Facts about the Zaporozhye NPP

🔘 Sources of Ukrainian energy:
nuclear energy — 64%
natural gas — 16%
coal and peat — 8 %
oil, petroleum products — 3 %
other — 0.5 %

ZNPP produces 25% of all Ukrainian electricity, it is the largest in Europe

The decision to build a nuclear power plant was made by the USSR Council of Ministers in 1977. It was an All-Union Komsomol construction site.

Three nuclear power plant reactors have been unusable for a long time - Ukraine did not have enough money for repairs.

From azmilitary

According to reports, Erdogan brought an impressive delegation with him to the talks in Kiev.

He is accompanied by the heads of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Defense, Intelligence, the Department of Defense Industry and Baykar Makina

Retired Brazilian Army General Santos Cruz was chosen by the UN (in fact, by his fellow countryman and American protégé, UN Secretary General Guterres) as the head of the mission to establish the facts of the shelling of the pre-trial detention center in Yelenovka on July 29th.

The general, who is in Brazil, commented on this choice with words of pride for the trust placed in him.

Turkey will take part in the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine. The corresponding memorandum was signed today by the head of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine Oleksandr Kubrakov and the Minister of Trade of Turkey Mehmet Mus.

As the first project, the restoration of the bridge in the village of Romanovka, Kyiv region, connecting Bucha and Irpen with the capital, is being considered.

Possibility of peace in Ukraine was discussed only for 11 minutes. Kiev rejected all peace initiatives by Guterres. Erdogan did not take part in this discourse, although the protocol service agreed in advance that all statements regarding Moscow and Kiev would be made personally by him.

Bayraktar signed a new agreement under guarantees from Germany for the supply of 120 drones over the next 6 months, and also discussed the allocation of a future EU tranche to the Ukraine Recovery Fund, which will finance the restoration of Ukraine's infrastructure.

In addition to Turkish developers, Ukraine’s true patriots from Israel Kolomoisky and Abramovich will participate in the restoration of Ukraine, as well as Fridman and Aven, who since July have acquired 100% shares in large development companies close to the Erdogan family.

By obrazbuduschego.

❗️🇷🇺🇺🇦 Highlights of Russian Military Operation in Ukraine on August 18, 2022

▪️Russian Armed Forces struck targets in Kharkiv including “Sirko Team” formation's base in Palace of Culture “Zalizhnychnyk”.

▪️AFU shelled Izyum again using butterfly mines and 155-mm western-made shells.

▪️At abandoned Ukrainian positions in the forest area near Izyum, Russian servicemen found a grave of several women executed by AFU.

▪️Russian artillery carried out massive strikes against AFU's 95th Air Assault Brigade near Mazanivka, where fighting continues in the nearest forests.

▪️AFU shelled the area of the hospital in Svitlodars'k. Two civilians were killed, including a 14-year-old boy. Another 12 people were injured.

▪️Russian Aerospace Forces and cannon and rocket artillery hit the concentrations of manpower and equipment in AFU strongholds in Avdiivka and Nevel's'ke.

▪️In Zaporizhzhia direction, Russian Armed Forces struck Ukrainian positions near Orikhiv, the Vasylivskyi and Shevchenkivskyi districts.

🇬🇧🇺🇦 Destruction of the Ukrainian firing position by Russian artillery

A self-propelled artillery battalion of one of the formations of the Russian airborne troops is conducting a counter-battery fight in the offensive zone.

In the video, the Orlan-10 drone spotted a disguised howitzer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in a forest plantation, which fired at the positions of the Russian Armed Forces. After receiving the coordinates, the calculation of the 120-mm self-propelled guns "Nona-S" fired a volley and accurately hit the target: the frames show the scattering of parts of the equipment and the detonation of ammunition.

In the absence of self-propelled mortars and wheelbase installations in airborne units, the old, but time-tested Nona-S is still the main mobile means of artillery support for paratrooper formations.

