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Ukrainian Perspective: Invasion of Ukraine: June 8th, 2023
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] 23:05 Biden promised to keep aid to Ukraine, despite the fact that there are doubts in Congress about the appropriateness of such a policy: “Support for Kiev will be provided, even though some voices are heard on Capitol Hill who express doubts about the appropriateness of continuing support Ukraine... I invited people to imagine what would happen if we didn't support Ukraine. Do you think that Russia will stop in Kiev? Do you think it will stop there? I think not. I think the majority agrees with me that it won't stop there."

22:57 The Zaporozhye NPP is still taking water from the Kakhovka reservoir despite its level dropping below 12.7 meters, the IAEA reports. The pumps will probably still be able to operate even if the level drops to about 11 meters or even lower, the agency said.

22:43 After the explosion of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, Ukraine urgently needs the help of international humanitarian organizations. But these organizations, in fact, refused to support. Such an indifferent reaction of international structures struck the Ukrainian people. As an example, social media users recalled the earthquake in Turkey, when almost the whole world, including Ukraine, came to the rescue. And now, when a tragedy of this magnitude has occurred in our state, everyone has turned their backs on Ukraine. Read more in the article How humanitarian missions turned their backs on Ukrainians .

22:06 The Russians launched rocket attacks on the Uman region. The rockets hit an industrial facility and a car wash, in the second case, a fire broke out as a result of the hit, said the head of the Cherkasy OVA, Igor Taburets. According to preliminary information, eight people were injured, two of them in serious condition.

21:58 Due to the drop in the water level in the Kakhovka reservoir in Krivoy Rog, the water supply with economical consumption remained for a month and a half, said the head of the city's Defense Council Alexander Vilkul. He explained that the Kakhovka water had already stopped flowing into the Yuzhnoye reservoir. During these month and a half, for which there is enough stock, it is necessary to implement a number of serious projects in order for the city to continue to have water, Vilkul added.

21:46 Zelensky appealed to world eco-activists, opinion leaders and international experts about the consequences of the Russians undermining the dam of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station. According to the president, the number of ecosystems destroyed or brought to the brink of extinction by this terrorist attack is already measured in the thousands.

Zelensky emphasized that it was a deliberate crime: “There are many questions about what happened. But it happened in the occupied territory. Last year we warned about mining by the occupiers of the dam and other structures of the station. Russian troops are now shelling areas where evacuation is underway. Obviously, it is Russia that is interested in the catastrophe." He called for spreading the truth about this Russian ecocide.

21:13 Western media write that the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine began on Thursday morning. The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine calls for informational silence, but confirms heavy fighting in the Zaporozhye and Donetsk regions. Read more about what is happening at the front in the material Strike to the South .

20:27 The water level in the reservoir of the Kakhovskaya HPP has reached below the "dead point" and is 12.5 meters. This is 0.2 meters below the level when it is still possible to take water to settlements and for the Zaporozhye NPP for cooling, said Igor Syrota, General Director of Ukrhydroenergo. Half of the station is under water, the second half is 70% in the water. The land between the lock and the station will also be eroded by water, he added.

20:08 The Russians attacked the Beryslavsky district of the Kherson region with guided bombs - one person was killed, one was injured, the local prosecutor's office said.

19:55 Ukrainian forces encountered resistance and losses while trying to break through Russian positions in the east of the country, CNN reports citing US officials. According to them, the Armed Forces of Ukraine suffered losses in both heavy equipment and manpower, as the Russians seriously fortified their defensive positions and laid minefields. At the same time, Ukrainian forces managed to capture Russian positions in the Bakhmut area. Also, US officials believe that the losses will not affect the larger planned Ukrainian counteroffensive.

19:23 A number of NATO countries are ready to send troops to Ukraine if security guarantees are not provided to Kiev at the upcoming summit of the Alliance, former Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned. About the possible prospects for such a scenario - in the material Is it real?

19:12 Russia's shipments of key microchips and electronics it needs for its military industry have returned to pre-war levels as Moscow has learned to get around sanctions better, said Jim O'Brien, US State Department sanctions coordinator. According to him, the US has identified five countries that help the Russian Federation to circumvent Western sanctions: Turkey, Kazakhstan, Georgia, the United Arab Emirates and Armenia.

