Latest Developments in Ukraine: Sept. 18

admin September 18, 2022 in General USA - 6 Minutes

For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine.

The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EDT.

9:25 a.m.: Joy and trepidation expressed a Ukrainian couple returning to their hometown of Balakliia that Ukraine recaptured last week after six months of Russian occupation. Natalia Yelistratova and her husband were among the town’s residents who returned by a special train that was launched on September 14. As the train cut through misty woodland and passed destroyed buildings, most of the passengers sat in somber silence. Once in Balakliia, Yelistratova and her family walked through their war-torn town, home to 27,000, before the war. Their apartment block had minor damage from shelling.

A neighboring block’s windows and balconies were smashed, and the facade pockmarked by shrapnel, Reuters reports.

“It’s as if we’re in Chornobyl. Nature has taken over,” said her daughter, Olena Miroshnichenko. “No-one did anything, for half a year, nobody trimmed the grass and bushes. Everything is overgrown.”

Nataliia Yelistratova with her husband Mykhailio and daughter Olena Miroshnychenko stand at a platform of a railway station after arrival to their hometown of Balakliia, which was recently liberated by the Ukrainian armed Forces, amid Russia’s attack on U

8:45 a.m.: Izium Mayor Valerii Marchenko said on Sept. 18 that the exhumation works will continue for nearly two more weeks “because there are many burials” in the recently liberated city in Kharkiv Oblast.

8:35 a.m.: Prosecutors in an area of Ukraine where Russian forces recently retreated in after a Ukrainian counteroffensive are accusing Russia of torturing civilians in the Kharkiv region that was recently freed.

In an online statement, prosecutors in the region said they found a basement where Russian forces allegedly tortured prisoners in the village of Kozacha Lopan, near the border with Russia.

In images they released, they showed a Russian military TA-57 telephone with additional wires and alligator clips attached to it. Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of using the Soviet-era radio telephones as a power source to electrocute prisoners during interrogation.

An Ukrainian serviceman stands in a basement which, according to Ukrainian authorities, was used as a torture cell during the Russian occupation, in the retaken village of Kozacha Lopan, Sept. 17, 2022.

Russian shelling hit cities and towns across a wide stretch of Ukraine during the night, officials said Sunday, while the British defense ministry warned that Russia is likely to increase its attacks on civilian targets as it suffers battlefield defeats.

“In the last seven days, Russia has increased its targeting of civilian infrastructure even where it probably perceives no immediate military effect,” the ministry said in an online briefing. “As it faces setbacks on the front lines, Russia has likely extended the locations it is prepared to strike in an attempt to directly undermine the morale of the Ukrainian people and government.”

Overnight shelling also hit a hospital in the city of Mykolaiv, a significant Black Sea port, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said. He said there was also shelling in other parts of the region, and two people were wounded, the Associated Press reports.

6:30 a.m.:

6:00 a.m.: Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has urged people to allow authorities to restore security measures to newly liberated settlements in the Kharkiv region as shelling continues in the area, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.

5:20 a.m.:

4:30 a.m.: Vlada and Kostyantin Liberov were among the first civilians to enter the territory of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region behind the successful lightning counteroffensive that sent the occupying Russian forces reeling in retreat.

“In our conversations with locals, it seemed the occupation was bearable,” Vlada said in a dual video interview with RFE/RL’s Russian Service. “They were all very happy to see their homes returned to their native country, to hear Ukrainian again. They really are — and we saw this with our own eyes — greeting Ukrainian soldiers with tears of joy.”

Before Russia launched its massive, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the Liberovs worked as wedding photographers and photography instructors in the Black Sea port city of Odesa. Since then, however, they have traveled the country to document the war. Their photographs have appeared on the social media pages of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and elsewhere. Read their story by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

3:26 a.m.:

1:26 a.m.: By all accounts except the Kremlin’s, Russia is struggling with military manpower shortages as its invasion of Ukraine continues in its seventh month.

Western estimates say Russia may have suffered 25,000 combat fatalities and as many as 80,000 total casualties so far in fighting that has achieved none of the Kremlin’s stated objectives.

Moscow, though, has shied away from declaring war and mobilizing its full military reserves, most likely out of fear of the domestic political consequences that could arise from sending men from urban areas or the professional classes into combat. Instead, Russia has relied largely on contract soldiers recruited from remote and impoverished regions. Read the full story by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

12:20 a.m.: The Joint Coordination Center (JCC) reports Saturday that 11 vessels carrying a total of 280,161 metric tons of grain and other food products left Ukrainian ports over the last two days under the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

The five vessels that began their outbound voyage on Friday, are:

Breeze from Odesa to Hamburg, Germany, carrying 47,200 metric tons of rapeseed.
Annabella from Chornomorsk to Constanţa, Romania, carrying 8,500 metric tons of rapeseed.
CS Cihan from Odesa to Egypt, carrying 6,400 metric tons of soya beans.
Navin Vulture from Yuzhny/Pivdennyi, to Piraeus, Greece, carrying 7,500 metric tons of corn and barley.
Octopus from Yuzhny/Pivdennyi to Constanţa, Romania, carrying 6,500 metric tons of corn.

The six vessels that began their outbound voyage on Saturday, are:

Horus from Chornomorsk to China carrying 53,012 metric tons of sunflower meal and 9,694 metric tons of barley.
Baroness from Chornomorsk to Ravenna, Italy, carrying 30,900 metric tons of wheat.
Ikaria Angel from Chornomorsk to Djibouti, carrying 30,000 metric tons of wheat.
Velvet Rose from Chornomorsk to Nantong, China, carrying 29,350 metric tons of sunflower meal.
Gozo from Odesa to Spain, carrying 26,000 metric tons of wheat.
Pacific Rose from Yuzhny/Pivdennyi to Porto Marghera, Italy, carrying 20,000 metric tons of soya beans and 5,105 metric tons of corn.

Destinations indicated are based on information received at the JCC and may change based on commercial activity. Grains that reach a destination may go through processing and be trans-shipped to other countries.

As of Saturday, the total tonnage of grain and other foodstuffs exported from the three Ukrainian ports is 3,539,257 metric tons. A total of 339 voyages (184 inbound and 155 outbound) have been enabled so far.