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Ukrainians have called for continued support for their country in a rally

July 24th 2022

Ukrainians have called for continued support for their country amid warnings that the Russian invasion of the state is not over. Several hundred Ukrainians and supporters waving Ukrainian flags and banners set off the Custom House Square in Belfast on Sunday afternoon. They marched through Belfast city centre chanting messages including “please support Ukraine” and “stop genocide in Ukraine”. he Ukrainians in Northern Ireland group is organising a fundraising effort for aid including all-terrain ambulances and jeeps to rescue people on often difficult to pass ruined roads as well as to deliver essential services such as water and food. Addressing the culmination of the march at City Hall, Oleg Shankaruk, chair of Ukrainians in Northern Ireland, expressed thanks for support so far from government agencies to those hosting families.

“We want to say a big thank you to everyone in Northern Ireland,” he said.

SOURCE = The Independent

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Gyunduz Mamedov: From victory to peace through legal means

July 24th 2022

Ukraine has faced armed military aggression from Russia for eight years, but this should not prevent us from thinking about the restoration of peace. Soon, the reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories, as well as the struggle toward a new Ukraine, will be on the agenda. Russia will not disappear as Ukraine’s neighbor, so we must look to change the way it is governed and condemn its aggression from both within and outside Russia. To achieve this, it is necessary to outline a clear “roadmap” for the rebuilding of the Ukrainian nation, the peaceful coexistence of Ukraine and Russia, and Russia’s transition from autocracy to democracy and from war to peace with Ukraine. Following the liberation of the temporarily occupied territories, Ukrainians living there must be reintegrated into Ukrainian society. For this purpose, it is critical that those living there do not fear reintegration, but support it. This task proves challenging due to the extensive propaganda by Russia and its proxies in these regions. Ukraine must make clear that regular citizens in the temporarily occupied territories will not face repercussions, as well as clarify the grounds on which one may face consequences.

Are those who worked in the occupying administrations or who maintained community infrastructure guilty? Or those who were given arms but did not kill anybody? How and who will conduct the investigations and ascribe punishment? Ukraine must achieve comprehensive legal clarity on these issues. When the war ends, conditions for the peaceful coexistence of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus will be at the top of the agenda. Recent polls indicate that most Russians in the country support the ongoing war against Ukraine. At the same time, 92% of Ukrainians hold negative attitudes towards Russia. It is difficult to imagine reconciliation under such circumstances. Peaceful coexistence will depend on policymakers, both present and future, as well as on the readiness of civil society to learn the necessary lessons. On the path towards reconciliation, similar questions arise. Are all Russians guilty of the atrocities committed in Ukraine without exception? If not, who is guilty and what repercussions will they face? These questions must be answered in legal terms. Such questions also apply to Belarus which, despite not directly engaging in Russia’s war in Ukraine, has allowed its territory to serve as a bridgehead for Russian aggression.

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SOURCE = The Kyiv Independent

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Ukraine warns grain export deal will stall if there are further Russian airstrikes on key ports – as it happened

July 25th 2022

Summary of the day so far

• Ukraine predicts that it will recapture the southern region of Kherson by September. Sergiy Khlan, an aide to the head of Kherson region, said in an interview with Ukrainian television: “We can say that the Kherson region will definitely be liberated by September, and all the occupiers’ plans will fail.” But AFP reports from a village 25 miles from Kherson city suggests Ukrainian soldiers are doing well just to hold the front line.
• Russia said its forces hit a Ukrainian warship and US-supplied Harpoon anti-ship missiles in the port of Odesa. Russia targeted Ukraine’s main port on Saturday with high-precision missiles, barely 12 hours after Moscow signed a deal with Ukraine to allow monitored grain exports from Ukraine’s southern ports. The deal was supposed to be a breakthrough to unblock grain exports from Black Sea ports and ease global food shortages caused by the war.
• President Volodymyr Zelenskiy saidUkrainian forces were moving “step by step” into the occupied eastern Black Sea region of Kherson, in video posted late on Saturday night. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in its latest assessment that Ukraine appeared to be launching a Kherson counteroffensive, and quoted Ukrainian adviser for the Kherson region’s administration, Serhiy Khlan saying on Saturday that Ukrainian forces had seized unspecified settlements in the region.
• Ukraine has said it will push on with grain exports despite the attacks. Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said they would “continue technical preparations for the launch of exports of agricultural products from our ports,” and public broadcaster Suspilne quoted the Ukrainian military as saying the missiles had not significantly damaged the port.
• Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov is in Cairo today for diplomatic talks with Egypt. It is the first stop on a charm offensive around Africa to try and turn around the country’s global reputation and trade.
• The governor of Donetsk, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said that two civilians were killed and another two injured in the region on Saturday. He also said two schools were destroyed in Russian shelling. Teachers were seen clearing one school in Bakhmut that was destroyed in Russian shelling in the early hours of this morning.
• Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the strikes on Odesa “barbarism” and said they showed Moscow could not keep its promises. “This proves only one thing: no matter what Russia says and promises, it will find ways not to implement it,” he said during a meeting with US lawmakers, according to a statement from the presidency.
• The US secretary of state condemned the Russian attack against Odesa, accusing Russia of deepening the global food shortage. In a statement posted on Twitter, Antony Blinken said: “The United States strongly condemns Russia’s attack on the port of Odesa today. It undermines the effort to bring food to the hungry and the credibility of Russia’s commitments to the deal finalized yesterday to allow Ukrainian exports.”
• Ukraine’s defence ministry has urged citizens in Enerhodar, a key area seized by Russia, to reveal where Russian troops are living and who among the local population was collaborating with the occupying authorities. “Please let us know as a matter of urgency the exact location of the occupying troops’ bases and their residential addresses … and the places of residence of the commanding staff,” it said on Saturday, adding that exact coordinates were desirable.
• The governor of Zaporizhizhia has said that Russia is keeping 170 people captive in the Zaporizhizhia oblast, the Kyiv Independent reports.According to the governor, Oleksandr Starukh, Russian forces have abducted at least 415 people in the southern region since 24 February – the day Russian forces invaded Ukraine – and at least 170 individuals are still being kept captive.