18:59 An extraordinary meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Commission was held in Brussels, convened by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the request of Kiev due to the destruction of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam. Stoltenberg said the consequences for thousands of people and the environment would be dramatic and called on allies to provide swift support. Allies have expressed strong solidarity with Ukraine, and many of them are already providing critical assistance, including water filters, pumps, generators and shelter equipment.

18:28 Russian representatives spoke at the International Court of Justice with accusations against Ukraine in the alleged destruction of the Kakhovka dam by massive artillery shelling. "The Kiev regime not only launched massive artillery strikes on the dam on the night of June 6, but also deliberately raised the water level in the Kakhovka reservoir to a critical level," Russian "diplomat" Alexander Shulgin said.

18:04 After the explosion of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, a lot of mines are observed in the Dnieper, they are already being washed ashore, Vladislav Nazarov, speaker of OK Pivden, said. According to him, the current carries away garbage, fragments of various objects, boats and even building structures. They are already partly located in the Black Sea. Streams also tore down mine-explosive barriers, which the Russians equipped on the left bank. Now a large number of mines drift in the water with the flow. One of these anti-landing mines has already been found on the coast of the Odessa region and destroyed. Nazarov added that along the banks of the Dnieper, the Black Sea coast of the Nikolaev and Odessa regions, there is an increased mine danger.

17:37 Ukraine has very good prospects for launching missiles with a range of more than 1,000 km, Reznikov said. The minister recalled that Ukraine has approved a missile program, for which funds are already being allocated. The executors of the program are Ukrainian manufacturers.

17:11 The lower house of the Swiss parliament rejected a plan for humanitarian support for Ukraine for more than 5 billion euros over the next 5-10 years.

17:05 Ukraine on Thursday, June 8, launched a counteroffensive, now its active phase is underway, writes ABC News, citing two Ukrainian officials, including a source from Zelensky's entourage.

16:56 As a result of Russian shelling of Kherson during the evacuation of local residents, nine people were injured, including two employees of the State Emergency Service, a policeman, a doctor and a volunteer from Germany, said the head of the OVA Alexander Prokudin. It is also reported that the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine Moshe Asman came under fire in Kherson.

16:49 Ukrhydroenergo appealed to the ECHR in connection with the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station. Ukrhydroenergo emphasizes that the organized undermining of the dam violates the Geneva Convention and the order of war, creates additional and unjustified risks to the life, health and property of civilians.

Earlier, the ECHR accepted for consideration the claim of Ukrhydroenergo against Russia for compensation for damage caused as a result of unprovoked military aggression against Ukraine. The total amount of the claimed damage to the company's assets - the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station and the unfinished wind farm on Zmeiny Island - according to an independent expert assessment, amounted to almost 17 billion hryvnias.

16:38 In the Bakhmut direction, active operations of Ukrainian troops are underway, fighting is underway. In places, the enemy is trying to go on the offensive, but to no avail, Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar said. Also, the defense forces repelled numerous enemy attacks in the area of ​​​​the city of Marinka, inflicting significant losses on him. In the South, there are battles for Bolshaya Novoselka in the Novopalovsky direction. In the Zaporizhia direction in the Orekhov area, the enemy is on active defense.

16:29 In the flooded Oleshki, the death toll has risen to nine people, Mayor Yevhen Ryshchuk said. The figure is not final, he added.

16:06 Great Britain announced the expansion of sanctions against Belarus for supporting Russia. In particular, a ban is introduced on the import of gold, cement, timber and rubber from Belarus, as well as on the export of dual-use goods, industrial equipment and banknotes to Belarus. More than 100 people and organizations that contributed to or supported repression in Belarus will also fall under British sanctions.

15:50 The West is discussing the possibility of transferring "dozens" of F-18 fighters to Ukraine along with F-16s, the deliveries of which have already been agreed, writes Politico. According to the publication, the Ukrainian delegation raised the issue of F-18 deliveries at closed meetings during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last week. The newspaper recalls that Australia, Canada, Switzerland and Finland are switching from F-18 to F-35.

15:41 Zelensky said that he was on a visit to the Nikolaev region, visited the main pumping station of the Ingulets River Canal Administration, flooded due to the destruction of the dam of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station. In the Snegirevskaya community, a headquarters has been set up to eliminate the consequences of the disaster, which operates around the clock.

