Ukraine-Russia war: Belarus dismisses military base explosions near Ukraine border
An ally of Moscow has dismissed reports explosions took place at a military airbase used by Russian troops near the Ukraine border.
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Moscow’s ally Belarus on Thursday played down reports of overnight explosions at a military airbase near the border with Ukraine that is said to be used by Russian troops.
“On August 10, at around 23:00 (2000 GMT), during a test run, a piece of equipment that had its engine replaced caught fire,” the Belarusian defence ministry said in a statement.
It added that the fire was extinguished “in a timely manner” and there were no casualties.
Earlier, a Belarusian Telegram channel that monitors military activity said “explosions” were heard near the Zyabrovka airfield in southeastern Belarus.
“At least eight flashes” were seen in the night of Wednesday to Thursday, it added.
Franak Viacorka, a senior advisor to Belarusian exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, said Russian military aircraft are often stationed at the airfield.
Zyabrovka is around 30 kilometres from the border with northern Ukraine.
The incident comes after a series of blasts at a key military airbase on the Russian-annexed Crimea peninsula, which Moscow said were caused by exploding ammunition rather than Ukrainian fire.
Western countries have slapped ex-Soviet Belarus with new sanctions this year for its role in Russia’s Ukraine offensive launched on February 24.
Russian troops entered Ukraine from several directions, including from Belarusian territory.
Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko relied on his Russian ally Vladimir Putin to suppress the 2020 protests against his re-election for a sixth term.
He welcomed Russian troops under the pretext of military exercises in the months before Moscow launched its military operation.
‘DEAL WITH THE DEVIL’: PUTIN FREES PRISONERS TO FIGHT IN UKRAINE
Hundreds of Russian prisoners – including murderers and drug offenders – have reportedly been offered a free pardon and a paycheck to join Vladimir Putin’s army in the Kremlin war on Ukraine.
Rights activists working in Russia’s prison system claim that many inmates have been approached in penitentiaries across the country by government officials and offered freedom and riches in exchange for military service.
It comes as Russia’s military suffers substantial losses, with up to 75,000 soldiers believed to have been killed since he launched the unprovoked attack six months ago.
Numerous reports have emerged in recent weeks about the notorious Wagner Group’s alleged new recruiting drive among prisoners, with the private Russian military force ostensibly trying to shore up Russian forces.
Vladimir Osechkin, head of Gulagu.net, a prisoner advocacy group, said since the start of July they had been flooded with reports from across Russia from anxious relatives, concerned of the fate of their inmates.
“In the last three weeks (in July), there is a very big wave of this project to recruit thousands of Russian prisoners and send them to the war,” Mr Osechkin said.
Multiple chat messages between relatives reportedly detailed the tempting rewards offered to fight in Ukraine, according to CNN.
“They will accept murderers, but not rapists, paedophiles, extremists, or terrorists”, one prisoner told the outlet from his jail cell.
“Amnesty or a pardon in six months is on offer. Somebody talks about 100,000 roubles a month, another 200,000. Everything is different.”
He said the offer was made when unidentified men, believed to be part of a private military contractor’s firm, came to the prison in the first half of July, and that acceptance into the program would lead to two weeks of training in the Rostov region in southern Russia, according to the outlet.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, commonly known as “Putin’s chef,” is said to have personally appealed to many inmates.
“They are primarily interested in murderers and robbers, they treat the drug addicts warily, the same with the rapists. It’s better, he said, for it to not be common killers, but straight up calculating ones – you will like it with us, he said. In general, he gave the impression of a maniac,” said one unnamed inmate cited by independent outlet Mediazona, which interviewed two prisoners held in different facilities and regions of Russia.
The inmate went on to note there seemed to be no coercion to join, though “very many” did sign up, he said, estimating that at least 200 inmates eagerly accepted the offer.
Mr Prigozhin allegedly promised those he approached that they had only a 15 per cent chance of dying, a figure reportedly based on an “experimental” deployment of inmates earlier in July.
