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Fighting Around Europe’s Largest Power Plant Is ‘Out of Control,’ UN’s Nuke Chief Warns

August 3rd 2022

The head of the UN’s nuclear regulatory watchdog is warning the world that Europe’s largest nuclear power plant “is completely out of control.” Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told the Associated Press about the risk in an interview. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is in Southeast Ukraine along the Dnipro river. The plant has been a central part of the war since Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February. Russian troops besieged it in early March, firing artillery shells at it before taking it over. The firefight between Russian and Ukrainian soldiers was watched by 95,000 people online through the plant’s live streamed CCTV cameras. An administrative building caught fire during the fight but the plant didn’t melt down. Since then, Russia has maintained control of the plant. 

Since then, Grossi and others have been lobbying Russia to allow the IAEA inside to inspect the plant. “Every principle of nuclear safety has been violated,” Grossi said. “What is at stake is extremely serious and extremely grave and dangerous.” Grossi told the AP that it has a few contacts with the Ukrainian workers inside the plant, but believes supplies are limited and that it’s unclear if the plant is being well maintained. “When you put this together, you have a catalog of things that should never be happening in any nuclear facility,” he said. “And this is why I have been insisting from day one that we have to be able to go there to perform this safety and security evaluation, to do the repairs and to assist as we already did in Chernobyl.”

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SOURCE = Vice News

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Ukrainian Marines set up an ambush: they killed 15 Russian soldiers and took prisoners of war

August 3rd 2022

On the Donetsk front, the Ukrainian Marines set up an ambush, as a result of which they destroyed the equipment and killed military personnel of the Russian forces, and also captured three people.

Source: Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on Telegram

Quote: “On the Donetsk front, Marines set up an ambush, as a result of which they destroyed 2 infantry fighting vehicles and 1 tank, killed 15 personnel and took 3 prisoners of war.”

Details: The Navy added that artillery also damaged an invader’s tank on the Kherson front, and soldiers took two prisoners of war there. In addition, Ukrainian artillery units struck at a concentration of Russian manpower and equipment, engaging in a counter-battery fight. There is no information yet about any losses on the Ukrainian side. According to the Navy, most of the prisoners of war had been forcibly mobilised from the occupied part of Donetsk region.

Background: On 31 July, Ukrainian Marines captured a Russian officer and 10 other occupiers.

SOURCE = Ukrainska Pravda

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Ukrainian military showed HIMARS firing daylight footage

August 3rd 2022

he Armed Forces of Ukraine demonstrated the work of four US-made М142 rocket artillery systems at once. Rare footage released on the Telegram social media in the operativnoZSU group demonstrates the use of HIMARS in the daytime. At least four M142 HIMARS MLRS fired 24 M31A1 GMLRS unitary missiles at Russian targets. Recently it became known that the United Kingdom and the United States are helping Ukrainian intelligence to replenish the databank of targets for strikes with precision weapons. Ukrainian forces use information in real-time. But the US does not provide direct information to the target, as it could undermine Washington’s arguments that they are not direct actors in the war.

Also, the Pentagon denies Russia’s claim that Russian forces destroyed six of the HIMARS missile systems transferred to Ukraine. “We are aware of these latest statements by Russian Defense Minister Shoigu, and they are once again openly false,” the speaker said.“We are aware of these latest statements by Russian Defense Minister Shoigu, and they are once again openly false,” Pentagon spokesman Todd Breasseale said. He added that the Ukrainian military uses the transmitted HIMARS with impressive accuracy and efficiency.

SOURCE = Mil In UA

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Death from above, printed at home: Ukrainians deploy DIY weapons against Russian troops

August 3rd 2022

KYIV — If any of them survived, they probably regret leaving the sunroof open. The three Russian soldiers, filmed from a weaponized Ukrainian drone from above, scramble into what looked like a worn-down sedan somewhere near the city of Kharkiv. Their position had already been struck earlier by another drone and they were trying to evacuate an injured comrade. Just then, a small metal projectile about the size of a soda can descends on them. It has been outfitted with an incongruous white fin. It sails through the air, slipping right through the aperture in the car’s roof, detonating on impact. One soldier is still able-bodied enough to sprint away, although the same can’t be said for his co-passengers. As smoke billows from the top, the vehicle careers out of control, grinding to a stop. The drone’s camera footage shows a Russian soldier through the sunroof. Another is crawling on the ground. Though the concussive force of the blast didn’t kill these men instantly, the numerous lacerations caused by the mortar’s shrapnel may yet prove deadly.