15:28 Kuleba said that the F-16 coalition is "strengthening": "This coalition, let's say, is growing stronger. As the classic said, "the percentage of fats in oil is growing daily"... I have said and I will say it again: everything will be. There will be F-16. We just need to solve the technical issues. Everything will be fine, we will win."

15:20 The UN will immediately form groups in Zaporozhye and Kherson, which will be sent to the affected occupied territories of the Left Bank to provide humanitarian assistance and evacuate people. The Organization will also increase the volume of assistance and send additional forces to Kherson and other affected regions, the Foreign Ministry said following a meeting between Kuleba and Denise Brown, the UN system coordinator in Ukraine.

The parties agreed that UN units will go to the affected areas in the occupied territories from Ukrainian territories as soon as Russia provides access and security guarantees. The organization is waiting for the provision of guarantees from the Russian side and access to the occupied territories affected by the explosion of the dam of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station.

15:12 A group of members of the US House of Representatives from the Republican and Democratic parties, led by lawmaker Jason Crowe, is increasing pressure on Biden to transfer ATACMS long-range ammunition to Ukraine as soon as possible, as Kiev's long-awaited counteroffensive seems to have begun, writes Politico. They are also calling on the White House to approve the transfer of other advanced weapons, including F-16 fighter jets and an additional Patriot system, and to expedite the transfer of M1 Abrams tanks.

15:01 As a result of Russian shelling of Kherson during the evacuation, at least three people were injured - one civilian, a policeman and a rescuer, the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported.

14:28 Russian troops shelled the area in Kherson, where people were evacuated. Journalists of the Grati edition came under shelling. The president's office also confirmed that the Russians were shelling Kherson during the evacuation. According to the OVA, a total of 2,198 people were evacuated from the settlements of the Kherson region that were in the flood zone.

14:10 Members of the Russian elite - even those who support the Russian invasion of Ukraine - no longer believe in Putin's ability to win and consider a frozen conflict the best option for the Kremlin now, Bloomberg writes, citing seven unnamed people familiar with the situation.

13:42 As of 12:00 on June 8, the level of the Kakhovka reservoir in the Nikopol area is 12.83 meters, Ukrhydroenergo reported. Hydroelectric power plants of the Dnieper cascade continue to reduce production capacity to minimize the scale of flooding.

13:40 Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station could not collapse from an outside strike, Ukrhydroproject said. They explained that the station was designed and built to withstand a nuclear attack from outside. According to the company's experts, most likely, the dam itself and the hydroelectric power station building, where hydroelectric units were installed to generate electricity, were mined from the inside. The fact that it was the HPP building that was blown up suggests that the Russians wanted to destroy the entire HPP as an energy facility as a whole. Ukrhydroproject believes that it is realistic to rebuild the hydroelectric power station, this issue will be dealt with after the de-occupation of the territories.

In turn, the Director General of Ukrhydroenergo, Igor Sirota, said that a solution was being developed to eliminate the consequences and urgently build a ceiling in the upper part of the reservoir so that it would be possible to block the place where the station was blown up. This will take two months.

13:33 The State Border Guard Service showed what the Kakhovskaya HPP and the flooded villages nearby look like now:

13:27 In Lugansk, strikes were made on the territory of the Luganskteplovoz plant, where equipment was being repaired and the Russian military were located, local publics report.

13:20 Kuleba said that the West will not send its troops to the territory of Ukraine until the end of the war, "moreover, we do not ask for this." At the same time, the head of the Foreign Ministry stressed that if Ukraine becomes a member of NATO, then Ukrainian brigades "will be stationed in other NATO countries and will protect them."

12:58 After the disaster at the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, Crimea is actively pumping water into the reservoirs from the North Crimean Canal, which will gradually shallow, said the "head" of the occupation administration, Sergei Aksenov.

12:54 Hydroelectric power plants located on the Dnieper upstream of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station are reducing production capacity to limit the flow of water into the Kakhovka reservoir in order to reduce flooding. About 20,000 consumers in Kherson and the region have been disconnected due to flooding, Ukrenergo reported.

