We spent a week near the southern frontlines around Kherson, where Russia seeks to sap Ukraine’s strength while avoiding the kind of chaotic withdrawal it undertook in the northeast. “They’ve dug in deep,” Ukrainian troops say. “Things for us are tough.” wsj.com/articles/signs… A big question is how long Moscow will hold Kherson. There are signs it is preparing to leave the city, moving residents and personnel to the far bank of the Dnipro River, replacing elite forces with mobilized troops, and abandoning some checkpoints around the city and airport.

Two brothers, both priests. One lives in Russia, the other in Ukraine.

For Vasyl, the war is a crime propped up by lies. For Iosif, it’s a just mission to retake Russian lands.

This is the story of how the war split their family - and so many others too wsj.com/articles/war-d… The Ivanchuk brothers both served in the Soviet army, both lived in Kharkiv in Ukraine as students, and both became priests at a time of spiritual revival as the atheist Soviet Union crumbled.

But in February, both came to opposing conclusions about the war - why?

Horrific images emerging from the blast right in the heart of Kyiv, which drives home that no place in Ukraine is yet safe. Looks like there are fatalities. The aftermath of one strike on Kyiv this morning

Russians awoke today to videos of the Crimea bridge on fire, the symbol of Russia’s resurgence under Putin and a key target for Ukraine since February. A huge blow that won’t go without a response from Putin, who already warned of a major escalation if Russian territory is hit. The road section of the bridge is destroyed, and the rail section is still ablaze. An incredibly successful strike that seems to have been caused at least in part by a truck exploding. Russia announced all traffic along the bridge has ceased.

Protests in Moscow and St Petersburg today have grown pretty large. People chanting “No to War!” Dozens of arrests reported That was Moscow, this is St Petersburg. People marching through the city center denouncing Putin’s war

Protests against mobilisation are taking place in several Russian cities today, mostly small-scale actions leading to a smattering of arrests. The woman’s sign reads “No to Mobilisation” A video from Novosibirsk shared on Telegram, showing police heading to disperse the local protest

Putin is finally speaking on live TV, announces a “partial mobilisation” - as many had expected He portrays a parallel reality in Ukraine where neo-Nazis round up dissenters and stage terrorist acts - we’ve heard much of this before

Video appearing to show emotional residents of Balakliya greeting Ukrainian troops who liberated the town after enduring 7 months under Russian occupation.

“The flag of Ukraine in a free Ukrain­ian city un­der a free Ukrain­ian sky,” Ze­lensky said yest Another clip from Balakliya. The women offer a meal to the men, who warn them: “Stay in the basement, the city can still be shelled. But don’t worry, we are here now”

Months under Russian control make some lose hope of liberation. So timing of the Ukrainian offensives is crucial

https://twitter.com/osinttechnical/status/1567952064239763459

Our dispatch from Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, where volunteers are braving artillery barrages from Russians advancing on the city in order to save the most vulnerable residents. For many who stay, "the fear of being homeless outweighs the fear of death” wsj.com/articles/for-s… Bakhmut is now so close to Russian lines that the volunteers almost turned back when a helicopter swooped overhead dropping rockets on a strategic position overlooking the road. “Sometimes we show people a map and say ‘Look, the Russians are just 2 miles away.'" Many have no idea

Exclusive: We spoke to soldiers wounded in Ukraine’s counter-offensive at a hospital behind the frontlines, where they spoke of significant advances but an extremely brutal fight. “Our orders were ‘Go in, fuck them up, retake what’s ours.’” wsj.com/articles/ukrai… Interviews with eight soldiers who took part in the fighting offer the most detailed on-the-ground picture yet from an offensive that Ukraine hopes will help it seize the initiative & prove that its military can take on Moscow’s army and win. wsj.com/articles/ukrai…

This article about a Russian soldier who died in Ukraine has been widely shared in Russia as it describes life circumstances that seem so typical to many of the poor, provincial men fighting Putin's war. A short translated excerpt I think is worth sharing: baikal-journal.ru/2022/08/08/ya-… (It tells the story of 19-year-old Russian private Alexey Udaltsev, who died under artillery fire and was buried on July 22 in a village in Kemerovо region. His parents later received a death report printed in 1974, entitling them to compensation “in line with laws of the USSR.”)

