Day 190 of the Invasion of Ukraine: Director of Lukoil Died after Falling from the 6th Floor of a Hospital

World » UKRAINE | September 1, 2022, Thursday // 12:00
Bulgaria: Day 190 of the Invasion of Ukraine: Director of Lukoil Died after Falling from the 6th Floor of a Hospital Ravil Maganov, chairman of the board of directors of "Lukoil"

Here are the highlights of events related to the war in Ukraine over the past 24 hours:

Zelensky called on the EU to stop Russian state media in Europe

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on the European Union to ban all Russian state television channels from its territory in order to limit the Russian propaganda that Europeans are exposed to.

He made the call during a remote speech at the Forum 2000 conference in Prague, which ran parallel to the informal meeting of European foreign ministers.

"Not a single Russian propaganda broadcaster should remain on the territory of the European Union. Not a single Russian state television channel should be allowed to operate on the territory of the European Union," Zelensky said.

The EU has already banned several Kremlin-linked Russian media outlets, including Russia Today (RT), RTR/RTR Planeta and Россия 24/Russia 24, under the first and sixth packages of sanctions imposed on Moscow over the war in Ukraine.

Zelensky was also the initiator of the demand that the EU stop issuing visas to Russian citizens in an attempt to pressure the Kremlin from the citizens to stop the war. As a result, on Wednesday, EU foreign ministers took a decision in principle to end the visa-relaxed regime with Russia, significantly reducing the number of Schengen visas issued. A complete ban is out of the question for now, as some countries do not agree.

The EU is suspending visa relief for Russians but not imposing a complete ban on entry

The EU is suspending the visa facilitation agreement with Russia but not a complete visa ban. This was announced by the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Peter Szijjarto.

"The European Union will suspend the agreement with Russia that eases the issuance of visas but there will not be a general ban on the issuance of visas, as there is no unanimity on this issue," Szijjarto said on Facebook.

He also announced that Hungary has signed an agreement with Russia's Gazprom for additional gas supplies from September 1.

Hungary, along with several other member states, opposed the Russian visa ban at a meeting of EU ministers in Prague.

"Several member states have raised their voice against this, including me," he added.

According to him, the agreement, which eases the issuance of visas, was decided to be suspended with the support of a qualified majority.

Eastern and Scandinavian countries strongly support the ban, while Germany and France have warned their counterparts it would be counterproductive, saying ordinary Russians should still be allowed access to the West.

The IAEA mission is expected to cross the front line near the Zaporizhzhia NPP

The International Atomic Energy Agency delegation to Ukraine, led by Director General Raphael Grossi, headed to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant despite the high risk of crossing the front line between Ukrainian and Russian forces.

To get there, the international team must cross the front line but IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said the inspectors had received safety assurances from both sides.

On his departure from the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, Grossi said he had been briefed this morning on recent military activity near the headquarters, including activity since this morning. However, he pointed out that the minimum conditions are in place to continue the execution of the mission and added:

"We will immediately begin the assessment of the security situation at the headquarters. We will contact and consult with the personnel there. I will assess the possibilities of establishing a permanent presence of the IAEA at the headquarters, which is absolutely necessary to stabilize the situation."

Ukrainian military intelligence said the route was being agreed on, emphasizing the sites damaged by shelling. The statement also states that the possibilities for the passage of the mission are constantly deteriorating due to the destructive actions by the occupation administration of the nearby town of Energodar.

In a televised interview, Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Glushchenko indicated that the issue of physically allowing the mission to the site should be resolved today but pointed out that a special pass was not needed, as Russian media claimed, and the only legal way to reach it was through the territory of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that heavy fighting continues in Donbas and criticized the European Union's decision not to impose a general ban on issuing visas to Russian citizens.

According to him, Europe is a territory of values, not of "primitive consumption".

"The goal of the unification of Europe was to maintain peace on the continent, to work for the peaceful and democratic development of European countries. Europe cannot become morally deaf, and none of the European leaders will note as a consequence of covid that money does not smell to them. If there is such deafness and loss of the ability to distinguish the smell of blood on bills, there will be no Europe, a peaceful Europe."

EU foreign ministers agreed to suspend the 2007 visa facilitation agreement with Russia but failed to agree on a general ban on Russian visas. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said the decision would not be without consequences.

The director of "Lukoil" died after falling from the 6th floor of a hospital

Ravil Maganov, chairman of the board of directors of "Lukoil", was found dead on the territory of the Central Clinical Hospital of the presidential administration. Investigators are working on the scene to determine the cause of his death.

According to information, he fell from the window of the Central Clinical Hospital in the western part of Moscow and died on the spot. This was reported to TASS by the law enforcement authorities.

"The incident took place around 07:00 a.m. Moscow time at the Central Clinical Hospital on Marshal Tymoshenko Street. The man fell from the window on the sixth floor and died as a result of his injuries. The reasons and circumstances of the incident are under investigation.

