Page 8 - UKRRptSept22

Russia’s Defence Ministry has accused Ukraine of deliberately targeting a prison in Donbass where it knew dozens of its own POWs were being held. The Ukrainian authorities were aware that their soldiers, who surrendered to Russian forces at the Azovstal steel plant, were being held at the prison in the village of Yelenovka, as Kiev itself insisted on them being placed there, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Aleksandr Fomin said on Wednesday. The shelling of Correctional colony No.120 in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in late July killed 50 inmates and left 73 others wounded. The facility held members of the infamous Azov neo-nazi battalion, who were captured in May after being holed up for weeks at the Azovstal steelworks during the Russian siege of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol.
2.2 Russia cuts off oil exports via Ukraine’s Druzhba pipeline
Russia suspended oil shipments to Europe via Ukraine’s Druzhba pipeline, with its oil transport operator Transneft claiming that its Ukrainian counterpart Ukrtransnafta had been unable to receive transit fees due to Western sanctions.
The disruption in oil flow via the southern leg of Russia’s Druzhba (which means “friendship” in Russian) oil pipeline system that runs through Ukraine will put further pressure on European energy markets, which are already grappling with soaring costs and the risk of fuel shortages. The cut-off will hit the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia hardest, as they rely heavily on imports via the Druzhba pipeline.
Russia has similarly blamed sanctions for disrupting natural gas deliveries via the Nord Stream pipeline, claiming that the measures are preventing the return of equipment sent off for international repair, including a Siemens turbine that remains stuck in transit in Germany.
Transneft said on August 9 that supplies had been halted on August 4, but noted that the suspension had no impact on oil supplies via the northern leg of Druzhba that passes through Belarus to Poland and Germany. Ukrtransnafta has not yet commented on the matter.
According to Reuters, both Hungarian oil giant MOL and Slovak pipeline operator Transpetrol have confirmed the disruption. MOL said it had reserves of oil to last several weeks and was working on a solution. This week MOL and its Slovak unit Slovnaft said they had offered to pay the transit fees on Transneft's behalf to Ukrtransnafta.
Hungary has already had to implement fuel rationing because of domestic shortages, amid general tightness on the European market, exacerbated by fuel price caps that the government has introduced.
In its statement, Transneft said that it made payments to cover oil transit in August to Ukrtransnafta, but that the money was returned on July 28 after the payment failed to go through. Gazprombank, which handled the payment, informed Transneft that the payment had been rejected because of EU restrictions, the pipeline operator said.
Under new EU sanctions, European banks must receive approval from a relevant government authority instead of deciding on their own whether to enable a transaction, and this has complicated the payment process.
Meanwhile, a repaired Siemens turbine that Gazprom has claimed needs to be returned to operate the pipeline properly has remained in the German port of
8 UKRAINE Country Report September 2022 www.intellinews.com