12:31 In the occupied Oleshki, people have been sitting on the roofs for the second day due to flooding, the mayor of the city Yevhen Ryshchuk said. According to him, yesterday 120 people were admitted to a local hospital with hypothermia. The day before it was known about three dead - the mayor expects that the number of victims will increase. All 13 settlements of the Oleshky community are flooded, Oleshky is 90% flooded. According to the mayor, the occupation authorities still do not carry out the evacuation.

12:19 A week later, at a meeting in the Ramstein format, the status of military support for Ukraine before the counteroffensive will be updated, Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anushauskas said: "Ukraine has already confirmed plans for a counterattack, and it will begin regardless of the catastrophe caused by the actions of the invaders. A week later, at a meeting in the format Rammstein's military support status will be updated so as not to miss anything in the fight against the occupiers."

11:47 Zelensky said that he was on a working trip to the Kherson region , where he held a coordination meeting to eliminate the consequences of the explosion of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam. Also in Kherson, the president visited the crossing, where the population is being evacuated from the flooded territories.

11:35 "Authorities" of the occupied Kherson region reported that after the disaster at the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, five people died, 41 were hospitalized.

11:28 Lukashenka said that Ukraine allegedly blew up the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station to hide the three days of the counteroffensive, during which there were heavy losses. According to him, Kyiv was the first to talk about blowing up the hydroelectric power station, "and even a hat is on fire on a thief."

11:17 Orban convened a meeting of the Defense Council because of the "escalation of fighting in the Russian-Ukrainian war." The Hungarian prime minister said that the fighting allegedly intensified last night, and "for us, the security of Hungary is still our priority."

10:56 Russian media reported explosions in Lugansk. "LNR Colonel" Vitaly Kiselyov said that Ukrainian troops allegedly attacked the city with Storm Shadow missiles.

10:32 In Maryansky, Zelenodolsk community of the Dnipropetrovsk region, there was a massive fish kill due to the rapid shallowing of the reservoir after the explosion of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, said the head of the OVA Serhiy Lysak. According to him, more than 850 kg of bioresources died, the damage caused to the fisheries of the region exceeds 7.6 million hryvnias. The coastline has already been cleared of fish, it has been disposed of.

10:25 Not just Russia, but the military-political leadership of the Russian Federation is behind the terrorist attack on the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, said Andrey Yusov, a spokesman for the GUR. According to him, this is proved by a number of available direct and indirect evidence: “If we talk about the evidence base, then it exists, and now it is being collected. There is a lot of direct and indirect evidence that behind the targeted destruction of the hydroelectric dam, we are talking about not just the Russian Federation, but the military-political leadership and the official troops of the invaders.

"The fact that a week before the terrorist attack, changes were made to the legal framework of the Russian Federation, which made it possible not to calculate the consequences of a man-made disaster in wartime, it seems to be a confession," he added.

09:51 The Netherlands and Ukraine are putting pressure on Spain to join the "Patriot coalition" and provide Kiev with a missile defense battery, writes El País, citing sources. According to them, this issue was the subject of Zelensky's consultations with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Turkish President Erdogan, since it was in Turkey that Spain deployed a Patriot battery. However, Erdogan opposes the withdrawal of the Patriot before the end of the contract, which expires at the end of this year.

09:19 In the Donetsk region over the past day, as a result of Russian shelling, three people were killed (in Ukrainsk), seven more were injured, Pavel Kirilenko, head of the OVA, said.

09:14 British intelligence claims that, despite heavy fighting, Ukraine retains the initiative in most sectors of the front. Analysts say Russian troops are still under orders to return to offensive action as soon as possible. In particular, Chechen units made an unsuccessful attempt to capture Maryinka near Donetsk, where the front line has remained virtually unchanged since 2015.

09:10 The Russians might not have fully realized the scale of the consequences of the blowing up of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, but they were well aware that these were criminal actions, Andrey Yusov, a spokesman for the Main Intelligence Directorate, said in a commentary to UMN: "They could count on other consequences, but the result for everything world is obvious - this is another terrorist act of Russian occupiers."

According to him, the goal of the invaders is obvious - to stop and complicate the actions of the Ukrainian defense forces to liberate their territories in the south of the country. Yusov also said that the enemy had taken part of the personnel to pre-prepared positions even before the attack, but individual units located on the left bank of the Dnieper did not know about the explosion of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station.

