Victory Chronicles
-DAY 197

Above: Excerpt of map of Ukraine, 1918, showing roads south from Kharkiv to Izyum, Slavyansk, Bakhmut, all under enemy occupation or bombardment today.  Map via Wikimedia Commons

Below: Excerpt of map of Ukraine,1918, showing Kherson Oblast and northern Crimea, Ukraine. Map via Wikimedia Commons

• Ukraine is slowly but surely breaking through lines in both the eastern and southern fronts. CNN reports media video placing Ukrainian forces in  towns south of Kharkiv known to be recently occupied by enemy forces.  Volokhiv Yar sits on the main highway between Kharkiv and Slovyansk, just a few kilometers north of the critical junction of Izyum.
• Ukrainian forces have also taken Verbivka, reportedly surrounding enemy troops stationed in nearby Balakliya.  Reports from both Ukrainian and enemy sources say that Balakliya is defended by enemy forces from the Luhansk People’s Republic and Russian National Guard, “who may now be facing a precarious situation.”
• As the kremlin’s Sep 15 deadline to take Donetsk Oblast approaches, analysts see evidence that the enemy is concentrating resources on taking Bakhmut – the key northern Donetsk crossroads that it has failed to take in six months of best efforts.  The enemy has seemingly redeployed forces from Kharkiv and Luhansk to Donetsk and further south to southern Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Oblasts.
• In the south, Ukrainian forces are chipping away at the front on at least three vectors as they continue to destroy transportation corridors and enemy military assets with longer-range artillery.  Some analysts believe that Ukraine will split the northern half of kherson oblast into two pieces on an axis from Vysokopilsky Rayon to Nova Kakhovka, the location of the major hydroelectric dam on the Dnipro River.
• Partisan resistance is strong in newly-occupied territories.  Despite attempts to brutally eliminate Ukrainian patriots, brave resistors are destroying collaborators and invaders everyday.  Three collaborator homes exploded in Melitopol on Thursday.

Above: Guarded buses of civilians being deported from Mariupol in May.  Photo via New York Times

• Deputy Ukrainian Ambassador to the UN Khrystyna Hayovyshyn spoke at a UN Security Council meeting, outlined the brutal genocide campaign the enemy carries out in Ukraine.  Ms Hayovshyn stated that 2.5 million Ukrainians including 38,000 children have been forcibly deported to enemy-controlled territory.  Ukrainians are being transported to “isolated and depressed regions of Siberia and the Far East.  Those thought to have allegiance to Ukraine are tortured and killed.
• United States Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Wednesday that Russia’s “filtration operations,” which Russia has allegedly used to interrogate and forcibly transport Ukrainian citizens to Russia, are “horrifying.”  The US conservatively estimated the number of forced deportation to be 1.6 million.
• “A growing number of eyewitnesses and survivors of ‘filtration’ operations tell stories of threats, harassment, and incidents of torture by Russian security forces…They’ve been subject to invasive searches, interrogation under inhumane and demeaning circumstances. It really is horrifying,” said Ms Thomas-Greenfield.

Above: EU gas imports, 2010-2022, share from ru. Chart via New York Times

Below: Nord Stream-1 gas flows, Jan ‘22 to Sep ‘22.  Chart via New York Times

Above: European gas prices, Jan ‘21 to Aug ‘22.  Chart via New York Times

• The New York Times looked at the trendlines around European consumption of russian gas and concluded that russia’s energy blackmail scheme is losing steam. “In Germany and elsewhere, leaders are growing more confident that months of work to stockpile and line up alternate energy sources may help them blunt Russia’s weaponization of exports.”
• Too many European countries have learned painful lessons from their willingness to hang energy security on russia.  Germany led by East German Chancellor Merkel is the most dependent on them in terms of sheer scale.  Russia – being russia – flexed its kremlin muscle by turning on and off pipelines to the west and shutting off delivery completely to several especially “unfriendly countries” like Poland, Bulgaria, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands.
• Now, the bungling manipulators may have closed Nord Stream-1 “until sanctions are lifted”. On ru failure to restart gas flows after maintenance last week, Germany’s Economic Minister Robert Habeck said, “It would have been surprising the other way around. The only thing from Russia that is reliable is the lies.”
• Lying russian officials bragged that ru is bringing Europe to its knees and will soon be able to sell to them at any price.  In the meantime, Germany had decreased reliance on ru gas from over half to less than ten percent by August.