It's early morning in Kyiv. Here's what you need to know
From CNN staff
Russian drone strikes in Odesa “deliberately” targeted infrastructure on the Danube River, according to Ukrainian officials.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said 37 Iranian-made Shahed drones were used to attack Ukraine early Wednesday. During his nightly address, he said some of the drones were shot down, "but only part of them."
There were no casualties, the Ukrainian leader noted. However, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has said the attacks near the Danube were “unacceptable," given their close proximity to Romania, a NATO member.
If you’re just catching up, here’s what else you should know:
War victims: More than 10,000 civilians have been killed and over 15,000 others wounded since Russia's invasion began in February 2022, Ukraine’s War Crimes Department said. The figures are similar to those of international organizations like the UN, but the true number is likely to be much higher, officials said.
Russian pressure: Moscow is forcing Ukrainians in occupied territories to accept Russian citizenship by engaging in a systematic push “to make it impossible for residents to survive in their homes” unless they do so, said a new report from the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab. The violations detailed in the report "are classic war crimes," investigator Nathaniel Raymond told CNN.
Warsaw pushes back: Poland expressed “a very firm protest” against Belarus on Wednesday as Warsaw summoned Minsk’s charge d’affaires after two military helicopters reportedly entered Polish airspace on Tuesday. Tensions are running high on Poland's border with Belarus after Wagner mercenaries moved closer to the NATO member's territory.
Peace talks: The head of the Ukrainian President’s office said his team is preparing for an upcoming peace summit in Saudi Arabia. Kyiv’s goal was to expand on the first summit held in Copenhagen in June, increasing the number of participants to include countries from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, he said. Russia is not expected to attend the talks
Arson attacks: Authorities across Russia have reported a string of arson attacks on military enlistment offices, according to state media reports and social media images verified by CNN. More than 10 cases of arson at or connected to the offices have been reported over the past two days, with state media saying in most cases "the perpetrators have become victims of telephone scammers."
Flights suspended: Turkmenistan’s flagship airline suspended flights from the country’s capital Ashgabat to Moscow, citing safety concerns. Turkmenistan Airlines' announcement comes after several drone attacks in the Russian capital in recent days.
2 min ago
More than 10,000 civilians killed since Russia's invasion began, Ukraine's war crimes office says
From CNN's Mariya Knight
A woman reacts as she stands with her son in front of a memorial with the names of civilians killed by Russian troops during their occupation of Bucha, north of Kyiv, on July 3. Sergei Supinksky/AFP/Getty Images
Approximately 10,749 civilians have been killed and 15,599 others wounded in Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in February last year, according to Ukrainian authorities.
The death toll includes 499 children, Yuriy Belousov, the head of the War Crimes Department of Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office, said in an interview with the news agency Interfax-Ukraine.
Once Ukraine’s occupied territories are liberated, the number of those killed is expected to "increase many times,” he said.
“I think that there will be tens of thousands of dead in Mariupol alone,” Belousov said.
The figures of the Prosecutor General's Office are similar to those of international organizations like the United Nations, he added.
On July 7, the UN reported it had confirmed the deaths of “more than 9,000 civilians, including over 500 children,” but the real number is expected to be higher.
Belousov also said his team had recorded 98,000 war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine during the invasion.
1 hr 47 min ago
Arson attacks hit military enlistment offices across Russia, authorities say
From CNN's Anna Chernova, Vasco Cotovio and Allegra Goodwin
Authorities across Russia have reported a string of attacks on military enlistment offices, blaming them on phone scammers, according to state media reports and social media images verified by CNN.
In one incident on Aug. 1, authorities detained a woman who tried to throw a Molotov cocktail at a military enlistment office in the southwestern city of Stavropol. There were no casualties, according to the region's governor, Vladimir Vladimirov.
In St. Petersburg, a woman was detained on the night of Aug, 2 after trying to set fire to the door of a military enlistment office, state-run RIA Novosti reported.
A photo posted on social media and geolocated by CNN to a military enlistment office in the Kuzminki district, southeast of Moscow, showed its door on fire Tuesday, after what appeared to be another such attack. Video of the aftermath, also geolocated by CNN, showed the scene cordoned off by authorities, with the same door, no longer in flames but with severe burn marks.
Some Russian media reported the fire started Tuesday after a 62-year-old woman threw a Molotov cocktail at the office.
Similar incidents: More than 10 cases of arson at or connected to the military enlistment offices have been reported over the past two days, with state media saying in most cases “the perpetrators have become victims of telephone scammers.”
