According to Kyiv, a new nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine is under fire.
The Russian Air Force is apparently coming under pressure.
News ticker on the military situation in the Ukraine war.
Ukraine
reports from
the south of the country
: Putin's military is bombing another nuclear power plant site
Resistance
against
Putin's occupiers
: Selenskyj announces new offensive
Success
for
counter-offensive
in the
north-east
: according to Ukrainian data, Ukrainian troops were able to cross the Oskil River.
Russia's tactics of attrition
: According to the British secret service, Moscow is using long-range missile attacks to demoralize the Ukrainians.
This
news ticker
on the military situation in the
Ukraine war
is continuously updated.
Update from September 19, 12:44 p.m
.: According to British estimates, the Russian Air Force is increasingly under pressure in the war against Ukraine.
In the past ten days, Russia has apparently lost four fighter jets and thus a total of 55 machines since the attack began in late February.
This was announced by the Ministry of Defense in London, citing intelligence findings.
The spike in casualties may be partly due to the Russian Air Force taking greater risks to provide close-range support to ground forces under pressure from Ukrainian advances, it said.
Added to this is the poor situational awareness of Russian pilots.
Some planes got into denser air defense zones because of the fast-moving front over Ukrainian-controlled territory.
"Russia's ongoing lack of air superiority remains one of the key factors underpinning the fragility of its operational design in Ukraine," the ministry said.
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A MiG-29 fighter jet (exact classification not known) during an exercise in Moscow (archive photo from 2010)
© RIA Novosti/Anton Denisov/dpa
Ukraine reports: Putin's military is bombing another nuclear power plant site
Update from September 19, 10:29 a.m
.: The Ukrainian power plant operator Energoatom has accused Russia of shelling the site of another nuclear power plant during the night.
It is the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant around 100 kilometers from the city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine.
There was a "violent explosion" just 300 meters from the reactors, Energoatom wrote on Telegram.
According to the operator, the force of the explosion shattered around a hundred windows in the plant, and three high-voltage lines had to be switched off for a short time.
"The three reactors are currently in regular operation," assured Energoatom.
Also, no people were harmed.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also blamed Russia for the explosion.
“Russia endangers the entire world.
We have to stop it before it's too late," Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram.
He also provided black and white surveillance video of a heavy detonation.
Resistance against Putin's occupiers: Zelenskyj announces new offensive
Update from September 19, 9:49 a.m
.: Volodymyr Zelenskyj has announced a new offensive against the Russian occupiers.
"Perhaps it seems to some of you that after a series of victories there has been silence, but it is not silence," the Ukrainian president said in his recent video address.
The goal: the reconquest of Mariupol, Melitopol and Cherson.
According to Zelenskyy, Ukraine will not only focus on the areas it controlled before the Russian attack in February.
The territories of the Moscow-backed separatists in the east of the country and cities in the annexed Crimea would also be recaptured: "Because all of Ukraine must be free."
Update from September 19, 7:59 a.m
.: What tactics is Russia currently pursuing in Ukraine?
Following Ukraine's recent military successes in the east of the country, this is the subject of international debate.
While the British secret service wants to monitor attrition tactics in Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War, or ISW for short, from the USA is looking at the recruitment of new soldiers in Russia.
In an assessment, the ISW assumes that Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly ignoring military decision-making processes and is instructing new strategies himself.
This also means that more and more volunteer and poorly trained soldiers are being recruited instead of relying on well-trained soldiers.
According to some sources, prison inmates, security forces and men from the currently conquered areas in Donetsk and Luhansk are also coming into military service.
All of this would lead to further confusion and uncoordinated operations.
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Destroyed Russian tank after the counter offensive.
© Uncredited/dpa
The recruits are sometimes poorly paid because they are sometimes promised bonuses for kilometers advanced, but Russia is currently in retreat in many places.
In addition, combat morale among soldiers from the conquered Ukrainian territories is said to be poor, and recruited prison inmates are more likely to use violence, including rape.