On August 1, Mr Prigozhin allegedly told inmates at a penal colony in Rybinsk that “World War III” was underway and they were being given the chance to fight for their homeland, according to the account told by an inmate to Mediazona.
“My guys go into African countries and in two days they leave nothing alive there, and now they are also destroying enemies in Ukraine. Your decision to serve in the (private military company) is a deal with the devil. If you leave here with me, you will either return a free man or you will die. You will be required to kill enemies and follow the orders of leadership. Those who retreat will be shot on the spot,” an inmate quoted Mr Prigozhin as saying.
RAPE, ABUSE: SHOCKING PRISON CLAIMS
Former prisoners in Russia claim they were repeatedly raped, tortured and blackmailed.
Alexei Makarov, who served six years at Saratov prison for assault from 2018, said he was tortured and violently sexually assaulted by three men.
“For 10 minutes they beat me, ripped my clothes. And for, let‘s say, the next two hours they raped me every other minute with mop handles,” Mr Makarov told the BBC.
“When I fainted, they would splash me with cold water and throw me back onto the table.”
Another former prisoner, Denis Pokusaev, said he was repeatedly tortured to confess to dealing drugs.
“[They] told me: ‘Do you think we care whether you are guilty or not? You came from a riot - so you are going to be held accountable for that’,” Mr Pokusaev, who served a three-year sentence for fraud, said.
“The abuse went on for almost three months every day, except weekends.”
Sergey Savelyev, who worked in prison‘s security department, smuggled footage proving allegations of abuse used against inmates. He said the torture is approved by the prison’s administration, describing it as an “organised system”.
RUSSIAN STRIKE NEAR NUCLEAR PLANT
Ukraine has accused Russia of carrying out rocket strikes that killed 14 civilians in areas near a nuclear power plant, as the G7 warned that Russian control of the facility “endangers the region”.
Overnight on Wednesday strikes in the Dnipropetrovsk region in central Ukraine killed 13 people and injured 11, with five reported to be in a serious condition, regional governor Valentin Reznichenko wrote on Telegram.
“It was a terrible night,” he said, urging residents to shelter when they hear air raid sirens.
“I am asking and begging you ... Don’t let the Russians kill you,” he wrote.
Most of the casualties were in the town of Marganets, just across the Dnipro River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s biggest. Regional council head Mykola Lukashuk said the strikes had hit a local power line, leaving thousands of people without electricity.
The Kremlin on Monday accused Ukrainian forces of firing on the Zaporizhzhia atomic power plant, warning of potential “catastrophic consequences” for Europe.
“The shelling of the territory of the nuclear plant by the Ukrainian armed forces is a potentially extremely dangerous activity … fraught with catastrophic consequences for a vast area, including the territory of Europe,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Moscow and Kyiv have blamed each other for a new strike on the Zaporizhzhia plant, where recent fighting sparked a UN warning of a potential nuclear disaster.
Kyiv on Monday called for the establishment of a demilitarised zone around the nuclear power station which has been the scene of strikes that have damaged several structures, forcing the shutdown of a reactor.
“What needs to be done is to remove occupying forces from the station and to create a demilitarised zone on the territory of the station,” said Petro Kotin, president of Ukraine’s nuclear energy company, Energoatom.
“The fact that [Russian forces] are there is the greatest danger going forwards, towards an accident with radiation or even to a nuclear catastrophe,” he added in a statement distributed by the agency.
Zaporizhzhia – Europe’s largest atomic power complex that was occupied by Russia early in its offensive – has in recent days been the scene of military strikes that have damaged several structures, forcing the shutdown of a reactor.
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned on Saturday of “the very real risk of a nuclear disaster”.
On Sunday, Russian occupation authorities in Energodar city where the plant is located said that overnight “the Ukrainian army carried out an attack with a cluster bomb fired from an Uragan rocket launcher.”
The projectiles fell “within 400 metres of a working reactor,” Russia’s TASS state news agency quoted them as saying.
The strike damaged some administrative buildings and fell in a “zone storing used nuclear fuel”.
However Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company Energoatom that operates the plant said the “Russian military keeps committing acts of nuclear terrorism” at the site.
“Yesterday … the Russian occupiers once again fired rockets at the site of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant and the town of Enerhodar,” a company statement said.
“One … employee was hospitalised with shrapnel wounds caused by the explosion,” it added.
The company accused the Russians of aiming at spent fuel casks, which are stored in the open near the site of shelling.
“Three radiation monitoring detectors around the … site were damaged,” the statement said adding that as a result radiation detection was impossible.
Russian troops have occupied the Zaporizhzhia plant since the early days of their offensive and Kyiv has accused them of storing heavy weapons there.
Moscow has accused Ukrainian forces of targeting the plant.
Energoatom had on Saturday said strikes on Friday had “caused a serious risk for the safe operation of the plant”, damaging a power cable and forcing the shutdown of one of the reactors.
PUTIN SACKS TOP BRASS
Vladimir Putin has brutally sacked “at least six” top commanders as Russian losses in Ukraine grow, according to British Defence Intelligence.
The Ministry of Defence’s statement said a slew of commanders have been dismissed as Mr Putin rages at their failures, The Sun reports.
Specifically, the report claims: “The poor performance of Russia’s armed forces during its invasion of Ukraine has been costly for Russia’s military leadership, highly likely resulting in the dismissal of at least six Russian commanders since the start of hostilities in February 2022.
“The commanders of Russia’s Eastern and Western Military Districts have highly likely lost their commands. General-Colonel Aleksandr Chayko was dismissed as Commander of the Eastern Military District in May 2022.
“General-Colonel Aleksandr Zhuravlev, who has commanded the Western Military District since 2018, was absent from Russia’s navy Day in St Petersburg on 31 July 2022 and has highly likely been replaced by General-Lieutenant Vladimir Kochetkov.
“General Aleksandr Vladimirovich Dvornikov has subsequently been removed after been given overall command of the operation in Ukraine, and General Sergei Surovikin has assumed command of the Southern Grouping of Forces from General Gennady Valeryevich Zhidko.”
The report concludes: “These dismissals are compounded by at least 10 Russian Generals killed on the battlefield in Ukraine. The cumulative effect on consistency of command is likely contributing to Russian tactical and operational difficulties.”
This comes as Ukrainian military officials report that Russia has lost at least 42,000 troops since the start of the conflict.
AMNESTY ‘DEEPLY REGRETS’ UKRAINE ABUSES REPORT
Amnesty International said it “deeply regrets the distress and anger” caused after it alleged Ukrainian forces were flouting international law by exposing civilians to Russian fire.
The rights group said: “We fully stand by our findings,” but stressed “nothing we documented Ukrainian forces doing in any way justifies Russian violations.”
Amnesty sparked outrage in Ukraine with the publication of a report on Thursday that accused the military of endangering civilians by establishing bases in schools and hospitals, and launching counter-attacks from heavily populated areas.
The head of Amnesty’s Ukraine office resigned in protest, accusing the rights organisation of parroting Kremlin propaganda.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the group had tried to “shift the responsibility from the aggressor to the victim”.
Amnesty’s report listed incidents in which Ukrainian forces appeared to have exposed civilians to danger in 19 towns and villages in the Kharkiv, Donbas and Mykolaiv regions.
In its statement Sunday, the rights group refused to back down on that assessment.
It “found instances where Ukrainian forces had located themselves right next to where civilians were living, thereby potentially putting them at risk from incoming Russian fire”.
“We made this assessment based on the rules of international humanitarian law, which require all parties to a conflict to avoid locating, to the maximum extent feasible, military objectives within or near densely populated areas.”
Nevertheless, Amnesty recognised the scale of reaction its report had triggered. “Amnesty International deeply regrets the distress and anger that our press release on the Ukrainian military’s fighting tactics has caused,” it said.
– Additional reporting by AFP
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Originally published as Ukraine-Russia war: Belarus dismisses military base explosions near Ukraine border
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