“We have thousands of volunteers in Ukraine hoping to say ‘hi’ to Russian occupiers in this way,” Yuri Vlasyuk said admiringly of his own team’s work. The soft-spoken 46-year-old explained to Yahoo News at a cafe in Kyiv that the white fin on the bomb, which gave it enough aerodynamic stability to perfectly meet its target, was 3D-printed by a Ukrainian civilian at home. Although it was dropped by an operator of Ukraine’s 92 Mechanized Brigade, the manufacturer received his own digital trophy. “The volunteers that print these for the drones get a video showing them being put to good use,” Vlasyuk said with a grin. He then pulled up other videos posted to Facebook and Twitter showing grenades and mortars with 3D-printed fins hitting columns of unsuspecting Russian troops, as well as ones displaying Ukrainian hands packing their metal tubes with nails.

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SOURCE = Yahoo News

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Russia behaves like “a monkey with a nuclear grenade” – Ukraine at UN

August 3rd 2022

Russia is a threat to international security as it is attacking Ukraine’s nuclear infrastructure. That’s according to Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mykola Tochytskyi, who spoke at the UN event entitled “Nuclear Safety and Security Situation in Ukraine: Threats to International Security in connection with the seizure of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities by Russian Federation,” an Ukrinform correspondent reports. “From the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the Russian armed forces have been indiscriminately targeting Ukraine’s infrastructure, including critical facilities thus creating unprecedented nuclear threats to Ukraine and far beyond,” Tochytskyi said. Moscow behaves like “a monkey with a nuclear grenade,” while the international community is witnessing how nuclear terrorism, sponsored by a nuclear power, the Russian Federation, is arising, the senior diplomat said.

The Ukrainian diplomat noted that the Russian invasion in February 2022 exposed the inability of the international organizations to provide an adequate response to the new challenges and nuclear risks related to war. International Atomic Energy Agency so far has not elaborated a reliable plan of action in case if a nuclear power plant is under shelling by heavy weaponry or becomes an object for constant overflies of the cruise missiles. “We have been witnessing the barbaric attacks on both non-functioning Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the largest active Nuclear Power Plant in Europe in Enerhodar,” the deputy minister stressed.

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SOURCE = UkrinForm

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Russia says it could use nuclear weapons ‘if western countries try to test our resolve’

August 3rd 2022

Russia on Tuesday told the UN that they could end up using nuclear weapons in response to “direct aggression” by western countries. Speaking at the month-long nuclear non-proliferation conference, Russian diplomat Alexander Trofimov said speculation that Russia has threatened to use its nuclear arsenal against Ukraine is “utterly unfounded, detached from reality and unacceptable”. The envoy said Russia would only use nuclear weapons “in response to weapons of mass destruction or a conventional weapons attack that threatened the existence of the Russian state”. “None of these two hypothetical scenarios is relevant to the situation in Ukraine,” he said, but blamed Nato countries of a “fierce hybrid confrontation” against Russia that now “dangerously balances on the edge of an open military clash”. “Such a move would be able to trigger one of the two emergency scenarios described in our doctrine,” Mr Trofimov added. “We obviously stand for preventing this, but if western countries try to test our resolve, Russia will not back down.”

The diplomat also accused the US of “direct involvement” in the Ukraine war, which Russia calls a “military operation”. Meanwhile, US president Joe Biden on Monday said he was ready to pursue a new nuclear arms deal with Russia and urged Moscow to “act in good faith”. Mr Putin had in turn, said the world was “edging towards catastrophe” and said there would be “no winners in a nuclear war”. Both Mr Biden and Russian president Vladimir Putin had issued written statements before the month-long UN conference to review the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The conference was supposed to take place in 2020 but was delayed due to the pandemic. On Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the conference was taking place “at a time of nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War”. “Humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” warned the UN chief.

