While Mykolaiv has been repeatedly targeted by Russian fire in recent days, Russian missiles also hit the city of Zaporizhzhia on Wednesday, an attack that could signal Moscow’s determination to hold onto territory in southern Ukraine as it aims to fully conquer the east. Ukrainian forces have stepped up operations in an attempt to retake more territory in the south. Some of the civilian deaths occurred in Donetsk province, which is part of an area the Kremlin intends to seize. The city of Bakhmut came under particularly heavy shelling as the focus of Russia’s offensive, Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kirilenko said. In neighboring Luhansk province, which Russian and separatist forces have captured, Ukrainian soldiers fought to keep control of two remote villages as they came under Russian shelling, Governor Serhiy Haidai said.
“Turning Donbas into ashes”
Luhansk and Donetsk together make up the Donbass region, a predominantly Russian-speaking region of steel, mining and other industries. Smoke rises into the sky after shelling on the front lines in Ukraine’s Donbass region on Wednesday. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters) The Russians are “deliberately turning Donbass into ashes, and there will be no people left in the captured territories,” Heidai said. With Russia’s eyes on the east, the Ukrainian army tried to retake an occupied city in the south. More Ukrainian missiles hit Nova Kakhovka, a town east of the Black Sea port of Kherson, on Wednesday night, a day after the Ukrainian military claimed it had used missiles to destroy a Russian ammunition depot there. Russia said a mineral fertilizer storage facility had exploded. More ammunition depots were hit late Wednesday, regional officials said. Russian news agency RIA Novosti, citing Russian-appointed officials in the occupied territory, reported that Russian air defense intercepted five incoming Ukrainian missiles. Posts on social media showed large fiery explosions. Local residents throw debris into a crater after a Russian strike in Kostyantynivka, Ukraine’s Donetsk region, on Wednesday. (Anatolii Stepanov/AFP/Getty Images) In the Russian attack on the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, two cruise missiles hit a factory and injured 14 people, Ukrainian officials said. The governor posted a photo showing the ruins. The UNIAN news agency said the plant’s management had evacuated staff to bomb shelters, which it said may have saved their lives. Russian artillery also rained down on northeastern Ukraine, where the regional governor, Oleg Syniehubov, accused Russian forces of trying to “terrorize civilians” in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken also strongly condemned on Wednesday the “illegal transfer and deportation of protected persons” from areas in Ukraine now controlled by Russia. “The Russian authorities must release those detained and allow Ukrainian citizens who were forcibly removed or forced to leave their country to return to their homes immediately and safely,” Blinken said in a statement.
Deportations to Russia
Blinken said an estimated 900,000 to 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens – including 260,000 children – have been interrogated, arrested and deported to Russia, with some sent to the country’s Far East. A Ukrainian soldier is pictured in a trench near the front line in eastern Ukraine on July 13, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images) “Moscow’s actions appear premeditated and draw direct historical comparisons to Russian infiltration operations in Chechnya and other regions,” the US official said. “[Russian] Chairman [Vladimir] Putin’s ‘filtering’ operations are separating families, confiscating Ukrainian passports and issuing Russian passports in an apparent attempt to change the demographic composition of regions of Ukraine.” Bliken cited growing evidence that Russian authorities are detaining, torturing or “disappearing” thousands of Ukrainian civilians whom Russia considers a threat because of their possible ties to the Ukrainian military, media, government or civil society groups. Some Ukrainians were reportedly summarily executed. “President Putin and his administration will not be able to engage in these systematic abuses with impunity. Accountability is imperative,” said Blinken. “The United States and our partners will not be silent. Ukraine and its citizens deserve justice.”
Private talks on grain exports
Meanwhile, Ukrainian and Russian officials met face-to-face on Wednesday for the first time in months. Military delegations from the two countries, along with Turks and UN officials, discussed a possible deal to get grain out of Ukraine’s blockaded and mined ports via the Black Sea. Farmers harvest wheat as a thermal power plant in Vuhlehirsk, Ukraine, burns in the background after shelling in the Donbas region on Wednesday. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters) UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the two sides had taken “a critical step forward” towards an agreement. Ukraine is one of the world’s biggest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, but Russia’s incursion has halted shipments, jeopardizing food supplies in many developing countries and contributing to higher global prices. Ukraine’s foreign minister says grain exports from his country’s ports will not resume without safety guarantees for shipowners, cargo owners and Ukraine as an independent nation.
