DAccording to President Volodymyr Zelenskyj, Ukraine is still striving to reconquer the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Russia. “This Russian war against Ukraine and against all of free Europe began with Crimea and must end with Crimea – with its liberation,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video message on Tuesday. Although it is currently impossible to name the time. But keep adding the necessary elements to “the formula for the liberation of Crimea”.
Zelenskyy referred to explosions at a military base on the peninsula that, according to Crimean chief Sergei Aksyonov, killed one person. Nine others were injured. The Russian Defense Ministry denied that the Saky air base had been shelled.
Smoke billows from an explosion on Saky Beach. On Russia’s annexed Crimea in the Black Sea, Ukraine, ammunition is on a Russian air force…base exploded
Source: dpa/Uncredited
The Russian news agency later quoted a source from the ministry as saying that “violation of fire safety regulations” was the suspected main cause of the blasts. This in turn prompted the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine to post a sarcastic comment on Facebook: “The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine cannot determine the cause of the fire, but once again reminds of the rules for fire safety and the ban on smoking in unspecified places.”
There has been speculation on social networks in Ukraine that Ukrainian missiles could be responsible for the explosions. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, emphasized on the TV channel “Dozhd” that Ukraine had nothing to do with the incident.
All developments in the live ticker:
08:01 – Great Britain: Russia forms new large unit for operation in Ukraine
According to Great Britain, Russia has most likely formed a new large formation of ground forces for the war in Ukraine. The British Defense Ministry, citing its intelligence services, reports that the 3rd Army Corps is stationed near the town of Mulino, east of the capital Moscow.
5:30 a.m. – Import ban on Russian coal: Association does not expect bottlenecks
Despite the import ban on Russian hard coal that came into effect on Thursday, German coal importers are not expecting any delivery bottlenecks. “Coal is available on the world market,” said CEO Alexander Bethe of the Association of Coal Importers (VdKi) of the German Press Agency dpa. The main supplier countries are now the USA, South Africa, Australia, Indonesia and Colombia.
According to the association, in 2021 almost 50 percent of hard coal and coke imports came from Russia, a good 17 percent from the USA and more than 13 percent from Australia. That was almost 20.5 million tons from Russia. According to VdKi, around 7.2 million tons of hard coal came to Germany from January up to and including May. More recent figures are not yet available. Russian coal was mainly used as fuel for power plants.
As of this Thursday, the EU countries are no longer allowed to import coal from Russia. The transitional period for the coal embargo against Russia, which the EU states adopted in April as part of the fifth sanctions package, ends at midnight. At the time, the countries agreed on a transitional period of 120 days so that the industry could adapt to the import ban.
04:54 – Russia launches Iranian satellites into space
As a sign of cooperation with the mullahs’ regime, Russia launched an Iranian satellite into space from the Baikonur cosmodrome overnight. Russia’s space chief Yuri Borisov spoke of a “milestone” in Russian-Iranian relations that paved the way for “new and even bigger projects”.
03:36 – Diplomats – Russia asks IAEA to investigate Zaporizhia
The United Nations Security Council is now to deal with the situation in the Ukrainian nuclear power plant at Zaporizhia, also at Russia’s insistence. The government in Moscow asked the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, to inform the UN Security Council on Thursday about “attacks by the Ukrainian armed forces on the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant and their possible catastrophic consequences,” according to diplomatic sources.
IAEA technicians are to check the condition of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Ukraine had already demanded an inspection of the facility occupied by Russian soldiers on Monday. Both sides accuse each other of shelling the nuclear power plant site.
03:00 – US supports demining in Ukraine with $89 million
The US is supporting the clearance of anti-personnel mines in Ukraine with $89 million. The equivalent of 87 million euros is intended to finance, among other things, the work of 100 mine clearance teams from non-governmental organizations or specialized private companies, as a representative of the US State Department said on Tuesday.
He accused Russian forces of leaving numerous mines and booby traps in washing machines, hospital beds and corpses, among other things, after withdrawing from parts of Ukraine.
For example, a family in the city of Bucha, near Kyiv, where Russian soldiers are said to have committed massacres of civilians, discovered an explosive device in their ten-year-old daughter’s piano. The US representative compared the actions of the Russian army with those of the jihadist militia Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.
2:56 am – Ukraine: Russia wants to connect occupied nuclear power plants to Crimea
According to Ukrainian information, Russia wants to connect the occupied Ukrainian nuclear power plant Zaporizhia to the annexed peninsula of Crimea. The president of the Ukrainian nuclear operator Energoatom, Petro Kotin, said on Tuesday that the Russian soldiers at the nuclear power plant would implement a plan by the Russian nuclear company Rosatom to connect the nuclear power plant “to the Crimean power grid”.
“To do this, the power lines of the nuclear power plant, which are connected to the Ukrainian energy system, must first be damaged,” Kotin said on Ukrainian television. “Between August 7th and 9th, the Russians already damaged three power lines. Currently the plant is running on a single production line, which is an extremely dangerous mode of work.”
As soon as the last line is cut, the nuclear power plant will depend on diesel generators, said the Energoatom boss. “Then everything will depend on their reliability and fuel reserves.”
00:34 – Ukraine: Do not take responsibility for explosions in Crimea
Ukraine does not accept responsibility for the explosions at a Russian airbase in Crimea on Tuesday, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak said.
When asked by the independent Russian TV channel Dozhd whether Kyiv was responsible, he replied: “Of course not. What do we have to do with it?” He hinted that partisans might have been involved. The cause of the explosions on the peninsula annexed by Russia is not yet clear.
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