“They force the victims to make financial transactions, and then, manipulating and promising to return the money, they offer to commit a terrorist attack,” state-run TASS reported, citing the FSB security agency. “Their victims, as a rule, are socially vulnerable categories of citizens or persons who find themselves in a difficult life situation, who are easily suggestible.”
The attacks come after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law bills extending the age for the military draft, as well as raising fines and tightening rules for those trying to evade enlistment.
1 hr 55 min ago
Moscow is trying to force Ukrainians in occupied territories to accept Russian citizenship, report says
From CNN's Jennifer Hansler
Russia is forcing Ukrainians in Russian-occupied territories to accept Russian citizenship by engaging in a systematic push “to make it impossible for residents to survive in their homes” unless they do so, according to a newly released report from the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab.
The report details an extensive campaign of both laws from the Kremlin to “streamline applying for a Russian passport while simultaneously threatening those who refuse to apply with detention or deportation,” as well as de-facto restrictions on those who refuse to accept the passports.
The restrictions “include denial of medical services, social benefits, the ability to drive and to work, and overt threats of violence and intimidation,” said the report, which was released Wednesday and produced as a part of the US State Department-backed Conflict Observatory.
The violations detailed in the report “are classic war crimes in the sense that they are restricting or limiting through this process people’s ability to access critical services and resources that Russia is required to allow all people to access, such as healthcare, and humanitarian systems,” Yale Humanitarian Research Lab’s Nathaniel Raymond told CNN Wednesday.
“The second part here is that this is a unique and specific dynamic of the broader campaign by Russia to erase Ukrainian national identity and Ukrainian sovereign state existence,” he said.
Tensions high on Poland's border with Belarus after Wagner troops move closer
From CNN's Sana Noor Haq, Josh Pennington, Niamh Kennedy, Darya Tarasova, Jessie Gretener and Yulia Kesaieva
Poland will deploy more troops at the border with Belarus after it accused Minsk of violating its airspace, raising tensions between the NATO member and a key Kremlin ally in an increasingly volatile security landscape in Europe.
Warsaw said two Belarusian helicopters allegedly violated the Polish airspace during training exercises on Tuesday, which the Belarusian defense ministry vehemently denied and dismissed as “far-fetched.”
This came amid increased activity near a thin strip of land between Poland and Lithuania, known as the Suwalki gap or corridor, which troops from the Russian mercenary group Wagner are moving toward in an apparent attempt to increase pressure on NATO and EU members.
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko brokered a deal to cap Wagner’s failed rebellion against Moscow, after which thousands of mercenary fighters were reportedly sent to Belarus.
Minsk had informed Warsaw about the exercise, but a border crossing took place in the eastern Bialowieza region at a “very low altitude, making detection by radar systems difficult,” the Polish defense ministry said in a statement.
Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak subsequently ordered that more troops and combat helicopters be deployed along the border, the ministry added.
The Belarusian defense ministry said “there were no violations of the airspace by the Mi-24 and Mi-8 helicopters.”
“The accusations of violating the border of Poland by the Mi-24 and Mi-8 helicopters of the Belarusian Air Force and Air Defense Forces are far-fetched and were made by the Polish military-political leadership to justify the build-up of forces and means near the Belarusian border,” the ministry said on Telegram.
Ukraine is preparing for peace summit in Saudi Arabia, presidential aide says
From CNN's Olga Voitovych and Vasco Cotovio
Andrii Yermak speaks during a briefing in Kyiv, Ukraine on September 22, 2022. Pavlo Bahmut/Ukrinform/Future Publishing/Getty Images/File
The head of the Ukrainian President’s office, Andrii Yermak, says his team is preparing for an upcoming peace summit in Saudi Arabia.
“We continue to prepare the second meeting at the level of national security advisers and political advisers to the leaders of states in Saudi Arabia,” he wrote on Telegram. “It will be devoted to the key principles of peace based on President Volodymyr Zelensky's Peace Formula.” “We are in constant communication with our partners,” he added.
Kyiv’s goal was to expand on the first summit held in Copenhagen in June, increasing the number of participants to include countries from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, Yermak said.
“Our goal in Saudi Arabia is to develop a unified vision of the Formula and to work out the possibilities of holding the future Global Peace Summit,” he said. “We need to restore world order, international law and establish a just peace based on the UN Charter and on Ukraine's terms.”
Peace plan: Zelensky presented Ukraine’s 10-point peace formula to world leaders at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, last year.
The steps include a path to nuclear safety, food security, a special tribunal for alleged Russian war crimes, and a final peace treaty with Moscow. He also urged G20 leaders to use all their power to “make Russia abandon nuclear threats” and implement a price cap on energy imported from Moscow.