Translated from Rybar.

From Russian MOD for today:

▫️1 Tochka-U ballistic missile near Yubileynoye, 12 shells of HIMARS multiple-launch rocket system near Novaya Kakhovka in Kherson Region, 2 shells of multiple-launch rocket system near Topol'skoye and Suligovka in Kharkov Region, and 2 US-made anti-radar missiles near Alchevsk and Stakhanov in Lugansk People's Republic have been intercepted.

Well, it looks like Russian air defence is getting from good/satisfactory to very good. If I understand correctly, the whole packet of 12 HIMARS projectiles had been taken down before it reached its target, and if you were following the news, you would understand, that the target was the bridge in Kakhovka near the dam.
#TransFormator

President of the Republic of Belarus Lukashenko on whether Belarus will enter the war:

“Don’t think that I’m planning some kind of attack here, we’ll bomb Ukraine from the territory of Belarus and so on. I have no desire for your and my children to fight. In the name of what? We need to calm down. No Ukraine is at war today, the entire NATO bloc and America, first of all, are at war with Russia"

👍💤

Over the past ten weeks, the German government has ignored Ukraine's requests for additional arms supplies - Die Welt.

It is reported that during this time the Ukrainian side has repeatedly asked Germany to increase the supply of those weapons that the country had previously provided, but they refused, arguing that the Bundeswehr itself needs the remaining equipment, since Germany must fulfill its obligations to the alliance on the eastern flank of NATO.

Governments, including Washington, lie to their own people

Virtually everything the George W. Bush administration claimed to justify its disastrous invasion of Iraq was false. Prior administrations and their allies shared fake atrocities to back earlier military interventions against Yugoslavia and Iraq. The Reagan administration made a series of unfounded statements after the U.S. shoot-down of the Iranian airliner in the Persian Gulf in 1988. And the Johnson administration used spurious claims of a North Vietnamese attack on U.S. forces to win passage of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which authorized deployments that metastasized into the Vietnam War, in which 58,000 Americans died.

Ukraine has treated information as an independent battleground. Little that it says publicly can be relied upon uncritically. Fake stories of heroism and unconfirmed Russian casualty counts have been among Kiev’s most important strategies. This is unsurprising, but it is critical that U.S. policymakers ground their decisions in reality, not the talking points coming from Kiev.

The agreement among Washington and European capitals seems to be that Kiev will decide how long to fight and for what objective, that nothing will be decided about Ukraine without Ukraine in the room, and that whatever Kiev believes to be necessary will be provided by the U.S. and Europe.

But Washington's responsibility is to make policy in the interests of the American people. Washington should not turn those decisions over to another government, but unfortunately, it does so frequently. In the late 1980s, for example, ethnic Albanians successfully lobbied to drag the U.S. into the guerrilla war raging in Kosovo, then part of Serbia. During the 1990s, Americans of Eastern European descent spurred the disastrous policy of expanding NATO up to Russia’s borders, violating numerous assurances made to Moscow. President Joe Biden’s recent trip to the Middle East demonstrated that Democrats as well as Republicans are willing to allow Saudi Arabia and Israel to control U.S. policy in the region.

Read more here
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/who-is-winning-the-russo-ukrainian-war/

An attempt to hit Evpatoria on video. Our air defense did a great job.
But over the past nine days, a total of about ten military infrastructure facilities have been attacked. The depth of strikes is up to 120 km deep into our territory. A significant part are unconditionally enemy subotage groups with their own drones. But too much and in such a short time. I am not a military expert, but questions arise. Do the Armed Forces of Ukraine have some kind of weapon capable of delivering strikes deep into our territory?
I think time will answer this question.

Translated from Oleg Tzarev

⚠️ Contrary to claims made by the Ukrainian Ministry of Education, there has been no centralised preparation of the educational process in the regions.