Моя стаття про українську мову викликала значний резонанс в Україні (твіти WSJ я не пишу). Нижче я додаю ті мої абзаци, які не увійшли до статті. wsj.com/articles/mosco… Russian nationalists have peddled the false theory that Old East Slavic - a language spoken on the territory of modern-day Ukraine, Belarus & European Russia in the 10th-15th centuries - was merely a precursor to modern Russian instead of a foundation for modern-day Ukrainian too

A ceasefire with Russia “means a pause giving Russia a break for rest,” @zelenskyua tells us in a wide-ranging interview at his fortified compound in Kyiv.

“It is a whale that has swallowed two regions and now says: freeze the conflict.” W/@yarotrof wsj.com/articles/ukrai… Western weapons have helped Ukraine swing the balance against Russia, Zelensky says.

Russia used to fire 12,000 artillery shells daily against Ukraine’s 1,000-2,000. Now he said Kyiv can fire 6,000 a day as Russia suffers a shortage of ammunition & troops wsj.com/articles/ukrai…

I tried to reconstruct life in the Azovstal steel plant of Mariupol through interviews with those who made it out this week after months under relentless Russian bombardment. The picture they painted was even more harrowing than I’d imagined wsj.com/articles/insid… As the Russ­ian army turned Mar­i­upol into rub­ble, leav­ing thou­sands dead and de­priv­ing the city of food, wa­ter, elec­tric­ity and phone sig­nal, the steel plant be­came the fi­nal hold­out and a sym­bol of re­silience in the face of seem­ingly in­surmount­able odds.

7-year-old Angelina, just arrived from Russian-occupied territory Her was one of dozens of cars that pulled up today at a parking lot outside Zaporizhzhia that processes new arrivals. Her family traveled from Tokmak with the family of Sonya, 8, and her three sisters and brother.

“Those who are fighting in Ukraine are fighting for the future of our children,” says Putin, claiming Russia’s preventing Ukraine from developing a nuclear weapons program aided by the West. He’s billed the invasion from start as a defensive operation, contrary to the evidence Putin on Russia’s military operation in Ukraine: “It’s going entirely according to plan. Everything is being done the way our General Staff planned it.” But Russia has suffered huge resistance from a Ukrainian population it claims to be liberating.

Russia apparently targeting a TV tower in Kyiv this afternoon. Footage from Telegram Another angle on the blast

Looks like an international scandal is brewing in Tokyo: Belarusian athlete Kryscina Tsimanouskaya publicly appeals for help & says staff from her national Olympic committee are trying to forcibly repatriate her to Belarus after she criticised Belarusian sports officials. “I am asking the International Olympic Committee for help, they are trying to take me out of the country without my consent,” says the runner. Reports say she had appealed for asylum in Europe, possibly sparking the intervention by Belarus.

Really uncomfortable to watch this. A battered Roman Protasevich appears on Belarusian state TV to praise autocrat Aleksandr Lukashenko, 10 days after the dissident blogger was taken off the Ryanair flight that was forced to land in Minsk. A volte-face that’s very hard to believe “I realised that many things Aleksandr Grigoryevich [Lukashenko] is criticised for are just attempts to pressure him, and that in many moments he acted like… a man with balls of steel,” Protasevich says, adding that he “absolutely” respects the strongman who’s ruled for 27 yrs

A Russian police raid this morning at the offices of popular student publication ⁦DOXA, the latest entity critical of the authorities to be targeted with legal prosecution. The homes of several editors and staff ⁩have also reportedly been raided. Via ⁦@doxa_journal⁩ DOXA came to authorities' attention when it denounced criminal cases against students involved in election-related protests in summer 2019, most prominently the blogger Yegor Zhukov. Higher School of Economics later revoked its affiliation with the paper rferl.org/a/moscow-jails…

Crowds marching through central Moscow tonight chanting “Russia without Putin!”

Putin’s main critic in Russia ⁦@navalny⁩ has been sentenced to 2 years and 8 months in prison. Tonight’s protest action has been met with a massive police presence and already 350 arrests in Moscow since the morning