For the Kherson region, the paper predicts a more controlled withdrawal than recently in the Kharkiv region.
Ukraine-News: Zelenskyj announces further offensives in the east: "All of Ukraine must be free"
Update from September 19, 6:06 a.m
.: After the recent military successes, Ukraine is planning further offensives in the east: Selenskyj announced new attacks on the area in Ukraine occupied by Russian troops.
"Perhaps it seems to some of you that after a series of victories there has been silence, but it is not silence," Zelenskyy said in his daily video address on Sunday.
Rather, it is the preparation for the next offensive, the aim of which is the recapture of Mariupol, Melitopol and Cherson.
According to Zelenskyy, Ukraine will not only focus on the areas it controlled before the Russian attack in February.
The 44-year-old announced that the territories of the Moscow-backed separatists in the east of the country and cities in Crimea, which had been annexed by Russia since 2014, would also be recaptured.
"Because all of Ukraine must be free."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Apparently another success for Ukraine in counter-offensive in the north-east - troops cross over on the river Oskil
Update from September 18, 9:42 p.m .:
The Ukrainian armed forces have apparently had another success in their counter-offensive in the north-east of the country.
According to their own statements, the military was able to cross troop units on the Oskil River and thus formed a bridgehead for further action to the east.
“The Ukrainian forces have overcome the Oskil.
Since yesterday, Ukraine has also controlled the left bank," the press office of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on Sunday via video on its Telegram channel.
Earlier there were reports that Kyiv had secured control of the eastern part of the city of Kupyansk.
The information cannot be verified independently.
The video shows a tank crossing the river and being greeted on the other bank by Ukrainian soldiers.
In their counter-offensive at the beginning of September, the Ukrainian forces in the Kharkov region advanced as far as the Oskil.
Behind, retreating Russian troops established a new front line and repelled several attempts by Ukrainians to cross the river.
Establishing a beachhead on the east side of the Oskil would be a strategically important achievement for Ukrainian troops.
This would allow them to continue their attack towards the Luhansk region.
Ukraine-News: Ministry of Defense gives new figures on Russian losses
Update from September 18, 7:05 p.m .:
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense published new figures on Russian losses in the Ukraine war on Sunday.
54,480 Russian soldiers are said to have been killed since the beginning of the war.
The authority announced this via Twitter.
In addition to the numerous losses among the soldiers, Russia is said to have lost 2210 tanks and 1309 artillery pieces.
However, the figures cannot currently be independently verified.
Moscow keeps the information on the actual losses covered.
“Who dares, wins.
Who sweats, wins.
Who plans, wins.”
British Special Air Service (SAS)
Total combat losses of the enemy from Feb 24 to Sep 18: pic.twitter.com/8FyctfSNLA
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) September 18, 2022
Confusion about fighting in Kherson - Kyiv and Moscow with mutual finger pointing
Update from September 18, 4:45 p.m .:
After videos of fighting in the strategically important city of Cherson in southern Ukraine were published, Moscow and Kiev blame each other for the attacks.
"In the center of Kherson there was a clash between (...) Russian forces (...) and an unidentified group of people," the Russian-appointed administration in Kherson said later in the evening on the Telegram messenger service.
After a brief skirmish, the attackers were "destroyed".
On Sunday morning, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian army said the shots and explosions in Kherson were "provocations by the (Russian) occupying forces".
She had already warned that Russian provocations were planned "between September 17 and 20 in the south" of Ukraine in order to "damage the image of the Ukrainian armed forces".
Cherson is the declared target of a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the south.
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Ukrainian soldiers ride on an armored vehicle near the town of Izyum.
© JUAN BARRETO/AFP
Mass graves in Izyum - work will continue for weeks
Update from September 18, 3:42 p.m
.: According to the local mayor, work on the mass graves in Izyum near Kharkiv will continue for two weeks.
Valerii Marchenko told the
Kyiv Independent
on Sunday that there were still many graves whose dead had to be recovered.
Meanwhile, up to ten ships are expected to leave the port of Odessa in southern Ukraine on Sunday.
