From Ukrainian Donetsk – Reuters
Russia and Ukraine
Ukraine said, on Wednesday, that Russian drones had damaged a port on the Danube River in the Odessa region.
Reuters, AFP
Posted on: August 16, 2023: 07:50 AM GST Last updated: August 16, 2023: 01:55 PM GST
The Russian Ministry of Defense said today, Wednesday, that Russian forces shot down a Ukrainian drone over the Crimea peninsula.
Earlier in the day, Russia had announced that its air defenses had shot down 3 Ukrainian drones over the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow, in the latest attack of this kind targeting areas adjacent to the capital. Later on Wednesday, the Ukrainian Air Force announced that it shot down 13 Russian drones overnight.
And Priya, Kiev announced, on Wednesday, the recovery of a village in the Donetsk region from the hands of Russian forces.
Hana Malyar, the Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense, said that the Ukrainian forces have fortified themselves on the outskirts of the village of Orozhin in the Donetsk region, after they regained control of it from the hands of the Russian forces.
Ukrainian marches targeting Moscow
Maliar added on Telegram: “Uruzhin has been liberated… Our defenders are holed up on its outskirts.”
In the past few days, fierce fighting has been taking place in and around Orozhin and Staromayorsk, about 60 miles southwest of Russian-controlled Donetsk.
Recapturing the village indicates that Ukraine is moving ahead with its counter-offensive south towards the Sea of Azov, with the aim of splitting the ranks of the Russian forces occupying the country. The village of Orozhin is 90 kilometers from the Sea of Azov.
In a sign of the difficulty of operations on the battlefield, Orozhin is the first village that Ukraine says it has regained control of since June 27 when it announced the recapture of the nearby village of Staromayorsk.
Kiev says that its counter-attack is progressing more slowly than hoped because of the spread of Russian mines and the strength of Russian defensive lines.
Retaking Orokhin would bring Ukraine closer to the threat of Staromlynovka, several kilometers to the south, which military analysts say serves as a Russian stronghold in the region.
Russia controls nearly a fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, most of the Luhansk region, and large swathes of the Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions.
Russian Defense Ministry: No losses from the Ukrainian marches attack
Regarding the downing of the Ukrainian marches, the Russian Ministry of Defense stated, via Telegram, that it had thwarted, at around five o’clock in the morning (02:00 GMT), an attempted Ukrainian attack through “three unmanned aerial vehicles in the Kaluga region.”
And it confirmed that “all the drones were detected and destroyed in the necessary time by air defense systems,” noting that the accident did not lead to deaths or injuries.
The local governor, Vladislav Shapsha, confirmed via Telegram that the drones were shot down “in the south of the Kaluga region, about 200 km southwest of Moscow.”
In the past weeks, drone attacks targeting Russian territory or areas controlled by Moscow have increased, especially those targeting the capital.
This is at least the fifth time that Russia has announced the downing of marches in Kaluga, after similar attacks on the third and seventh of August, in addition to the last Thursday and Saturday.
On August 3, the Ministry of Defense and local authorities announced the downing of 7 drones over Kaluga, stressing that the attack did not cause any casualties.
In late July and early this month, other drones were shot down over the business district in western Moscow. The attack damaged a commercial tower in the Moscow City district.
In May, Russia announced the downing of two drones that were targeting the Kremlin.
A ship carrying a Ukrainian cargo of grain while crossing the Black Sea near the port of Odessa (archive from Reuters)
Ukraine: Grain facilities were damaged in the Odessa region as a result of Russian marches
In addition, Ukraine said, on Wednesday, that Russian drones damaged a port on the Danube River in the Odessa region in the south of the country, in the latest attack targeting these facilities since Moscow suspended work on an agreement allowing the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea.
The governor of the Odessa region, Oleg Kipper, explained on social networks that “as a result of enemy strikes on one of the ports overlooking the Danube, warehouses and grain stores were damaged,” noting that the Black Sea region witnessed two waves of drone attacks.
Later, a Ukrainian source in the port sector reported that operations are continuing in the Danube River port, which was subject to a Russian attack.
The port that was targeted was Reni on the Danube, and Kiev was not identified until later. Ukraine has two major ports on the Danube, Reni and Izmail, which are essential for Ukrainian grain exports.
The advisor to the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Mikhail Podolyak, announced that Kiev will not replace the territories with NATO membership. And he seized the opportunity, as is the custom of officials in the Kiev regime, to demand the expediting of sending weapons to them.
Podolyak wrote on the “X” platform (formerly Twitter): “Replacing territories with the umbrella of” NATO “? Strange. This means the conscious loss of democracy, the destruction of international law and the mandatory transfer of war to other generations.”
He stressed that NATO representatives should talk about accelerating the sending of weapons to Kiev, and not about ceding territory to Moscow.
The director of the Special Office of the Secretary-General of NATO, Stian Jensen, said that Ukraine could join the alliance in exchange for ceding part of its territory to Russia.
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2023-08-16 09:38:06
