Ukraine War | Zelensky seeks NATO guarantees for unoccupied Ukraine for peace

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www.theguardian.com

Life returns to Ukrainian reservoir drained by Russian strike on dam

A year later, animals, birds and saplings are populating a new landscape of ponds and lagoons
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
Standing in a scene of shimmering green, Vadym Maniuk pointed to a young white willow tree. “What happened here is a miracle,” he said. “Some of the saplings are already 4 metres tall. There is nowhere else like this on the planet. Not even the Amazon comes close.”

Maniuk, an ecologist, picked his way through a jungle of new branches. The sky above was scarcely visible. In the mud – cracked after days of sweltering temperatures – were the remains of molluscs. The scientist showed off black poplars, also racing upwards, reeds and a small mulberry. Under the leaves it was pleasantly cool.
Just over a year ago, the spot where Maniuk stood was under several metres of water. In the 1920s Stalin ordered the construction of a series of hydroelectric power stations along the Dnipro. The area between two of the dams – one in Zaporizhzhia, the other in Kakhovka – became a vast artificial lake.

This Soviet reservoir swallowed up ancient Cossack sites as well as vegetable gardens and grazing pastures used by generations of Ukrainian villagers as a source of food and fuel. The Kremlin promised modernity instead: electricity and irrigation for fields and collective farms across the southern region.
In 2022, with the USSR long gone, Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of independent Ukraine. The reservoir quickly became part of the frontline. Russian troops sat on the left bank, Ukrainian forces on the right. Then, in June 2023, Moscow blew up the Khakovka power plant downstream as Kyiv began a big counterattack.

The explosion released more than 14 cubic kilometres of water, flooded settlements and killed at least 35 people. Last month Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, described the destruction as a “deliberate and calculated crime”. In the immediate aftermath, the reservoir resembled an alien landscape, barren and desertlike.

Within a couple of months, however, the first green shoots appeared. “I visited in August last year. It was already bright green. I was in shock, in a good way,” Maniuk said. “Before, there was a lot of water. People didn’t use it much. Now it’s enthralling and full of life.”


The disastrous bursting of Ukraine’s Nova Kakhovka dam – and the battle that is to come
Read more
This week, Maniuk visited Malokaterynivka, a village once popular with fishers, on the railway line to Crimea. Its station closed when all-out war began. The Russians were about 10 miles away and smoke billowed in the distance. On the banks of the ex-reservoir are boulders and a white nacreous shore made up of dead molluscs, millions of them.

Beyond that, the forest begins. According to Maniuk, the canopy covers about 140,000 hectares, and looks similar to the primordial forest of 100,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. Russian soldiers have not entered it. “You can’t see anything. Anyone going inside would get lost. There are bogs and rivers,” he said.

In the absence of humans, animals and birds have taken up residence. A cuckoo and swallows flew above the treeline. A local shopkeeper, Karina, said she saw wild boar from her second-floor balcony. “Scientists say rebuilding the reservoir after Ukraine wins will cause a second ecocide. I’m more worried the boar will eat our vegetables,” she said.
 
Can't find a thread on the new boards about this conflict, so started one. Delete if warranted.

In Pivnichnoe (former Kirovo) Russian forces have most of the buildings. There's still some mopping up to go, but the assault on Toretsk proper is probably about to begin.

Ukrainian defenses around Toretsk are crumbling. It looks like Ukrainian forces inside Novogorodskoe are at threat of encirclement as Russian troops pushed through and took the hill in the west, that has the school on it. Ukrainian forces are withdrawing from the positions along the old front line east of Novogorodskoe.

At the same time, UA has launched a cross-border attack into Kursk region. The scale is only btln strength, but might relieve some pressure. Regardless, the UA is running low on both men and material.
 
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They took delivery of the F-16s. Wonder what difference, if any, those might make.
 
Yeah, it was called Putin invades Ukraine or something like that, but didn't get a lot of traction, so no reason not to start a new one.
 


Anyway, so far the F-16s seem to be more about the initial burst of propaganda. I do recall that Russia was trying to preemptively damage the airfields they were most likely to be able to use.
 
Anyway, lots of reports of extensive action inside Ukraine fronts today, but still too garbled to know for sure what is going on.

 
On PackPride (ewww) their Brickyard (like our old ZZLP and ZZL combined), there exists an excellent ongoing thread pinned at the top about the Ukraine war.

I know, its PP. Just stick to the Brickyard and that thread, lots of excellent information on a daily basis. There are a lot military people on there who know their stuff.
 
nycfan said:


Anyway, so far the F-16s seem to be more about the initial burst of propaganda. I do recall that Russia was trying to preemptively damage the airfields they were most likely to be able to use.
Click to expand...

What they need is integrated air defense with the ability to strike targets in Russia that originate attacks. That and about 800,000 more 155.
 
Kingpin said:
On PackPride (ewww) their Brickyard (like our old ZZLP and ZZL combined), there exists an excellent ongoing thread pinned at the top about the Ukraine war.

I know, its PP. Just stick to the Brickyard and that thread, lots of excellent information on a daily basis. There are a lot military people on there who know their stuff.
Click to expand...
Good thread there on PP. Battboy was banned there for criticizing Michael Mackay (still think he might be a Russian plant) so I have to post under one of my aliases.
 
“…
The assault, which began on Tuesday into the Kursk region of western Russia, appeared to have resulted in heavy fighting, according to images from the battlefield verified by independent military analysts and Russian statements. Russia’s defense ministry said midday on Wednesday that the fighting was continuing.

Videos verified by The New York Times showed armored vehicles being struck several miles inside Russia, and Moscow said it had rushed troops and fighter jets to respond. Russia’s defense ministry said its forces had “prevented the enemy from advancing deep into the territory of the Russian territory,” while pro-Kremlin military bloggers said Ukrainian forces had captured several settlements near the border.

The various reports could not be independently verified, and the Ukrainian authorities have not commented on the assault. Two spokesmen for the Ukrainian army did not immediately respond to requests for comment. …”
 
Russia continues to collapse the Rabotino salient. Looks like UA is using Shadows in Kursk.
 
I assume the ground incursions was a Doolittle raidesque propaganda move?
 
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