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Ukraine conflict day 129: Russia hits posts in Donbas, EU warns of environmental cost
CGTN
Europe;Ukraine
Local residents get into a car in front of an apartment building heavily damaged during in the city of Sievierodonetsk. /Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

Local residents get into a car in front of an apartment building heavily damaged during in the city of Sievierodonetsk. /Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

TOP HEADLINES

Russian forces destroyed five Ukrainian army command posts in the Donbas and in the Mykolaiv region with what they claim are high-precision weapons, and struck three storage sites in the Zaporizhzhia region, the defense ministry said.

Russians have been shelling the eastern city of Lysychansk from different directions, the regional governor said. Russian forces have captured an oil refinery, one report said, citing Russia's defense ministry.

Plans to rebuild Ukraine will need to address restoring the country's war-torn ecosystems, the EU Commissioner for the Environment has said. Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius warned the environmental cost of the conflict was "increasing every day," and said it could take "generations" to overcome. READ MORE BELOW

Ukraine's army accused Russia of carrying out strikes using incendiary phosphorus munitions on Snake Island, just a day after Moscow withdrew its forces from the rocky outcrop in the Black Sea.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of engaging in state "terror" as he blamed Moscow for missile strikes on southern resort town Odesa that left 21 dead and dozens wounded.

• The UN's cultural agency inscribed the culture surrounding beetroot soup known as borshch in Ukraine on its list of endangered cultural heritage, a recognition sought urgently by Kviv after the start of the conflict. Ukraine prizes borshch, a nourishing soup with beetroot as its base, as a national dish even though it is also widely enjoyed in Russia, and across Europe. READ MORE BELOW

Ukraine asked Turkey to detain a Russian-flagged cargo ship that Kyiv alleged had set off from a Kremlin-occupied port. Marine traffic websites showed the Zhibek Zholy anchored about a kilometer off Turkey's Black Sea port of Karasu.

• The Pentagon announced $820 million in additional weapons and ammunition for Ukraine as it battles Russian forces along the eastern and southern fronts. 

• ​​In the event of an acute gas shortage, the city of Hamburg will ration hot water for private households and limit the maximum heating temperature, its environment senator said, as Germany braces for possible energy outages due Russian gas cuts. 

A destroyed tank alongside the road outside the city of Sievierodonetsk. /Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

A destroyed tank alongside the road outside the city of Sievierodonetsk. /Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

IN DETAIL

Environmental damage is 'a crime of the biggest scale'

Plans to rebuild Ukraine will need to address restoring the country's war-torn ecosystems, the EU Commissioner for the Environment has said.

Virginijus Sinkevicius warned the environmental cost of the conflict was "increasing every day" and said it could take "generations" to overcome.

Next week, leaders from dozens of countries and international organizations will gather in the Swiss city of Lugano to discuss rebuilding Ukraine, hoping to draw up a "Marshall Plan" for the country's reconstruction even as conflict with Russia rages.

The plan will "absolutely" have to include an environmental component, Sinkevicius said.

He spoke of the mass destruction of forests, land covered with mines and trenches, chemical pollution spread by munitions, and contaminated waterways and soil.

"The (environmental) price tag every day is increasing, because we see the barbaric actions of the Russian side (are) not stopping," Sinkevicius said.

"They bomb chemicals facilities" and have put nuclear power plants at risk, he said, adding that "hundreds of thousands of tonnes" of destroyed Russian military machinery would need to be cleared.

He said environmental damage, especially that inflicted on vast areas of forest, was "a crime of the biggest scale" that would "take generations to deal with".

He added there was now a "unique opportunity" to create a "cleaner" Ukraine, but warned: "We can rebuild roads, we can rebuild the infrastructure, but for forests to grow, you need hundreds of years. So it will take time."

A file photo shows a participant cooks borshch in Kyiv during an event to promote UNESCO bid to recognize the traditional beetroot and cabbage dish as part of Ukraine's historical heritage. /Sergei Supinsky/AFP

A file photo shows a participant cooks borshch in Kyiv during an event to promote UNESCO bid to recognize the traditional beetroot and cabbage dish as part of Ukraine's historical heritage. /Sergei Supinsky/AFP

Ukraine: 'Victory in the borshch war is ours'

The UN's cultural agency inscribed the culture surrounding beetroot soup known as borshch in Ukraine on its list of endangered cultural heritage, a recognition sought urgently by Kviv after its conflict with neighboring Russia began. It is alternatively spelled 'Borscht' in some countries. 

Ukraine prizes borshch, a nourishing soup with beetroot as its base, as a national dish even though it is also widely enjoyed in Russia, other ex-Soviet countries and Poland.

The Ukrainian culture of borshch cooking "was today inscribed on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding," by a UNESCO committee, it said.

The decision was approved after a fast-track process prompted by the "negative impact on this tradition" caused by the conflict, the agency said.

"People are unable not only to cook or grow local vegetables for borsht, but also to come together" to eat it, "which undermines the social and cultural well-being of communities," it said, using one of several alternative spellings for the soup.

Kyiv hailed the move as a much-needed victory on the cultural front after four months of Russian bombardments.

For the first time in history, the nomination jumped the queue and was considered in an expedited fashion given "the military aggression against Ukraine in real time and the real threat to the cultural object," Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzeppar said on Twitter, adding: "Ukrainian Borsht derussified!"

Ievgen Klopotenko, a well-known Ukrainian cook, said the UNESCO decision underscored a wider recognition of Ukraine's gastronomical heritage.

"We had hundreds of pages of proof that borshch cooking culture is actually Ukrainian, and the whole engine of Russian propaganda was against us," he said on Facebook. 

"Victory in the borshch war is ours," Ukraine's Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said on Telegram, adding that Ukraine "will win both in the war of borshch and in this war."

 

Here's one recipe for the famous soup - but remember, there are hundreds of variations so this isn't a definitive answer on what Borshch is!  

Source(s): AFP ,Reuters

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