Russia is not expected to attend the talks in Saudi Arabia.
CNN’s Irene Nasser and Josh Pennington contributed reporting to this post.
More than 10,000 civilians have been killed and over 15,000 others wounded since Russia's invasion began in February 2022, Ukraine’s War Crimes Department said.
A Russian drone strike "deliberately" targeted infrastructure on the Danube River, Ukraine said Wednesday. Romania's leader denounced the attack as "unacceptable," citing the close proximity to his country, a NATO member.
President Volodymyr Zelensky called the strike on the Odesa port infrastructure an attack on "global food security." This comes as Zelensky's aide said his team is preparing for a peace summit in Saudi Arabia.
Nearly half of Ukrainians held in detention centers in Kherson by Russian forces were subjected to widespread torture including sexual violence, according to a report released Wednesday.
Russian drone strikes in Odesa “deliberately” targeted infrastructure on the Danube River, according to Ukrainian officials.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said 37 Iranian-made Shahed drones were used to attack Ukraine early Wednesday. During his nightly address, he said some of the drones were shot down, "but only part of them."
There were no casualties, the Ukrainian leader noted. However, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has said the attacks near the Danube were “unacceptable," given their close proximity to Romania, a NATO member.
If you’re just catching up, here’s what else you should know:
War victims: More than 10,000 civilians have been killed and over 15,000 others wounded since Russia's invasion began in February 2022, Ukraine’s War Crimes Department said. The figures are similar to those of international organizations like the UN, but the true number is likely to be much higher, officials said.
Russian pressure: Moscow is forcing Ukrainians in occupied territories to accept Russian citizenship by engaging in a systematic push “to make it impossible for residents to survive in their homes” unless they do so, said a new report from the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab. The violations detailed in the report "are classic war crimes," investigator Nathaniel Raymond told CNN.
Warsaw pushes back: Poland expressed “a very firm protest” against Belarus on Wednesday as Warsaw summoned Minsk’s charge d’affaires after two military helicopters reportedly entered Polish airspace on Tuesday. Tensions are running high on Poland's border with Belarus after Wagner mercenaries moved closer to the NATO member's territory.
Peace talks: The head of the Ukrainian President’s office said his team is preparing for an upcoming peace summit in Saudi Arabia. Kyiv’s goal was to expand on the first summit held in Copenhagen in June, increasing the number of participants to include countries from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, he said. Russia is not expected to attend the talks
Arson attacks: Authorities across Russia have reported a string of arson attacks on military enlistment offices, according to state media reports and social media images verified by CNN. More than 10 cases of arson at or connected to the offices have been reported over the past two days, with state media saying in most cases "the perpetrators have become victims of telephone scammers."
Flights suspended: Turkmenistan’s flagship airline suspended flights from the country’s capital Ashgabat to Moscow, citing safety concerns. Turkmenistan Airlines' announcement comes after several drone attacks in the Russian capital in recent days.
A woman reacts as she stands with her son in front of a memorial with the names of civilians killed by Russian troops during their occupation of Bucha, north of Kyiv, on July 3. Sergei Supinksky/AFP/Getty Images
Approximately 10,749 civilians have been killed and 15,599 others wounded in Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in February last year, according to Ukrainian authorities.
The death toll includes 499 children, Yuriy Belousov, the head of the War Crimes Department of Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office, said in an interview with the news agency Interfax-Ukraine.
Once Ukraine’s occupied territories are liberated, the number of those killed is expected to "increase many times,” he said.
“I think that there will be tens of thousands of dead in Mariupol alone,” Belousov said.
The figures of the Prosecutor General's Office are similar to those of international organizations like the United Nations, he added.
On July 7, the UN reported it had confirmed the deaths of “more than 9,000 civilians, including over 500 children,” but the real number is expected to be higher.
Belousov also said his team had recorded 98,000 war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine during the invasion.
Authorities across Russia have reported a string of attacks on military enlistment offices, blaming them on phone scammers, according to state media reports and social media images verified by CNN.
In one incident on Aug. 1, authorities detained a woman who tried to throw a Molotov cocktail at a military enlistment office in the southwestern city of Stavropol. There were no casualties, according to the region's governor, Vladimir Vladimirov.
In St. Petersburg, a woman was detained on the night of Aug, 2 after trying to set fire to the door of a military enlistment office, state-run RIA Novosti reported.
A photo posted on social media and geolocated by CNN to a military enlistment office in the Kuzminki district, southeast of Moscow, showed its door on fire Tuesday, after what appeared to be another such attack. Video of the aftermath, also geolocated by CNN, showed the scene cordoned off by authorities, with the same door, no longer in flames but with severe burn marks.
