Victory Chronicles
-DAY 184

Above: Kadiyivka movie theater “Peace” burned under ru occupation in 2019. Photo via TSN

• Enemy defense minister told a group of Chinese business leaders that the invader is slowing operations in Ukraine to spare human suffering.  This deliberate misinformation tries to cover the ru failure in the face of incompetence and fierce Ukrainian resistance.

• Ukrainian defenders destroyed a russian headquarters and barracks in Kadiyivka, Luhansk, a town under enemy occupation since 2015. Luhansk Governor Serhii Haidai said that 200 ru paratroopers were eliminated.

• On August 25, Energoatom announced that ru shelling caused fires that led to the complete disconnection of the Zaporizhzhia NPP from the power grid. As of the morning of Friday, August 26, plant workers are trying to reconnect the power grid.  Plant operations are currently powered by a repaired line from the Ukrainian power grid.

Above: A banner that has gone viral on Georgian social media. Photo via EurasiaNet

• The debate is only intensifying over the question of granting russian passport carriers visa to vacation in Europe.  For many, it is difficult to see tacit supporters of the kremlin regime vacationing among the Ukrainian refugees across Europe.  And too often, these tourists flaunt typical ru chauvinism in offensive ways.

• The Baltics, Finland and Poland have especially strong voices in the debate as they are the starting point for many ru tourists heading into the Schengen zone. They want an EU wide ban on russian tourists.  If the EU won’t act, individual member states will take measures on their own.

• Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas called for visa bans “ To protect national security and the integrity of EU sanctions, the bloc must impose a travel ban on tourism on Russian citizens until Moscow ends its invasion of Ukraine.”

• The chairman of Germany’s European People’s Party Manfred Weber called for bans on russian tourists, “Europe has to speak plain language: We don’t want those who are partly responsible for this war to go on vacation with us.”

• German Chancellor Scholtz  opposed such a ban earlier this week, saying Russians should be able to flee their home country if they disagree with Kremlin policy. A counterargument speaks to the need to make the situation uncomfortable for all russians in order to push political change from within. .

• Tensions have flared in Tbilisi where a tidal wave of russians landed in the opening months of the war.  Russians can stay in Georgia up to a year without a visa.  “Georgians, who strongly sympathize with Ukraine, had little sympathy for Russians who said they were fleeing an intensifying government crackdown on critics and crippling international sanctions.”

Above: Minsk in August 2020: People with flowers and the Belarusian flag denounce police violence against opposition supporters.  Photo via Der Spiegel

• In an op-ed for Der Spiegel, Belarusian democracy movement leader Swetlana Tichanowskaja marked the second anniversary of the Belarusian revolt with the conviction that there can be no lasting peace in Ukraine without freedom in Belarus.

• Ms Tichanowskaja outlines the huge devotion that Belarusians have to supporting Ukrainian freedom from massive donations, to anti-propaganda campaigns, partisan activity and fighting on the frontlines with Ukrainian brothers.

• She asked for the world to recognize the real history of Ukraine and Belarus.  “The first step in the right direction could be recognizing that it was not the collective Soviet Union, but actually Belarus and Ukraine out of all the Soviet states that suffered the most during World War II.”

• “It’s time to adopt a new, Europe-wide Ostpolitik that includes both Ukraine and Belarus and recognizes our struggles as deeply European.”