Main news of the day – The New Voice of Ukraine newsletter
This newsletter was compiled by Romeo Kokriatski, Managing Editor of the New Voice of Ukraine, August 9, 2022.
According to the Ukrainian military’s Operational Command South, these strikes are part of fire control operations over the enemy’s supply lines into the oblast. These strikes, likely part of a larger operation to liberation Kherson Oblast, serve to whittle down and corrode Russian manpower and material, reducing Russian capability to successfully defend the area against Ukrainian offensives.Video of day
According to Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications, some of the interviews used in the Amnesty report, which accused the Ukrainian military of endangering civilians, were taken by independent journalists and volunteers who spoke people abducted by Russian forces. “Such interviews were selected under obvious pressure from the Russian security forces,” Stratcom says. In some cases, the agency alleges that Ukrainians had to respond to the interviews in order to be allowed to leave Russian “filtration” camps - detention facilities that are intended to “filter” people loyal to the Kremlin regime.
The missile, known as Kindzhal, are some of Russia’s most advanced weaponry, and Russia has used them sparingly in Ukraine thus far. The high speeds of these missiles allow them to evade Ukrainian air defenses. The Ukrainian government has currently not revealed the specific military objects hit by the missiles.
The Russian occupiers claim that the vote on authorizing the referendum was “unanimous”, though no date has yet been set for the so-called referendum. The Kremlin denied that it was pushing for these referendum, instead suggesting that “locals” in the region had themselves decided to hold the vote. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has previously said that any such votes, held in occupied Ukrainian territory, would constitute a permanent end to peace negotiations between the two countries. According to Ukrainian intelligence services, Russian forces have been attempting to set up these sham “referendums” for months, but their attempts have so far been disrupted by local antipathy to Russian occupation, as well as Ukrainian partisan activity.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian intelligence says that Russian oppression in the occupied territories has ramped up in recent weeks, with Russian forces attempting to extort local business and force them to register with Russian tax authorities.
Mikhail Kulikov, a tank gunner with the Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade of Russia’s 41st Combined Army, was found guilty of firing his tank into a residential building. In court, Kulikov pled guilty to all charges, and admitted that he knew that he was firing at a residential, civilian structure, and not a military target. Kulikov is the second Russian soldier to be convicted for war crimes in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion.
“Russian oligarchs feel really comfortable here (they own property in Ukraine), they give us advice from Dubai or London on how to fight,” Davydiuk told Radio NV, pointing out that despite mass seizures of Russian assets in Ukraine, many enterprises and real estate assets still belong to Russian nationals – such as the Ocean Plaza mall in Kyiv. “Russians feel more comfortable here than in Europe, than anywhere else in the world. Ukraine is the quietest haven for Russian capital. Because we protect them from their own missiles with our heads,” the political scientist believes.
The National Bank of Ukraine says this move is meant to bolster Ukraine’s economic recovery, and to further aid in this, has suspended its trading fees for treasuries and bonds until at least Dec. 22. Ukraine’s economy has taken a nose-dive since the start of the full-scale invasion, due to massive unemployment, internal migration, and physical destruction of industrial assets. While Ukrainian business has begun to recover, the Ukrainian hryvnia has devalued at least 25% against the U.S. dollar, making exports more attractive globally while severely reducing consumer purchasing power for imported goods. Inflation is expected to exceed 30% by the end of the year, according to the central bank.
The day’s long read: How Ukraine is saving its educational future from war.
The Ukrainian government’’s Small Academy of Sciences goes into the challenges posed to Ukrainian education by the double-punch of COVID and the full-scale war, and how Ukrainian educators and the state are attempting to rise to overcome these obstacles.
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google News
