Vanya should keep silent and believe in stars on the Kremlin

The recognition by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of the Ukrainian regiment “Azov” as a “terrorist organization” is legal nonsense, said the adviser to the head of the President’s Office Mykhailo Podolyak. According to him, such a decision is a purely internal propaganda product because it does not affect anything. “It sounds a little strange: a country that is one step away from being recognized as a sponsor of terrorism and which violates any rules and customs of war, recognizes someone as a terrorist organization,” Podolyak said

He also recalled that “Azov” is not a volunteer battalion but a separate special-purpose detachment as part of the 12th operational brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine. He also said that the Russian jurisdiction does not extend to the territory of Ukraine and to the actions of Ukrainian citizens to protect the state’s territorial integrity.

Russia will in any case, bear direct legal responsibility for the abuse of prisoners of war, particularly through the provocation of invalid and fake “judicial decisions”. Even if the Russian Federation needs these decisions purely for internal propaganda use” Podolyak wrote.

Democrats and Republicans too

The U.S. lawmakers called on the Secretary of State to designate the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism. The initiators of the resolution, both the Democrats and the Republicans, said they want to use all the possible instruments to end Russia’s war against Ukraine.

In response, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said such a move would lead to the termination of diplomatic relations with the United States.

OSCE no longer at the beck and call of Russia?

The presence of the OSCE in Ukraine will continue without the consent of Russia, Polish Foreign Minister, OSCE Chairman-in-Office Zbigniew Rau said.  The delegation, together with him and OSCE Secretary General Helga Maria Schmid, visited the martyr town Bucha.

At a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday, Rau assured that OSCE presence in Ukraine will now continue without Russian support, without Russian consensus or consent. This means that OSCE had to change the legal and financial mechanisms for conducting our activities, which means that OSCE created and ensured its presence in Ukraine, in Kyiv.

Rau said the OSCE is launching a large and ambitious program for Ukraine.  The OSCE is determined to stay on the ground and support Ukraine on its way to overcome a huge number of challenges, and help with post-war reconstruction. The OSCE will play an important role in these projects.

Olenovka: Access restricted so as to unrestrictedly remove traces of crimes

Andrii Yusov, a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, said that there is no reason to trust the lists of dead and wounded Ukrainian POWs from the temporarily captured Olenivka that were published by the Russians. 

Russians do not allow the representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to access a correctional facility in the occupied village of Olenivka, where Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed in explosion on the night of July 29, said Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets.

“Despite Russia’s claims that they had provided access for the representatives of the ICRC and the UN Monitoring Mission to the incident site in Olenivka, today I have received a response from the ICRC that no, they were not granted such access,” Lubinets told.

Prosecutor General Andrey Kostin called the reason for the massacre of prisoners of war in Olenovka. He said the preliminary findings of our international experts indicate that the cause of this murder or the method of this murder was a thermobaric weapon.

People waiting for breakfast and lunch, not for bellicose tam-tams

According to Ukrainian Marine Administration, approximately 68 foreign flagged vessels (without crew) with goods on board have been blocked at Ukrainian ports since Russia started its invasion. Two thirds of these goods are awaited all over the world.

Gases as a weapon to subdue capitals

In an interview with the Globe and Mail, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said: “I don’t want to deny that we have relied too long and too single-sidedly on energy supplies from Russia. Today we live in a different reality and we are quickly adjusting. We stopped coal imports from Russia, we will end oil imports by the end of this year. Gas is the toughest part, but the share of Russian gas in our imports has fallen rapidly, in only a few months from 55 per cent to 30 per cent. More steps will follow. In this context, we would welcome LNG supplies also from Canada.”

The Chancellor said Germany could have got supplies of natural gas from the Gazprom pipeline that runs through Ukraine, but did not avail itself of this option because it could have stepped into Putin’s trap. “Why would Russia deliver more gas through Ukraine? I don’t believe this would have happened. With the delivery of the turbine, we called [Vladimir] Putin’s bluff. He cannot use this pretext anymore and cite technical reasons for declining gas deliveries. It is a well-known playbook by now: Russia wanted to stop gas deliveries and blame our sanctions regime for the result”.

Symbols of ‘late” country no longer shine

Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine published a list of Russian toponyms recommended for renaming in the first place. The list includes ten surnames of Russian figures, the most common in Ukrainian toponymy.

First of all, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine proposes to rename urban objects named after cosmonauts Gagarin and Komarov, military men Suvorov and Matrosov, pilot Chkalov, scientist Michurin, as well as poets and writers Pushkin, Gorky, Lermontov and Mayakovsky.

According to the authors of the list, the lives and activities of these people “by and large have nothing to do with Ukraine, its history, science, and culture.”