Victory Chronicles
-DAY 176

Above: Traditional Ukrainian wood burning pich ovens were the heart of the home – a place to prepare food, heat the house and even sleep on cold winter nights.  Photo via OCNT

• Ukrainian officials are pleading with the West to let Ukraine push the enemy out before freezing temperatures set in this winter.  Lviv Mayor Andreiy Sadoviy released a video imploring residents to get ready for winter by stocking up on firewood and getting small, efficient wood-burning stoves.  The video shows city workers preparing split logs and stockpiling little black ovens. The mayor even suggested that people in pre-soviet housing have their old timey high-standing tile ovens inspected and brought to working order.

• Like many European countries, Ukraine is struggling to fill natural gas storage.  A month ago, a spokesperson for the transmission system operator said, “This winter will probably be the most difficult in our history.”  Ukrainian officials predict that the kremlin will accelerate the targeting of public utilities as temperatures fall to further its campaign of terror on civilians.

• Officials ask residents to be ready to live without gas and/or electricity.  If a household depends on gas to prepare food, it’s worth investing in an electric burner or a camp stove.  Housing envelopes should be tightly sealed and everyone should have plenty of winter clothing and blankets on hand.

• Ukraine has already called for the mandatory evacuation of residents in the east where the invaders have ruined public heating and water systems beyond repair.

Above: The Republic of China, also known as Taiwan, has delivered humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine including drones.  Photo via Oryx Spioenkop

• The Oryx military analysis website tracks deliveries and pledges of military equipment and weapons to Ukraine from the start of the full-scale invasion.  Weapons and equipment are listed by category and by country.  Sometimes quantities are estimated when exact amounts aren’t made public.

• In the multiple rocket launcher category, the blog estimates 70 have been delivered by  Czech Republic, Poland, USA, UK and Germany.  Poland and Czech donated soviet-grade launchers inherited by the former soviet satellite countries.

• Other categories include jet aircraft (18), attack helicopters (~35), tanks (~300), hundreds of drones and much more.

Above: Ukrainian emergency services in Zaporizhzhya are preparing for a nuclear catastrophe as the invaders turn the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant into a terrorist base.  Photo via BBC

• In a harrowing story on BBC, journalist James Waterhouse talks about a government organized  undercover trip by reporters to Zaporizhzhya.  After a hair-rasing below radar helicopter ride from Kyiv, the journalists end up in a parking lot staged for emergency nuclear disaster exercises.

• “Of course we are concerned,” Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko the author. “The situation changed dramatically when the Russians started shelling the area on 5 August.” Ukraine assesses the reckless use of the nuclear power plant as an enemy military base is reaching a critical stage.

• The journalists encounter lines of cars, refugees escaping enemy occupation and shelling. The author speaks to a young mother who just left Enerhodar, the city next to the power plant.  She says there is shelling all the time and it’s now much too dangerous to stay.  Evidence suggests that ru is shelling around the NPP, which it blames on Ukraine,  to bring the world to a panic and force allies to stop helping Ukraine.

• President Zelensky will meet with UN Secretary Guterres and putin pal Turkish President Tayyip Ergogan in Lviv this week to discuss the dangerous situation at the NPP among other world threats caused by russia.