to everyone – it will end the Russian occupation.

Ukrainians stand in solidarity with the people of Georgia, and I thank all Georgian citizens who are defending freedom with us! And especially those who are fighting as part of the defense and security forces of Ukraine!

Freedom will win, Georgia will win, Ukraine will win!

Glory to Ukraine!

More on Pokrovsk:

Pokrovsk, Donetsk region.
Another war crime committed by the russians. Two missiles struck the city center. Several apartment buildings were damaged. Rescue efforts are currently underway. At least five people were killed, and thirty one were injured.
We will do everything… pic.twitter.com/9as308GiVs

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 7, 2023

Pokrovsk, Donetsk region.
Another war crime committed by the russians. Two missiles struck the city center. Several apartment buildings were damaged. Rescue efforts are currently underway. At least five people were killed, and thirty one were injured.
We will do everything possible to hold the murderers accountable for their crimes.

The city of Pokrovsk, Donetsk region. Donbas, from which Russia is trying to leave only broken and scorched stones. Two missile strikes. An ordinary residential building was hit. Unfortunately, there are victims. Rescuers and all necessary services are on the scene. The rescue of… pic.twitter.com/zsIA7dR6HR

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) August 7, 2023

Here’s the full text of President Zelenskyy’s tweet:

The city of Pokrovsk, Donetsk region. Donbas, from which Russia is trying to leave only broken and scorched stones. Two missile strikes. An ordinary residential building was hit. Unfortunately, there are victims. Rescuers and all necessary services are on the scene. The rescue of people continues.

We have to stop the Russian terror. Everyone who fights for the freedom of Ukraine saves lives. Everyone in the world who helps Ukraine will defeat the terrorists together with us. Russia will be held accountable for everything it has done in this terrible war.

I and so many others stayed at Druzhba, conducted interviews at Corleone & filed stories from both countless times over the years. They’re among the few places operating near the frontline. No doubt they were targeted by Russia because journalists & military have frequented them. pic.twitter.com/gQwPmxUUqr

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) August 7, 2023

Kherson:

russian terrorists continue to destroy Kherson. They hit a nine-story residential building at midnight during another artillery barrage. Also, several private houses were destroyed. At the moment, one person is reported dead. At least seven people are injured. pic.twitter.com/QPWeHoZelb

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 7, 2023

Robotyne:

Fighters of the 47th Brigade shot down a russian Ka-52 helicopter near the village of Robotyne, Zaporizhia region. pic.twitter.com/KVw2wfmAY4

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 7, 2023

Twenty-two more Ukrainian POWs have been returned home:

22 Ukrainian servicemen, including two officers, are coming back home after being released from russian captivity.
Welcome back, brave warriors! pic.twitter.com/ro2Am0gAZ2

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 7, 2023

A hero that has returned from hell. pic.twitter.com/mX6ddrChGe

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 7, 2023

The Financial Times is reporting that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is doing his Hamlet impression again.

Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz is under mounting pressure to provide cruise missiles to Ukraine to bolster its struggling counteroffensive against Russian forces.

Two politicians in Scholz’s Social Democrat party (SPD), which has often been more cautious than its coalition partners, have recently joined a chorus of voices calling for Swedish-German made Taurus missiles to be sent to Kyiv.

“The counteroffensive is faltering, the Ukraine does not have a significant air force to support it,” Andreas Schwarz, an SPD member of parliament, told the German news outlet Der Spiegel on Sunday. “That leaves only guided missiles such as Taurus cruise missiles, with which the Ukrainian army could overcome the minefields laid by the Russians and recapture territory.”

His comments were cautiously echoed by Nils Schmid, foreign policy spokesman for the SPD in parliament, who told German newspaper Tagesspiegel that he did not “rule out” supplying systems such as Taurus in conjunction with the US.

Schmid warned, however, that it was vital to ensure that Ukrainian soldiers — rather than their German counterparts — could do target programming, otherwise it would bring Berlin “dangerously close to direct participation in the war”.

Further supplies of cruise missiles would offer a boost to the Ukrainian counteroffensive, launched in June, that has made only moderate progress towards its aim of liberating Russian-occupied far eastern and southern regions.

Equipped with German Leopard tanks and other Nato-grade weaponry provided by western allies, Ukraine’s infantry has struggled to break through heavily mined and fortified Russian positions.

In a bid to soften the ground, Ukraine’s air force bombers have used British Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles, provided earlier this year, to repeatedly strike Russian weapons arsenals, fuel depots, command posts and logistical infrastructure including bridges.

Moscow has responded in recent weeks by heavily targeting air bases with air strikes in an attempt to counter the threat posed to its faltering full-scale invasion by the long-range missiles.

Last month, France announced that it would follow the lead of the UK by supplying Ukraine with Scalp missiles, the French version of the Storm Shadow, which have a range of about 250km.

But Germany, along with the US, has been more hesitant, with policymakers in Berlin fearing the risk of escalation that would come with supplying a weapon with a range of more than 500km that could be used to strike Russian territory.

Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorius said last week that supplying Taurus missiles, which are produced by a joint venture between Germany’s MBDA and a subsidiary of Sweden’s Saab, “is not our top priority right now”.