"This information was not brought to some occupation units, because this is an operation blatant in its criminal consequences. Accordingly, in order to exclude leaks, and also so that there are no people who refuse to perform tasks, some simply were not informed," the representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate said. MO. According to him, at the time of the terrorist attack, there was an insignificant amount of enemy manpower in this direction.

09:04 Israel believes that it was Russia that blew up the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said. He added that his country is considering the possibility of providing humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

09:01 The decrease in the water level in the Kakhovka reservoir continues, the level of the reservoir in the Nikopol area is 13.05 meters, Ukrhydroenergo reported. During the day, the water level in the Kakhovka reservoir dropped by almost a meter. Now the destruction of the spillway dam, the earth insert between the station building and the lock continues.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said that if the water level in the Kakhovka reservoir falls below 12.7 meters, the Zaporozhye NPP will not be able to pump water from it. As the full extent of the damage to the dam remains unknown, he said, it is impossible to predict when this will happen. But if the current rate of decline continues, the critical level will be reached within the next two days. Preparing for such a scenario, ZNPP replenishes its water reserves.

08:54 The Russians tried to hide the catastrophe at the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, so they jammed the connection, said Natalya Gumenyuk, speaker of OK Pivden. According to her, they did not even inform their own units about this: "There is information that many of the occupying troops either remained under water or are suffering from floods and hope that their brothers will return for them."

08:38 The average level of flooding is 5.6 meters, 600 sq. km of the Kherson region, of which 32% are on the right bank and 68% are on the left bank, said Alexander Prokudin, head of the OVA. The evacuation from the flood zone continues, as of 06:00, 1999 people left the dangerous territories, most of the evacuees were from the Korabel microdistrict (1495 people). The most difficult situation is on the left bank, where people not only do not have drinking water, but also suffer from Russian terror. They are not allowed to evacuate.

08:16 The General Staff announced the approximate losses of the Russian Federation as of the morning of June 8.

  • personnel - about 212,760 (+730) people liquidated,

  • tanks - 3891 (+18),

  • armored combat vehicles - 7576 (+16),

  • artillery systems - 3668 (+28),

  • MLRS - 595 (+1),

  • air defense systems - 355 (+3),

  • aircraft - 314 (+0),

  • helicopters - 299 (+0),

  • UAV operational-tactical level - 3234 (+15),

  • cruise missiles - 1171 (+0),

  • ships/boats - 18 (+0),

  • automotive equipment and tankers - 6384 (+35),

  • special equipment - 500 (+8).

08:04 The Russian army continues to focus its main efforts on attempts to completely occupy the Lugansk and Donetsk regions. Over the past day, there have been 30 combat clashes, the General Staff said in the morning summary.

According to the General Staff, the Russians were not prepared for the consequences of the blowing up of the dam of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, they suffered losses in manpower, weapons and military equipment. In particular, in the units of the 7th Airborne Assault Division and the 22nd Army Corps of the RF Armed Forces, there are injured, dead and missing. Also, several field depots with ammunition and provisions, automobile and armored vehicles, and other military property were lost in these units.

On June 6, a mass evacuation of the civilian population from the city of Kakhovka took place, during which people used their own cars. Along with civilian evacuation routes, the Russian military used the locals as human shields.

07:23 Responsibility for the destruction in Ukraine as a result of the explosion of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station lies with Russia, which "should not have been there" at all, said White House Speaker Karine Jean-Pierre: "We are still assessing what happened. This is damage, obviously, and "The devastation we are seeing is heartbreaking. We will do our best to help the people of Ukraine, of course... This dam was under Russian control and they are responsible for the destruction caused by this war."

00:15 Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that some NATO member countries could send troops to Ukraine if Kiev does not receive guarantees of membership and guarantees for the transition period at the Alliance summit. Yermak thanked him "for his public support of the opinion that it is dangerous to leave Ukraine in the NATO waiting room for an indefinite period. It is very important that our state receive an invitation to the Alliance."

Yermak also recalled the Kiev Security Treaty - the work of the International Working Group on Security Guarantees for Ukraine, co-chaired by Anders Fogh Rasmussen together with the head of the Presidential Office. It contains proposals for security guarantees for Ukraine, which should be an intermediate stage before joining NATO.


Posted by: badanov 2023-06-09
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=669320