According to media reports, Ravil Maganov, chairman of the board of directors of the Lukoil oil company, was being treated at the hospital in question.

Russia has allegedly established 21 filtration camps in the Donetsk region

Russian forces have set up 21 filtration sites in Ukraine's Donetsk region and neighboring areas.

These locations were identified by a research laboratory team at the Yale School of Public Health in the United States, reported its member Nathaniel Raymond. He participated in a telephone briefing for journalists in Brussels.

A total of 4 activities are carried out in all or part of these facilities - registration, detention, re-interrogation and long-term detention.

The existence of these locations has been confirmed by independent confirmation from five different sources, making the probability too high, Raymond pointed out.

Separately, the Yale team identified another 7 locations whose existence did not require confirmation from as many sources.

Satellite photos were used in a number of cases. They played the biggest role in the identification of the prison in the city of Olenivka, also known as penal colony number 120 in Volochnaya. On July 29, there was an explosion or fire there, resulting in the death of 53 prisoners of war.

In two places in the same site, potential graves were detected by means of satellite images - once in April and July. Separately, a released prisoner of war told the Americans that at that time his cellmate was ordered to dig graves.

The American side has information that the filtration operations were monitored and directed by people from the Russian presidential administration, said Dr. Emma Gilligan, an associate professor of international studies at Indiana State University in Bloomington. According to her, Moscow uses modern technologies in the filtration processes, including to collect data on Ukrainian citizens.

However, it is difficult to establish the exact number of detainees in these filtration camps, answered Emma Gilligan to a journalist's question.

But the American side has evidence that certainly so far Russian forces have interrogated and forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens, including many children. These people were forcibly removed from their homes and relocated to Eastern Ukraine.

ISW on the Kherson operation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces: feints, deceptive maneuvers and Russian propaganda

Ukrainians and the West must not succumb to Russian information operations portraying the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kherson region as having failed almost instantly or portraying Ukraine as a helpless puppet of the Western masters who activated it at the time. This is what the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War ISW said in its daily report on the situation and fighting in Ukraine.

According to the report, the Russian Defense Ministry began conducting an information operation to portray Ukraine's counter-offensive as a resounding failure from the start after it was announced on August 29. Several prominent war bloggers—even bloggers who have historically been critical of the Kremlin—are promoting this message. Others further color the narrative that Ukraine's Western mentors pushed the country to launch a counteroffensive prematurely and/or too late for "political" reasons and because the West expected a counteroffensive.

"Military operations on the scale of this counteroffensive do not succeed or fail in a day or a week. Ukrainian officials have long acknowledged that they do not have the full mass of mechanized forces that would be needed to mount a blitzkrieg-like strike to destroy Russian defenses in the Kherson region, or anywhere else. Instead, they created the conditions for months by attacking and disrupting Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs), Russian command, and Russian logistics systems throughout southwestern occupied Ukraine. The timing of the start of the counteroffensive is consistent with the observed deterioration of Russian capabilities in the western part of the Kherson region, balanced with the need to begin the liberation of occupied Ukrainian lands and populations as soon as possible. There is no reason to suspect that the timing of the counteroffensive was significantly influenced by inappropriate considerations or tension," the ISW experts said in their analysis.

Forces that must conduct offensive operations without the numerical superiority normally required for success in such operations often rely on false signals and feints to divert the enemy from sectors of the line on which breakthrough and advance efforts will be concentrated. The art of such feints is twofold. First, they must be conducted with sufficient force to be plausible.

However, because they are feints rather than targeted attacks that are expected to succeed, they often look like failures - the attacking units will retreat when they feel they have convinced the enemy of their seriousness. Second, it takes time for them to have an effect. When the purpose of the feint is to withdraw the defender's forces from the planned breakthrough sectors, the attacker must wait until the defender actually moves his forces. Therefore, there is likely to be a delay between the initial feint operations and the start of decisive operations. During this delay, the situation may appear as if the attack has failed.

The Ukrainian military and government have repeated calls to avoid any announcements or predictions about the Ukrainian counteroffensive, a measure that is essential if the counteroffensive involves feints or deceptive maneuvers. Of course, it is possible that the counteroffensive could fail, that any particular failed breakthrough attempt was not a bluff, or that the Ukrainian military made some planning, scheduling, or execution error that would undermine the success of its operations. But the situation Ukraine finds itself in requires a cunning and nuanced counter-offensive operation with significant deceptive maneuvers and a careful and controlled offensive.

It is therefore much more likely, in these very early days that a successful counteroffensive will appear to have stalled or failed for some time before its success becomes apparent.

ISW and other analysts studying this war were cautious in declaring the culmination or defeat of major Russian offensive operations. ISW will apply the same caution and caution in assessing the progress of the Ukrainian counteroffensive and urges others to do the same.

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Tags: Ukraine, Russia, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson

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