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What Russia's poisoning claim and Voznesensk shelling showed
Summary
A look back at two reports from southern Ukraine in the days before 22 August 2022.
What was happening in southern Ukraine by 22 August 2022? Two reports from 20 August pointed to a front where civilians and information were both under pressure.
On 20 August, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said Russian shelling hit a residential building in Voznesensk, Mykolaiv Oblast. Nine civilians were injured, four of them children. The strike fell within the southern Ukraine campaign, and the attack on a residential building was catalogued among alleged war crimes in the invasion.
The same day, Russia said a number of its soldiers in Zaporizhzhia had been poisoned by Ukraine. It said tests showed Botulinum toxin type B in their bodies. This was a Russian allegation, and the claim of Ukrainian responsibility was Moscow's own.
Two kinds of pressure
The two reports describe different things. One is a reported attack on homes, with named casualties and a regional official as the source. The other is an accusation from a party to the war, presented with a laboratory finding but attributed to Ukraine without further support.
Together they show that, in the south, the fighting was accompanied by competing public accounts of who was harming whom.
