LIVE War in Ukraine – day 799: The US accuses Russia of using a chemical agent in Ukraine / The Russians attacked the port of Odessa with ballistic missiles

The United States has accused Russia of using a chemical agent, chloropicrin, against Ukrainian forces, thus violating the Chemical Weapons Convention. The US State Department says it was not an isolated incident and that Russian troops are using the chemical agent to drive Ukrainian forces away from fortified positions and make tactical advances on the battlefield.

All information about the war in Ukraine – day 799 – LIVE on HotNews.ro:

08:00 INTERVIEW. How does a Russian jurist who supports the war think? “Victory means the complete overthrow of the current regime in Kiev and the creation of a unitary state. Lviv remains for Ukraine”.

Forays into the beliefs of the millions of Russians who are favorable to Putin are rare in the European press. Evgeniy Mazepin is a military lawyer by profession. In this capacity, he represented the interests of several Russians who were illegally mobilized in the war in Ukraine. But he remains faithful to the military action of the government and the need to defeat Ukraine, he said, in the interview he gave via Zoom to the audience of HotNews.ro, Evgeniy Mazepin in Russia.

07:58 A drone attack damaged energy infrastructure in Russia’s Oryol and Kursk regions, Russian officials announced Wednesday evening, The Kyiv Independent notes.

The governor of the Kursk region, Roman Starovoyt, announced around 11:00 p.m. local time that a Ukrainian drone strike had damaged power lines in the village of Ponyri, cutting off power to the area.

A few hours later, the governor of the Oryol region, Andrey Klychkov, reported that the downed drones damaged energy facilities in the Glazunovsky and Sverdlovsky districts. Later, the electricity was cut off in a number of households.

Energy infrastructure in the Smolensk region was also reportedly targeted by Ukrainian drones, according to regional governor Vasily Anokhin. No damage was reported.

05:00The United States accuses Russia of using a chemical agent, chloropicrin, against Ukrainian forces, in violation of the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (CIAC), according to a statement from the State Department published on Wednesday, AFP notes.

Brief recap of recent events:

• Russia said on Wednesday it had struck the command center of the Ukrainian military’s Southern Group, which is based in the port of Odesa, where Kiev earlier said a Russian ballistic missile attack had killed three people, Reuters reports.
• A large fire broke out in the Ukrainian port of Odessa on Wednesday evening after a Russian missile attack, local media reported.
• Ukraine is preparing security cooperation agreements with seven other countries, including the United States, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced in his address to the nation on Wednesday evening.
• The UK’s Defense Intelligence Service has reported that the Federal Security Service (FSB) has questioned Russia’s first deputy defense minister, Ruslan Talikov, in a corruption case within the ministry.
• The United States on Wednesday accused Russia of violating an international ban on the use of chemical weapons by deploying chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops and using riot control agents “as a method of war” in Ukraine, Reuters reports.
• According to the estimates of the military intelligence services of Ukraine, at the end of April 2024, the Russian army had at its disposal about 40 units of 3M22 Zircon hypersonic missiles. The production rate for these missiles is up to ten units per month. Latvia’s new foreign minister, Baiba Braže, said that Ukraine received Western weapons from some partners with permission to strike Russian territory, reports Ukrainska Pravda.
• “Victoria Shi”: Ukraine will have a spokesperson generated by artificial intelligence.
• Long queues formed in Moscow on Wednesday as the Russian military displayed tanks and Western military equipment captured in Ukraine. These included American, German and French tanks, along with British and Australian armored vehicles, as well as military equipment manufactured in Turkey, Sweden, Austria, Finland, South Africa and the Czech Republic. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy held a similar exhibition in Kiev in 2023 of captured Russian tanks and equipment. Russia has lost more than 3,000 tanks in Ukraine, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which is its entire active pre-war inventory, but it has enough low-grade armored vehicles in storage for years and says it is ramping up production of new tanks.
• Five civilians were killed Wednesday in Russian attacks on Ukraine’s eastern regions of Kharkiv and Donetsk, local officials said. In the northeastern region of Kharkiv, on the border with Russia, a guided bomb attack killed a 38-year-old woman and her father inside a car, the region’s governor said.
• Vadim Filashkin, the governor of Donetsk region, said 682 residents were enduring “very difficult conditions” without running water or electricity in the besieged city of Ceasiv Iar, which had a pre-war population of 12,500. Months of relentless shelling by Russian artillery ravaged the strategic city, which is now a major target for the invaders, sitting on high ground that could serve as a gateway to the cities of Kostiantinivka, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.Ukrainian forces defending Ceasiv Yar said they were still waiting for new ammunition.

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Wednesday’s most important information regarding Russia’s aggression was LIVE here on HotNews.ro