Some Russian media reported the fire started Tuesday after a 62-year-old woman threw a Molotov cocktail at the office.
Similar incidents: More than 10 cases of arson at or connected to the military enlistment offices have been reported over the past two days, with state media saying in most cases “the perpetrators have become victims of telephone scammers.”
“They force the victims to make financial transactions, and then, manipulating and promising to return the money, they offer to commit a terrorist attack,” state-run TASS reported, citing the FSB security agency. “Their victims, as a rule, are socially vulnerable categories of citizens or persons who find themselves in a difficult life situation, who are easily suggestible.”
The attacks come after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law bills extending the age for the military draft, as well as raising fines and tightening rules for those trying to evade enlistment.
Russia is forcing Ukrainians in Russian-occupied territories to accept Russian citizenship by engaging in a systematic push “to make it impossible for residents to survive in their homes” unless they do so, according to a newly released report from the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab.
The report details an extensive campaign of both laws from the Kremlin to “streamline applying for a Russian passport while simultaneously threatening those who refuse to apply with detention or deportation,” as well as de-facto restrictions on those who refuse to accept the passports.
The restrictions “include denial of medical services, social benefits, the ability to drive and to work, and overt threats of violence and intimidation,” said the report, which was released Wednesday and produced as a part of the US State Department-backed Conflict Observatory.
The violations detailed in the report “are classic war crimes in the sense that they are restricting or limiting through this process people’s ability to access critical services and resources that Russia is required to allow all people to access, such as healthcare, and humanitarian systems,” Yale Humanitarian Research Lab’s Nathaniel Raymond told CNN Wednesday.
“The second part here is that this is a unique and specific dynamic of the broader campaign by Russia to erase Ukrainian national identity and Ukrainian sovereign state existence,” he said.
Poland will deploy more troops at the border with Belarus after it accused Minsk of violating its airspace, raising tensions between the NATO member and a key Kremlin ally in an increasingly volatile security landscape in Europe.
Warsaw said two Belarusian helicopters allegedly violated the Polish airspace during training exercises on Tuesday, which the Belarusian defense ministry vehemently denied and dismissed as “far-fetched.”
This came amid increased activity near a thin strip of land between Poland and Lithuania, known as the Suwalki gap or corridor, which troops from the Russian mercenary group Wagner are moving toward in an apparent attempt to increase pressure on NATO and EU members.
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko brokered a deal to cap Wagner’s failed rebellion against Moscow, after which thousands of mercenary fighters were reportedly sent to Belarus.
Minsk had informed Warsaw about the exercise, but a border crossing took place in the eastern Bialowieza region at a “very low altitude, making detection by radar systems difficult,” the Polish defense ministry said in a statement.
Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak subsequently ordered that more troops and combat helicopters be deployed along the border, the ministry added.
The Belarusian defense ministry said “there were no violations of the airspace by the Mi-24 and Mi-8 helicopters.”
“The accusations of violating the border of Poland by the Mi-24 and Mi-8 helicopters of the Belarusian Air Force and Air Defense Forces are far-fetched and were made by the Polish military-political leadership to justify the build-up of forces and means near the Belarusian border,” the ministry said on Telegram.
Andrii Yermak speaks during a briefing in Kyiv, Ukraine on September 22, 2022. Pavlo Bahmut/Ukrinform/Future Publishing/Getty Images/File
The head of the Ukrainian President’s office, Andrii Yermak, says his team is preparing for an upcoming peace summit in Saudi Arabia.
“We continue to prepare the second meeting at the level of national security advisers and political advisers to the leaders of states in Saudi Arabia,” he wrote on Telegram. “It will be devoted to the key principles of peace based on President Volodymyr Zelensky's Peace Formula.” “We are in constant communication with our partners,” he added.
Kyiv’s goal was to expand on the first summit held in Copenhagen in June, increasing the number of participants to include countries from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, Yermak said.
“Our goal in Saudi Arabia is to develop a unified vision of the Formula and to work out the possibilities of holding the future Global Peace Summit,” he said. “We need to restore world order, international law and establish a just peace based on the UN Charter and on Ukraine's terms.”
Peace plan: Zelensky presented Ukraine’s 10-point peace formula to world leaders at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, last year.
The steps include a path to nuclear safety, food security, a special tribunal for alleged Russian war crimes, and a final peace treaty with Moscow. He also urged G20 leaders to use all their power to “make Russia abandon nuclear threats” and implement a price cap on energy imported from Moscow.
Russia is not expected to attend the talks in Saudi Arabia.
CNN’s Irene Nasser and Josh Pennington contributed reporting to this post.