He said that Germany, which is the second-largest supplier of weapons to Ukraine in absolute terms after the US, was not the only country to be hesitant about such a move, pointing to reticence from Washington. He added that German missiles had a “special reach”.

The debate has drawn comparison in Germany with the long and painful discussion about dispatching German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, which reached a peak in January this year after months of deliberations that drew frustration from Berlin’s international allies.

Schwarz said that he now had a sense of “déjà vu”, adding: “As with the tank issue, we are now refusing to hand over important equipment that will probably be delivered in the end.”

He argued that Ukraine could already target Russian territory with Mars and Himars artillery systems that have been delivered by Germany — but had not yet done so.

What could go wrong? This:

Depending on how many Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG ALCMs 🇺🇦 has received, and assuming Ukraine maintains its current rate of consumption of about 75 missiles per month, it will run out of long-range strike capabilities somewhere between October 2023 and January 2024. 1/ pic.twitter.com/BoZxt9eHwO

— Fabian Hoffmann (@FRHoffmann1) August 7, 2023

Yet, the United States is still deliberating about ATACMS and the German Minister of Defense openly says Taurus is not a priority. This is assessment is simply wrong. You cannot effectively fight a war of attrition in the 21st century without access to long-range strike weapons.

— Fabian Hoffmann (@FRHoffmann1) August 7, 2023

The cost:

Eight years ago today, a Russian mortar killed my friend, Daniel Kasyanenko, a 19-year-old Ukrainian solider who volunteered to fight for his country after Russia first invaded in 2014.

He was only 19, but Daniel had an uncanny ability to put the war in perspective. He… pic.twitter.com/SJhzK6uknb

— Nolan Peterson (@nolanwpeterson) August 6, 2023

Eight years ago today, a Russian mortar killed my friend, Daniel Kasyanenko, a 19-year-old Ukrainian solider who volunteered to fight for his country after Russia first invaded in 2014.

He was only 19, but Daniel had an uncanny ability to put the war in perspective. He understood the toll that combat was taking on his young soul. It would have been better to go to war as an old man, he explained to me one afternoon while the sounds of Russian machine guns snarled in the distance, and bullets zapped overhead.

“At 19, now, I understand that I broke my head, I broke my understanding of life,” Daniel said. “I broke it in my 19 years. And this is really bad.”

For good luck, Daniel wore a crucifix necklace coiled around his wrist. He also kept a letter from his mother, Marina, tucked in the front pocket of his body armor vest. After seeing plenty of good soldiers die, he believed these talismans were the secrets to his survival. No other explanations made sense.

Daniel was committed to the war and believed he was fighting for his country’s independence from Russia. He also understood that he was spending the formative years of his manhood in a place where everything that life typically promised a young man — love, family, career — could be snuffed out in an instant.

“I want to get out of these battles,” he told me. “I want to forget it. But I can’t.”

I embedded with Daniel’s unit, and before leaving the front lines we pledged to stay in touch. Over a steady correspondence of text messages in the weeks that followed, we talked about the possibility of him visiting America one day, which was his dream.

Then one day, about a month after I’d returned to Kyiv, I received a somewhat disjointed note from Daniel. He’d been injured by a mortar, he told me, and had what the Ukrainian medics called a “brain contusion,” which probably meant he had a concussion, or more likely, a traumatic brain injury.

In any case, Daniel’s commanders gave him a few weeks’ leave in his hometown of Zaporizhia, located only a three-hour car ride from the front lines.

During his convalescence, Daniel’s parents, Marina and Konstantin, advised their son against returning to the war. And the truth is, he didn’t have to go back.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in the summer of 2014, Daniel, like so many Ukrainians at the time, had joined one of a number of irregular “volunteer battalions.”

Formed by the will of the Ukrainian people rather than government diktat, this coalition of civilian militias generally comprised young men and women with little or no military experience, including both native Russian and Ukrainian speakers from all regions of Ukraine. These volunteers learned how to be soldiers while in combat; a baptism by fire they jokingly referred to as “natural selection” boot camp.

Daniel, who was only 19 when he volunteered for war, went straight from living under his parents’ roof to living under Russian artillery and sniper fire. There was no basic training, no military academy, no time at a firing range, even, to serve as an interlude. It was like a jump cut in a film — straight from boyhood to war. To stay alive, he shadowed the older, more experienced soldiers, learning lessons they had themselves learned the hard way. And when he saw others die, Daniel would learn from their mistakes, too.

“It was crazy,” his mother, Marina, later told me. “None of the soldiers said no. They all went straight to the war no matter how young they were.”

While Daniel was home on convalescent leave, Marina would often watch her son sleeping. He’d changed so much in those few months he’d been away, she remarked. His hands, in particular, seemed to have aged decades.

“He went to war as a boy and came back as a wise old man,” she said.

On the day he was to return to war, Marina begged her son not to leave.

“Mom, I have to go back,” Daniel answered. “I have to go back to my friends. It’s my duty.”

Two weeks later, a soldier arrived at the door to the Kasyanenkos’ apartment. At the very first knock, both Konstantin and Marina feared something was wrong.

“Are you Daniel’s parents?” the soldier asked.

They said yes.

“There is no Daniel anymore,” the soldier said.

That’s enough for tonight.

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