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SOURCE = The Independent

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Ukraine takes down 1,000,000 bots used for disinformation

August 3rd 2022

The Ukrainian cyber police (SSU) has shut down a massive bot farm of 1,000,000 bots used to spread disinformation on social networks. The goal of the bot farm was to discredit information coming from official Ukrainian state sources, destabilize the social and political situation in the country, and create internal strife. The messages spread by the bots were in line with Russian propaganda, so the operators of the disinformation machine are believed to be members of the Russian special services. In fact, SSU’s investigation led to the criminal group’s leader, a Russian “political expert” who in the past lived in Kyiv. “According to the investigation, this person was organizing information and subversive activities, which were ordered by one of the domestic political forces,” explains SSU’s announcement.

“For coordination, he was in contact with the current MP, who is a member of the close circle of our state’s former leadership.” The investigation of the Ukrainian police is still underway to uncover any other participants in the operation who will be charged for violations of Article 361.2 of the country’s criminal code. The bot farm dismantled by SSU was located in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Vinnytsia and relied on 1,000,000 bots to spread disinformation. To create this online army, the threat actors used 5,000 SIM cards to register new social media accounts. Moreover, the operators used 200 proxy servers that spoofed the actual IP addresses and evaded detection of fraudulent activity and blocking by the social media platforms. According to SSU, the bot farm operators developed and deployed custom software to remotely manage the pseudonymous social media accounts, coordinating them to push the required propaganda messages.

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SORCE = Bleeping Computer

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BREAKING NEWS: Russian Colonel and artillery commander Olga Kachura killed by Ukraine’s forces

August 3rd 2022

Russian Colonel Olga Kachura has reportedly been killed by Ukraine’s armed forces in Horlivka, Ukraine, as reported on Wednesday, August 3. Olga Kachura, a Russian Colonel who was one of the founders of the militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic has been killed in Ukraine. The mayor of Horlivka Ivan Prikhodko reported the death on his official Telegram stating:

“Today is a black day for Horlivka and the republic. A brave and wise woman who stood at the origins of the People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic tragically died.” Kachura Olga Sergeevna, the victorious and unwavering Korsa!” “Guards Colonel, commander of the rocket artillery division, Honorary Citizen of Horlivka – all these titles and titles, people’s love and respect of her fellow servicemen are only a small part of her merits.” “On behalf of all the people of Horlivka, I extend my sincere condolences to Olga’s family and to everyone who knew and loved her. It is an irreplaceable loss for all of us! May our Heroine rest in peace and eternal memory!” The Donetsk People’s Republic is a Ukrainian breakaway state that was formed on April, 7, 2014 by pro-Russian separatists after the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity took place.

SOURCE = Euro Weekly

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Battle to end the war: Ukraine’s chance to get edge over Russia

August 3rd 2022

The third phase of Russia’s war on Ukraine is coming. The first, the Kremlin’s brazen blitzkrieg in late February that culminated in the Battle of Kyiv, failed. The months-long Battle of Donbas in Ukraine’s east making up the second phase has gotten bogged down, with Russia having barely enough strength to complete the region’s capture. The war’s focus has now pivoted to the south. After over five months of its full-out war, Russia is employing close to 100% of its conventional military power against Ukraine, with only limited results to show for it. Russia is steadily losing military power as the country struggles to generate high-quality reserves. It has spent the last month refraining from large-scale operations in Donbas and elsewhere, trying to recover from previous battles. 

For Ukraine, this hiatus is a window of opportunity. While Russia is still coming around, Ukraine’s military has the chance to deliver a decisive strike that would allow it to gain an edge over Russia and define the course of the rest of the war. In other words, this could be the war’s turning point. This third phase could determine the rest of the war. If successful, it could lead to a fourth phase in which Ukraine defeats Russia. The Kremlin clearly understands the stakes. It is urgently redeploying much of its forces from Donbas to Ukraine’s south, where its positions are the most vulnerable. The next few months will define the war’s outcome, the majority of experts believe.

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SOURCE = Kyiv Independent

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