According to the
Kyiv Independent
, they are said to be heading for African, European and Asian countries, with 169,000 tons of agricultural goods on board.
attrition tactics?
British intelligence: Russia steps up attacks on civilian Ukrainian targets with long-range missiles
Update from September 18, 11:39 a.m
.: According to British intelligence services, Russia has significantly increased its attacks on civilian Ukrainian targets with long-range missiles in the past seven days.
This includes, for example, the attack on a dam in the central Ukrainian industrial city of Kryvyi Rih, according to the latest short report by the Ministry of Defense in London.
However, these goals offer no immediate military gain.
It is likely that given the setbacks on the front line, Moscow will continue to use such attacks to undermine the morale of the Ukrainian people and their government.
Ukraine-News: Zelenskyj announces liberation of all occupied territories
Update from September 18, 10:19
a.m .: In his most recent video message, Selenksyj also announced that the Cherson, Luhansk, Donetsk areas, including the city of Mariupol there, but also Bedyansk in the Zaporizhia region and Crimea should be liberated.
The Ukrainian flag will be flying everywhere again, stressed the Ukrainian President.
"But we still need time for that."
Above all, Ukraine is relying on Western heavy weapons to force the Russian occupiers out of the country.
At the same time, the debate about deliveries of German battle tanks, for example, continues.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) continues to reject this.
US military experts on Izyum: mass grave not an isolated case
Update from September 18, 9:19 a.m.:
According to US military experts, the newly discovered mass grave and the torture chambers in Izyum are not isolated cases, but are part of the method used by Putin's army.
This is the assessment of the Institute for the Study of the War (ISW) in its September 17 situation analysis.
The Ukrainian Resistance Center also warned on its website the day before that the Russian army was planning covert operations against Ukrainian civilians for several days in an attempt to distract from its defeats in Ukraine's counter-offensive, according to the ISW.
Because of such - in military language - "false flag" actions, it warned the population of public places.
The information could not be checked independently.
After the war began, the Ukrainian special forces set up the Ukrainian Resistane Center to coordinate volunteer fighters.
The ISW is a think tank in Washington that regularly publishes analyzes of the fighting in Ukraine.
Ukraine-News: Zelenskyj accuses Moscow of "Nazi" practices
First report from September 18
: Kiev - Volodymyr Zelenskyj accuses Moscow of "Nazi practices".
In his recent video address, the Ukrainian President compared the actions of the Russian occupiers in his country with the atrocities of World War II.
There is cruel torture, deportations, burnt cities, bottomless hatred and nothing alive anymore under the Russian occupation, said Zelenskyj.
Unlike the Nazis, the Russians under Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin would not make soap from the killed Ukrainians - or lampshades from their skin.
"But the principle is the same," said the head of state.
Torture in the Ukraine war: Selenskyj speaks of "Russian fascism"
Zelenskyy called the occupiers who fled the Kharkiv region "racists" and said that the "Nazis" behaved in the same way.
"Racism" combines the words Russia and fascism and is used by many Ukrainians as a term for "Russian fascism".
"We will determine the identities of everyone who tortured and abused, who brought these atrocities from Russia here to Ukrainian territory," said the 44-year-old.
When they fled, the occupiers left torture devices behind.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities released photos purporting to show torture chambers and equipment.
"Torture was a widespread practice in the occupied territory," Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine war: President Zelenskyj addresses the world via video
Ukraine war: President Zelenskyj addresses the world via video
At the end of March, hundreds of dead civilians were also found in the Kiev suburb of Bucha after Russian troops withdrew - since then the atrocities in Bucha have been considered a symbol of the most serious war crimes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Mass grave in Isjum: Lambrecht calls for clarification
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht called for the investigation of possible war crimes.
"These terrible crimes must be cleared up - preferably by the United Nations," said the SPD politician to the
Funke
newspapers.
The UN should be given access as soon as possible so that evidence could be secured.
(frs with dpa material)
List of rubrics: © RIA Nowosti/Anton Denisov/dpa
