25 August 2023
1. Presidential condolences to the relatives of all victims expressed
Talking with Acting Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Denis Pushilin on August 24, 2023 in the Kremlin after the private business jet that carried Evgeny Prigozhin and his colleagues from Moscow and St. Petersburg President Vladimir Putin expressed his “sincere condolences to the families of all the victims”.
The President called the crash as “a tragedy when it happens”. He added that he knew Prigozhin for a long time, since the early 1990s, and Prigozhin was a man of a difficult fate and made some serious mistakes in his life, “but he also achieved the necessary results for himself and also for the greater good when I asked him, as it happened over the past months”.
In Putin’s words, the Wagner PMC people made “a meaningful contribution” to Russia’s common cause to fight the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine. “We remember this, we know this, and will never forget”, the President stressed.
Prigozhin was “a talented man”, he added, “a gifted business leader” who worked in and outside Russia, including in Africa, where he was quite effective dealing with oil, gas, precious metals and gemstones there.
Putin said that the head of the Investigative Committee reported him on August 24. “A preliminary investigation into this incident has been launched, and it will run its full course. There must be no doubt about that. Let us wait a little and see what the investigators tell us. A technical expertise and genetic tests are currently underway. This will take some time”, the President concluded.
On August 25 Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov promised to inform the general public about the results of the investigation.
2. The US cluster munitions kill many civilians in Donbass
At the meeting Denis Pushilin informed the President that the situation with shelling over the past three summer months has worsened for civilians, because the enemy is now using cluster munitions. He called such munitions especially dangerous for civilians because they are quite wide reaching and cause uncontrolled damage, and because people are not quite sure how to respond to them. Moreover, not all cluster munitions detonate immediately and just lie around causing additional deaths and casualties amongst civilians. In the recent shelling incidents an ambulance station and a blood transfusion center were damaged.
According to Pushilin’s data, the number of shelling incidents increased by 23 percent during the 2023 summer months compared to the preceding three-month period, with cluster munitions used in 10 percent of these strikes.
Acting Head of the DPR outlined that “Still, the men on the frontlines remain in high spirits and are ready to carry on fighting. They all understand very well and can see what is going on. They understand their mission, which consists of pushing the adversary as far back as possible. This is the only way to stop shells from reaching our cities and districts”.
Denis Pushilin blamed the USA for sending deadly weapons to Kiev against civilians. “You have heard, he told the President, that the Americans are opposing the use of cluster munitions, but now they say that it is all right with them”.
Though Moscow twice has warned the AFU not to use such munitions, it has not used them in its turn against military and civilians in Ukraine.
From other developments: last Friday night, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) attempted to attack the territory of Crimea with 42 airplane-type drones. Nine drones were destroyed by air defense forces over Crimea, another 33 UAVs were suppressed by means of electronic warfare and crashed without reaching their target.
Recently Kiev has intensified its drones employment against Russia in a bid to make a revenge for total disaster of its ‘offensive’ or ‘counter-offensive’ that resulted in huge losses of manpower and heavy military equipment on the battlefield.
3. Ukrainian execution squadrons shoot the AFU soldiers
Soldiers from the 123rd Territorial Defense Brigade (TDB) of the AFU have shot 23 their fellow soldiers for attempted desertion, after which they added the dead to the lists of missing persons (MIA), a Russian security official told RIA Novosti on August 25, citing a source in the AFU.
"From sources in the AFU we received data about the shooting of 23 servicemen of the 123rd Brigade of the AFU’s TDB in Kherson on August 11 [this year], who decided to desert and abandon their positions," the source said.
After the shooting, the dead were added to the lists of MIA in order to cover up the traces of the crime. According to the source, Russian servicemen managed to find out the personal details of ten persons of them.
There have been many cases in the AFU like this. Sometimes Ukrainian GIs kill their commanding offices for cruelty, inhuman behavior and issuing irrational orders, lack of munition, proper food and professional training.
There have been cases when Ukrainian mothers of the AFU soldiers who became POW begged the Russian Armed Forces not to release them and not to send them back home out of fear that they again will be send to the front line from where they – highly likely – would not return to Ukraine alive. Huge Ukrainian graveyards are even seen by reconnaissance satellites launched by many space-faring nations.
More and more Ukrainians are now denouncing the unjustifiable aggression Kiev started against Donbass and Russia with the help of NATO that has brought too many ‘minuses’ rather ‘pluses’.
Written by Vladimir P. Kozin
