A Russian air base far behind the front line in Crimea was damaged by several large explosions, killing at least one person. It was not immediately clear whether he had been targeted by a long-range Ukrainian missile strike. In his evening address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy did not specify who was behind the attacks, but vowed to “liberate” Crimea, saying: “This Russian war against Ukraine and against all free Europe began with Crimea and must end with Crimea – with its liberation. An adviser to the president, Mikhail Podolyak, said Ukraine did not take responsibility for the explosions, suggesting partisans may have been involved.
Head of Ukraine’s nuclear energy company warns of ‘very high’ risks of bombing Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Russian-occupied south and said it was vital Kyiv regained control of the facility in time for winter. Energoatom chief Petro Kotin told Reuters in an interview that Russian shelling last week damaged three lines that connect the Zaporizhzhia plant to the Ukrainian grid and that Russia wanted to connect the installation to its network.
Russian forces occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant redirect the plant’s electricity production to connect to Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, according to the Ukrainian operator Energoatom. “To do this, you must first damage the power lines of the power plant connected to the Ukrainian energy system. From August 7 to 9, the Russians have already damaged three power lines. At the moment, the plant operates with only one production line, which is an extremely dangerous way of working,” Energoatom chairman Petro Kotin told Ukrainian television. The plant, located not far from the Crimean peninsula, has six of Ukraine’s 15 reactors and is capable of supplying electricity to four million homes.
The leaders of Estonia and Finland want other European countries to stop issuing tourist visas to Russian citizenssaying they shouldn’t be able to vacation in Europe while the Russian government is waging a war in Ukraine. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas wrote on Twitter on Tuesday that “visiting Europe is a privilege, not a human right” and that it was “time to end tourism from Russia now,” reported the Associated Press.
US President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed documents endorsing Finland and Sweden’s NATO membershipthe largest expansion of the military alliance since the 1990s in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, reports Reuters.
The US State Department has approved $89 million in aid to help Ukraine equip and train 100 demining teams and unexploded ordnance for a year, Reuters reported.
The total number of ships carrying grain due to leave Ukrainian ports under a UN-brokered deal to ease the global food crisis has now reached 12with the last two ships leaving on Tuesday for Istanbul and Turkey.
Russia’s Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad grapples with EU-mandated quotas for sanctioned goods that he can import through Lithuania from mainland Russia or Belarus, admitted the governor of the region. Lithuania infuriated Moscow in June by banning overland transit of goods such as concrete and steel to Kaliningrad after EU sanctions came into force against them, Reuters reported.
Russia launched an Iranian satellite from Kazakhstan amid concerns it could be used for battlefield surveillance during Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Iran has denied that the Khayyam satellite, which was put into orbit aboard a Soyuz rocket launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome, would ever be under Russian control. But the Washington Post previously reported that Moscow has told Tehran that it “plans to use the satellite for several months, if not longer, to enhance its surveillance of military targets” in Ukraine, according to two US officials.