▫️Responsibility for the content and forms of education belongs to the regional and municipal structures of the respective profile, as well as directly to the administrations of the educational institutions. Without access to a educational base, deprived of the opportunity to hold classes, most Ukrainian schools and universities simply cannot function.

▫️Kiev plans to organise the educational process in five forms: full-time, distance, family, mixed and external courses. It is noteworthy that there are no plans to introduce full-time education in any of the regions. This is due to the large number of children who have left Ukraine as refugees.

▫️Meanwhile, the Western and Ukrainian media mislead the international community by claiming that students' attendance at schools and universities is hindered by "indiscriminate strikes" allegedly carried out by the Russian Armed Forces against civilian infrastructure.

❗️In fact, in the central and eastern regions of the country, in violation of all norms of international law and common human ethics, the facilities of virtually all educational institutions are used to house AFU units, mercenaries and nationalists, ammunition depots, headquarters, communication points and other military facilities. This fact was also documented in a report by Amnesty International.

▫️The Kiev regime and its Western sponsors bear full responsibility for yet another crime against the people of Ukraine. By depriving children of knowledge, they deprive them of their future.

📑 More

#MoD #Russia #Ukraine #HumanitarianResponse #HumanitarianAid
@mod_russia_en

Residents of Sevastopol report "pops" from the Black Sea. Presumably, the air defense system worked.
The Governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhaev, confirmed that the air target was shot down.

Well done to the air defense!
#TransFormator

Sevastopol, air defense is working.

Russian Defense Ministry: three MiG-31 aircraft with "Kinzhal" hypersonic missiles have been deployed to the Kaliningrad region as part of additional strategic deterrence measures.

Their round-the-clock combat duty will be organized.

Ukraine is loosing support of one of the allies

Hard times are the test of true friendship. As Ukraine keeps the world's enmity stubbornly fixed on Russia despite the war's economic consequences, one of its staunchest self-declared allies is stealthily breaking ranks by failing to deliver weapons as it promised. Spain, an otherwise NATO-delinquent outpost a continent away from the battlefront, seems to have mastered the art of hot-air diplomacy: pledge generously and deliver scantily. With allies like this, who needs enemies?

Read more here
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraines-shoddiest-supplier-opinion-1734936

USA are raising stakes

20/08 - RIA Novosti, Andrey Kots

Washington approved another $800 million military aid package for Kyiv. And they made it clear that they allowed Ukraine to use American weapons to strike at Crimea. This was reported against the background of several attacks on the peninsula. About what the escalation may turn read in the material of RIA Novosti:

Drone attack

News from the United States almost coincided with an attempt to bombard the Belbek military airfield - using a drone. In addition, on the night of August 19, air defense systems near the Kerch bridge went off.
At the end of July, a drone filled with shrapnel exploded over the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. Miraculously, there were no casualties, but the celebrations on the occasion of the Navy Day in the city were canceled. The Ukrainian media, in turn, widely disseminated the news.

What copters were used is not clear yet. We can also talk about commercial drones, converted for military needs. The Armed Forces of Ukraine also have specialized American systems in their arsenal. First of all, these are the Switchblade 300 and Switchblade 600 loitering ammunition. Washington provided Kyiv with at least 700 UAVs of this type.

The first, weighing just over 2.5 kilograms, is placed in a regular military raid backpack. The flight range of the ammunition is up to ten kilometers, the power of the warhead is equivalent to a 40-mm shot of an automatic grenade launcher. Cruising speed - 100 kilometers per hour, for observation and guidance - day and night cameras.
The anti-tank Switchblade 600 is larger and heavier - 23 kilograms. It hits targets at a distance of up to 40 kilometers. The warhead is like the Javelin ATGM. According to the Americans, this weapon is effective against any modern armored vehicles if it strikes from above. However, they can also hit field fortifications. It is designed for mass use at the tactical depth of the enemy defense.

