Today, links to reports from the Associated Press, Reuters, National Public Radio, Agence France-Presse and the Washington Post; others are accessible by clicking on their names below. — MCM
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‘The money is gone’: evacuated Ukrainians forced to return, by Anna Cara | The Associated Press POKROVSK, Ukraine — Tens of thousands of people have returned to rural or industrial communities close to the region’s front line at considerable risk because they can’t afford to live in safer places. . . . The Pokrovsk mayor’s office estimated that 70% of those who evacuated have come home. In the larger city of Kramatorsk, an hour’s drive closer to the front line, officials said the population had dropped to about 50,000 from the normal 220,000 in the weeks following Russia’s invasion but has since risen . . . READ MORE . . .
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The Ukrainian nationalists standing in Russia’s way on the eastern front, by Simon Lewis | Reuters At the sharp end of efforts to stop the Russian army’s progress in eastern Ukraine are the Carpathian Sich battalion, a unit of Ukrainians and foreign nationals who answered Kyiv’s call for help to confront the invader.”Now it’s more of an artillery war. It’s a tougher war, a scarier war, where only people who are strong in their spirit can fight,” said . . . a field commander in the battalion . . . READ MORE . . .
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The U.N. brokered a deal but can Ukraine’s grain shipments be exported safely? Reported by A Martínez and Joanna Kakissis | National Public Radio Less than 24 hours after Ukraine and Russia formalized a deal to reopen Black Sea ports and resume agricultural exports, Russian missiles hit the port in Odesa. Click HERE to listen and, tomorrow, read.
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Kremlin Says Odesa Strikes Should Not Hamper Grain Exports. From Agence France-Presse The Kremlin said today that Russian strikes Friday on Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa “should not affect” a UN-brokered deal between Moscow and Kyiv to unblock grain exports. “This cannot and should not affect the start of shipment,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. He said Moscow’s strikes targeted “exclusively” military infrastructure and were “not connected with the agreement . . . READ MORE . . .
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Official says Kherson to be ‘liberated’ from Russia by September. From AFP. A Ukrainian official said Sunday that the country’s southern region of Kherson, which fell to Russian troops early in their February invasion, would be recaptured by Kyiv’s forces by September. “We can say that the Kherson region will definitely be liberated by September, and all the occupiers’ plans will fail,” Sergiy Khlan, an aide to the head of Kherson region, said in an interview with Ukrainian television. The Ukrainian army, emboldened by deliveries of Western-supplied long-range artillery . . . READ MORE . . .
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Ukraine looking for more ‘game-changer’ weapons, by Isabelle Khurshudyan, Karen DeYoung, Alex Horton and Karoun Demirjian | The Washington Post NEAR IZYUM, Ukraine – If only they had more, and more sophisticated, weapons from the West, Ukrainian officials often tell their American counterparts and anyone else who will listen, they could make short work of Russian invaders. Last month’s arrival of the first of what are now a dozen U.S. multiple-launch precision rocket systems, known as HIMARS, has already been a game changer, soldiers here said last week. . . . The Biden administration has parceled out the rocket systems slowly, watching how the Ukrainians handle them — and how the Russians respond. To fighters on the ground, that makes little sense at a crucial . . . READ MORE . . .