SOURCE = The Guardian

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Russia-Ukraine live news: No let up as war enters sixth month

July 24th 2022

Ukraine’s military reports that Russian forces are paving the way for an assault on the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region and continue efforts to assert control of the area around the Vuhlehirska power plant, 50km (31 miles) northeast of Donetsk city. It says Russia shelled several dozen settlements along the entire front line in the past 24 hours as well as cities and towns across the country. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discloses Moscow is seeking to overthrow the Ukrainian government. Ukraine’s southern region of Kherson will be recaptured by Kyiv’s forces by September, a Ukrainian official has said. Russia’s foreign ministry claims it targeted a military boat and weapons delivered by the United States in the port of Odesa on Saturday with high-precision long-range missiles.

SOURCE = REUTERS

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Ukraine says 18 medics killed, hundreds of facilities damaged since invasion

July 24th 2022

Ukraine’s health ministry said at least 18 medical personnel had been killed and nearly 900 medical facilities damaged or destroyed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which entered its sixth month on Sunday. In a Facebook post, the health ministry said that over 50 medical workers had been wounded by Russian attacks since Feb. 24, when Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in the biggest European war since 1945. The post also said that 123 medical facilities in Ukraine were totally destroyed by the invasion, while another 746 needed repairs. Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians or medical workers, and says it is conducting a “special military operation” in Ukraine to fight nationalists. Kyiv says the Kremlin is using “terrorism” to bully Ukrainians into a humiliating peace deal.

SOURCE = CNBC

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Ukraine’s neighbor worried about Russian invasion

July 24th 2022

Moldova’s prime minister said in an interview that aired Sunday that her nation fears an invasion by Russia in the wake of its invasion of their mutual neighbor Ukraine. “We are worried, of course,” Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita said on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.” “This is a risk, it’s a hypothetical scenario for now, but if the military actions move further into the southwestern part of Ukraine and toward Odesa, then of course, we are very worried.” Moldova, which shares a border with Ukraine, became an independent state when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, but it has never been able to fully remove itself from Russia’s sphere of influence, nor build a vital economy on its own. The World Factbook of the CIA says, “Despite recent progress, Moldova remains one of the poorest countries in Europe.”

Gavrilita, a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government who took office in August 2021, said her country is not the only one that has reason to be concerned about the invasion launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin in February. “This is a very difficult position not just for Moldova but for any small country, any country that relies on the rules-based international order,” she said. “If a country can start an annexation war without any regard for, you know, international law, then in this sense nobody is safe, and I think that a lot of countries are worried.” The prime minister noted Moldova’s “troubled history in a complicated region” of the world, something that continues to this day. Zakaria pointed out that the current war has damaged Moldova’s economy.

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SOURCE = Politico

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Zelenskiy says Ukraine unbowed, even Russians expect defeat

July 24th 2022

After five months of Russian attacks, Ukraine will continue to do all it can to inflict as much damage on its enemy as possible, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on Sunday. “Even the occupiers admit we will win,” he said as he hailed the upcoming day of Ukrainian statehood, July 28, a new annual holiday that Zelenskiy announced in August last year. “We hear it in their conversations all the time. In what they are telling their relatives when they call them.” Like every day in the last months, Zelenskiy said that Ukraine was not letting up. “We do everything to inflict the highest possible damage on the enemy and to gather for Ukraine as much support as possible.” He said Ukraine had an important week ahead, with the holiday approaching in the midst of what he called a “cruel war.” “But we will celebrate against all odds. Because Ukrainians won’t be cowed.”

SOURCE = REUTERS

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Sunday, July 24. Russia’s War On Ukraine: News And Information From Ukraine

July 24th 2022

Sunday, July 24. Day 151. By Dmytro Aksyonov

Mykolaiv. Russian shelling on the city of Mykolaiv has resulted in five civilians injured, according to Mykolaiv mayor Oleksandr Senkevych. Senkevych says that the strikes on the city rendered civilian infrastructure, factories, storage facilities and residential buildings unusable. The Ukrainian state logistics company, Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority, has reported that following an agreement between Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and the U.N. on Friday regarding safety guarantees for Ukrainian grain exports, several Ukrainian ports, including the Odesa, Chornomorsk, and Pivdennyi ports, are currently being prepared for grain export. As part of the deal, the arrival and departure of ships will be conducted in the form of a caravan accompanied by a lead ship.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Health has stated that since the start of Russia’s full-scale military invasion on February 24, at least 18 medical personnel have been killed, and over 50 have been injured. The ministry also said that 123 medical facilities in Ukraine have been totally destroyed by the invasion, while another 746 need repairs. While Russia has denied deliberately targeting medical facilities, several international humanitarian organizations have accused it of carrying out intentional strikes on hospitals, which is prohibited under international humanitarian law.

Speaking to journalists in Canada, Pope Francis said on Sunday that he has a “great desire” to visit Ukraine, restating his offer to serve as moderator to facilitate peace talks between the warring sides. While the Pope was quick to condemn Russia’s invasion, slamming it as unjust and cruel, he has also hinted that Western countries could be partly responsible for the start of the war, in comments that have been interpreted by some as an attempt to portray himself as a neutral party in the conflict.

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SOURCE = Forbes