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Shelling at Zaporizhzhia and a widening diplomatic shift
Summary
A look back at the security picture around 12 August 2022, from a shelled nuclear plant to regional distancing from the war.
What did the security picture look like on 12 August 2022? The reports from the preceding days pointed to danger at a nuclear site, civilian deaths from missile fire, and neighbours reconsidering their ties.
On 11 August 2022, at least ten shells hit the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, in the part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast under Russian occupation. Russia and Ukraine each blamed the other for the attack. The shelling damaged an office building and the plant's fire station.
A day earlier, on 10 August 2022, a Russian missile strike in Nikopol Raion, in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, killed at least 13 civilians and injured 11 others.
Warnings and withdrawals
The war also shaped decisions far from the front. On 10 August 2022, Uzbekistan's embassy in Russia warned its citizens not to join Russian forces invading Ukraine. Those who did so, it said, would face criminal liability for mercenaryism on returning to Uzbekistan.
On 11 August 2022, Estonia and Latvia formally withdrew from the Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries group. The move came amid tensions with China over its human rights record and its support of Russia's war on Ukraine.
Taken together, the reports from 10 and 11 August 2022 showed a conflict that threatened a nuclear facility, killed civilians in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, and prompted governments elsewhere to act on their own positions.
