Serbian President Alexander Vucic on Aug. 8 backed Ukraine's bid for EU membership on the second day of President Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to the country.

"We want Ukraine to open all clusters as soon as possible, to close them as soon as possible. We have already said that this is the wish of the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian leadership, and as far as we are concerned, we have not had or will not have any problem with that in the future," Vucic said.

Euromaidan and prospect of greater integration with the west was a major factor in Russia starting their war against Ukraine in 2014. I'm a bit surprised to see this given the historically close relationship between Serbia and Russia, but imo this is a good sign for Ukraine's future.

Alexey Korshenko, the former head of the business aviation terminal at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, was found dead in his apartment, The Moscow Times reported on July 21.

The facility serviced Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane before its fatal 2023 crash.

The 57-year-old former executive was found hanged on the balcony of his Moscow residence on June 6, with Russian investigators treating the incident as a suspected suicide.

...

When a replacement component imported from the United States proved damaged, a local firm supplied an alternative unit in which an explosive device may have been planted, intelligence alleged.

The Moscow Times noted that the supplier firm, Protector, is linked through its owner to figures associated with organized crime and Russian intelligence-adjacent networks. On the morning of the departure, representatives of a separate aviation company also inspected Prigozhin’s jet under the pretext of a prospective purchase.

Following the crash, Russian transport security officials dispatched to inspect the terminal were denied access to security camera footage and documentation, with FSB officers immediately seizing the aircraft’s inspection report, the outlet reported.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/56342302

...

To outsiders, some of Russia’s actions can be difficult to recognize because they are often described in official language that sounds humanitarian or routine.

During the first months of the invasion, Russian forces removed many children from orphanages, residential institutions and other forms of state care, transferring many into Russia or Russian-controlled territory.

Other children were separated from parents or relatives during attacks on their communities, chaotic evacuations and Russia’s “filtration” process – a system of screenings and interrogations used to control civilians fleeing occupied areas.

Once under Russian control, many Ukrainian children were transferred into Russian institutions or placed under guardianship or adopted, making reunification with their families increasingly difficult.

Words used by Russia to describe its actions, such as “evacuation,” “child protection,” “recreation camp,” “guardianship,” “foster care” and “adoption,” usually suggest that adults are protecting children.

In occupied Ukraine, these terms cannot be taken at face value. They must be understood within a system of coercion designed to separate children from their families, communities and Ukrainian identity.

The language of rescue can conceal the reality of coercion.

...

Russia’s strategy extends beyond physically removing children from Ukraine. It also seeks to reshape the lives of those who remain under occupation.

Over time, Russian schools, laws and public institutions reinforce the message that these children are Russian rather than Ukrainian, making that identity feel normal and permanent. Children sent to so-called “recreation,” “health” or educational camps inside Russia often experience the same process, as temporary stays are extended and return becomes increasingly difficult.

The goal is not simply to control territory but to influence how children understand themselves.

Russian authorities have portrayed Ukraine as an artificial nation and Ukrainians and Russians as “one people.” Children are especially important to that project of erasing Ukrainians’ independent identity because they carry a nation’s language, family history, citizenship and future. As they grow older, many are also pulled into an expanding system of military-patriotic education that presents service to Russia as a civic duty.

...

Oleksandra Matviichuk, chair of Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties, which was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, [said] that one obstacle to an effective international response is a “lack of imagination.” People living in stable societies can find it difficult to believe that a government could invade another country, occupy its territory and attempt to erase the identity of its children.

But that is happening now.

...

Web Archive link

https://mod.gov.ua/en/news/total-russian-combat-losses-in-ukraine-as-of-august-7-2026

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/57237859

Archived

Former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland said Beijing’s new law claiming the right to prosecute people and organizations anywhere in the world for undermining its “ethnic unity” reminds her of the rationale Vladimir Putin used to justify his 2022 military assault on Ukraine.

Speaking this week at a security forum in Taiwan, she called on democratic countries to unequivocally push back against China’s ethnic unity law.

Taiwan, a self-governing democracy, lives under threat of invasion from China. Beijing claims Taiwan as a breakaway province and has not ruled out the use of force to annex the island and its 24 million people in the name of “reunification.” Taiwanese officials have said the sovereignty and security provisions in the new Chinese law hand Beijing an additional legal pretext for targeting people in Taiwan it regards as separatists.

Ms. Freeland, who served as deputy prime minister and finance minister under Justin Trudeau and then minister for transport and internal trade under Prime Minister Mark Carney, delivered a keynote address Tuesday to the Ketagalan Forum, ... said parts of China’s new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, which took effect July 1, mirror the rationale Mr. Putin deployed before launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

[...]

The section of the law Ms. Freeland is criticizing states that individuals and organizations outside China can be held legally responsible for acts that “undermine ethnic unity and progress or create ethnic division.” It doesn’t define what this means in practice, leaving broad scope for interpretation by Beijing, critics have warned.

[...]