Of course, the Armed Forces of Ukraine also have more serious strike UAVs, for example, the Turkish Bayraktar TB2. However, Ankara did not approve of their combat use in the Crimea.

Missile threat

The American representatives remained silent about what is happening on the peninsula. However, a senior US official, who wished to remain anonymous, made it clear to Politico that Washington was not opposed to the strikes.
“We do not choose targets, of course, everything we set is for self-defense. Any target that is chosen on the territory of Ukraine is, by definition, self-defense. Crimea is Ukraine,” he said.
Of what has already been brought in, the most dangerous artillery. And if the M777 howitzers are unlikely to reach off from Ukrainian positions, then the HIMARS and M270 MLRS multiple launch rocket systems are capable of this. But only in the presence of ATACMS tactical missiles with a range of up to 300 kilometers.

Earlier, the United States has publicly said more than once that they are not going to supply such ammunition to Ukraine. However, the rhetoric is gradually changing. In particular, the former commanders of NATO forces in Europe, Philip Breedlove and Wesley Clark, as well as the former head of the US military contingent in Europe, Ben Hodges, demanded that Biden give Kyiv ATACMS. American retirees call Crimea a potential target for these missiles.
In addition, Harpoon anti-ship missiles can theoretically reach the peninsula. How many of them the APU has is unknown. They can hit both surface and ground targets. The range of some modifications is 280 kilometers, that is, they reach the western coast of Crimea from near Odessa.

"The United States is taking off its masks. The statement about the strikes shows that the confrontation between NATO and Russia was prepared with an eye on the peninsula. Suffice it to recall the exercises of the Armed Forces of Ukraine together with NATO, which were served under the sauce of "repelling aggression from Crimea." This happened from 2019 to 2021 ", - explains military political scientist Alexander Perendzhiev.

Read also here

Continuation from above ⬆️

"Come back like a boomerang"

The authorities of the peninsula urged not to rush to conclusions. "All their aggressive plans will hit them like a boomerang, only with a much stronger impact and irreparable consequences," said Oleg Kryuchkov, adviser to the head of Crimea on information policy.

In addition, it is no secret that a deep-echeloned air defense system with long-range, medium-range and short-range anti-aircraft missile systems is deployed in the region. It is covered by powerful radars: if a small-sized plastic quadrocopter still has at least some chances (despite the rather small charge on board), then a four-meter ballistic missile is visible at a glance.
In addition, the Harpoons, created in the 1970s, are outdated, and modern air defense systems can easily cope with them.

Long-range ATACMS is a more difficult target. However, Russian anti-aircraft gunners have already gotten the hand of shooting down Ukrainian Tochka-U, which fly along a similar, rather predictable trajectory.
Nevertheless, the Ukrainian authorities continue to pour out threats, including "strike on the Kerch bridge."
“Crimea has been repeatedly called a large aircraft carrier. The Crimean bridge is under the tireless control of the air defense system. The passage is controlled, and the bridge itself is as stable as possible,” explains Vladimir Bobkov, vice speaker of the Crimean parliament.
It is unlikely that "anyone will want to test it for strength," he is sure.

His self confidence is commendable; however, underestimating the enemy is another typical situation.
#TransFormator

Translated from RIA Novosti
https://ria.ru/20220820/oruzhie-1810804489.html

A drone flew into the roof of the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol.

This was stated by the Governor of Sevastopol. "Unfortunately, he was not shot down, although small arms were working above the bay. Was passing very low. There are no victims".

Obviously, the strikes are symbolic - just to show that the Armed Forces of Ukraine can reach our decision-making centers. There were no casualties from the impact, the roof was damaged at the headquarters, a fire broke out. Judging by the video, the Armed Forces of Ukraine used UAVs of their own design PD-1, which is produced by UkrSpecSystems. Flight range up to 450 km.

Chinese "army" of robots are performing synchronized exercises - this is the World Robotics Conference in Beijing.
#China