Ms. Freeland pointed to an essay Mr. Putin published in the summer of 2021 arguing that Russians and Ukrainians were “one people.” Seven months later, Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine, she noted.

“The lesson of history is clear,” she said, adding that democracies “must not mince their words about this legislation.” She said governments need to state plainly that a foreign law assigning political loyalty on the basis of ethnicity “has no force on our territories and no application to our citizens, whatever their ancestry, whatever their passport, wherever they or their parents were born.”

[...]

The former politician cited the West’s muted response to Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia and its 2014 seizure of Crimea, arguing that pattern of condemnation followed by business as usual convinced Mr. Putin that democracies would not back Ukraine if he invaded outright.

“We taught Putin to believe we would not have the resolve to support Ukraine,” she said. “I wish even more fervently that he had never made that miscalculation.”

[...]

Ms. Freeland said democratic allies of Taiwan need to speak out against any disruption to the status quo in the region.

“The peace of the Strait of Taiwan will be kept by the plainness with which the world’s democracies say in advance that we will not accept that peace being broken,” she said.

“That is why solidarity with Taiwan and recognition of your flourishing democracy is so important,” she told the forum.

[...]

😜Окреме привітання міноборони рф!

Цього разу «герої» з так званого міністерства оборони рф вирішили провести чергову «закриту» нараду з бюджетних питань. До дзвінка дружно підключилася вся ця зграя з російського оборонно промислового комплексу — представники «Воєнторгу», «Воєнтелекому», «Оборонлогістики», а також керівники оборонних заводів та ремонтних підприємств.

Зібралося це кодло, щоб у звичному режимі обговорити, як зручніше дерибанити черговий мільярд, але сеанс схематозу раптово перервався. Завдяки цьому ефіру вдалося повністю ідентифікувати всіх посадовців та дізнатися про кожну задіяну контору. Після чого їм популярно пояснили: українські дрони без проблем долітають до будь-якого об'єкта ВПК, тож зовсім скоро там палатиме геть усе.

Вдома на них чекає тюрма від своїх же, а від СБУ — справедлива та неминуча розплата. Ефект виявився миттєвим — можете самі подивитися, як ці «стратеги» та кабінетні пацюки зловили колективну тривогу й почали гарячково вимикатися з конференції один за одним. Ховатися пізно, гниди. Ми бачимо кожну вашу нараду, фіксуємо кожну перелякану фізіономію і знаємо кожен рахунок, де ви ховаєте крадені гроші.

Чекайте на нові сюрпризи. Далі буде. Слава ЗСУ!

https://t.me/prankota_ch/36652

https://t.me/exilenova_plus/28287

The greater awareness of this before russia inevitably tries it, the more this backfires on russia. If everyone knows this is coming than it becomes some weird violent admission by russia that Ukrainian drones are better and no fight between enemies of russia occurs.

"We want to live like human beings," — residents of an occupied Zaporizhzhia village complained that they have been living without electricity and water for two months. They were accused of an unauthorized rally

Residents of the village of Balky in the Vasylivka district of Zaporizhzhia region recorded a video appeal with signs reading "Nothing and no one will be left here without water and light!!!" and "We have been without water and light for more than two months."

The video was recorded on Monday, August 3, village residents told ASTRA. After that, security forces began coming to the homes of those who participated in the appeal.

"Police are now visiting everyone who was in the video, demanding a written explanation. The video probably reached higher authorities," one resident told ASTRA.

In addition, an administrative protocol for an unauthorized rally was drawn up against at least one female participant in the video appeal.

"People came out to reach the higher authorities, since the local authorities are not responding. And now the police and the administration are coming to these people, threatening them. How are we supposed to be, how are we supposed to live? There are a lot of pensioners, disabled people, and small children here," another resident complained in a conversation with ASTRA.

Apparently, so far only the security forces have responded to the video appeal. "So far the result is zero — as it was, so it remains," a villager told ASTRA.

There has been no water or electricity in Balky since May 21, people complain. They have to buy water at their own expense and live with generators. The authorities have not organized water delivery. Moreover, there is no water not only in Balky — almost the entire Kamianka-Dniprovska district remains without electricity, including the villages of Novodniprovka, Blahovishchenka, Podove, Novovodyane, Ivanivka, Hourtove, Tsvitkov, Dniprovka, and Vodyane.

On August 6, Balitsky, the head of the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region appointed by the Russian authorities, stated that the issue of restoring the power supply grid was under "special control." According to him, a key energy facility was damaged. He also wrote that he instructed the "heads" of municipal formations to "step up" work on water delivery.

Earlier, the Unmanned Systems Forces of Ukraine reported 200 energy facilities struck in the occupied territories over the past month.

Before this, ASTRA wrote about how deceived residents of occupied Mariupol who were left without property and recorded appeals to the "Direct Line" with Putin were summoned to the police and issued warnings about extremist activity.

https://t.me/astrapress/121456

https://mod.gov.ua/en/news/total-russian-combat-losses-in-ukraine-as-of-august-6-2026