- Stardew Valley Update 1.6.4 Patch Notes: New Mines and Fish Frenzies GameSpot
- Stardew Valley update adds new mine layouts and a bunch of quality-of-life upgrades, and bans “two inappropriate names” from the name generator Gamesradar
- Stardew Valley’s latest patch ‘adds two inappropriate names to the list to exclude from the name generator’ and I am dying to know what they are PC Gamer
- 10 Hidden Stardew Valley 1.6 Features Not Included In The Patch Notes Screen Rant
- Stardew Valley gets yet another update, adding new mine layouts and ominous-sounding “fish frenzies” Rock Paper Shotgun
Tag Archives: mines
Frontline report: Burning fields make mines visible, aiding Ukrainians to advance in Zaporizhzhia’s Tokmak direction – Euromaidan Press
- Frontline report: Burning fields make mines visible, aiding Ukrainians to advance in Zaporizhzhia’s Tokmak direction Euromaidan Press
- The Times on bomb disposal experts near Robotyne: They clear passages through minefields on their knees Yahoo News
- My nation didn’t learn lesson of war, says Russian who finds bodies of Soviet soldiers The Guardian
- Grisly Remains: Ukraine Collects Russian Bodies Along ‘The Road Of Death’ Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
- Ukraine collects Russian bodies on ‘road of death’ in retaken southeast India Today
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Russian navy ordered to lay mines at Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, says US | Ukraine
The Russian navy has been given orders to lay mines at the ports of Odesa and Ochakiv, and has already mined the Dnieper River, as part of a blockade of Ukrainian grain exports, according to newly declassified US intelligence.
US officials also released satellite images showing the damage inflicted by Russian missile strikes earlier this month on Ukraine’s second biggest grain terminal at nearby Mykolaiv, at a time when the interruption of grain exports threatens to trigger a global famine. Sunflower oil storage tanks at Mykolaiv came under attack on Wednesday.
Russia has denied laying mines around the Black Sea ports, and has turned around the allegations on Kyiv, claiming instead the Ukrainians have mined their own ports.
The US says its intelligence points to a concerted Russian strategy to cut off the stretch of the coast still under Ukrainian control. “The United States has information that the Black Sea fleet is under orders to effectively blockade the Ukrainian ports of Odesa and Ochakiv,” a US official said.
“We can confirm that despite Russia’s public claims that it is not mining the north-western Black Sea, Russia actually is deploying mines in the Black Sea near Ochakiv. We also have indication that Russian forces previously mined the Dnieper River.”
“The impact of Russia’s actions, which have caused a cessation of maritime trade in the northern third of the Black Sea and made the region unsafe for navigation, cannot be understated, as Ukraine’s seaborne exports are vital to global food security,” the official said, pointing out that Ukraine supplied a 10th of global wheat exports and about 95% of those exports left the country through the Black Sea ports.
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Alternative land routes are being examined, while the UK has offered technical expertise to Turkey, which has offered to escort cargo ships through the Black Sea. But Ankara said it had not been able to fix a date for a meeting with Russian officials to discuss the proposed grain convoys.
The US also declassified satellite images on Thursday showing the scale of damage inflicted in a 4 June Russian attack on the Nika-Tera grain terminal in Mykolaiv, the second biggest in Ukraine.
“The image makes clear that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to the destruction of three of the site’s grain silos as well as the conveyor system that loads grain on to vessels,” the US official said. “Because of Russia’s attack, the export capacity of the grain terminal has been reduced by at least one-third.”
Video footage released on Thursday also showed serious damage to at least two storage tanks for sunflower oil at a terminal in Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Mykolaiv, caused by a Russian missile strike on Wednesday.
The Kremlin has formally denied trying to trigger a global famine, but earlier this week Margarita Simonyan, the head of the Russian propaganda outlet RT, suggested that was the strategy.
“The famine will start now and they will lift the sanctions and be friends with us, because they will realise that it’s impossible not to be friends with us,” Simonyan told the St Petersburg Economic Forum.
Ukrainian president warns that retreating Russian forces are leaving mines
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned his people early Saturday that retreating Russian forces were creating “a complete disaster” outside the capital, Kyiv, as they leave mines across “the whole territory,” even around homes and corpses.
“They are mining homes, mining equipment, even the bodies of people who were killed,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation. “There are a lot of trip wires, a lot of other dangers.”
He urged residents to wait to resume their normal lives until they are assured that the mines have been cleared and the danger of shelling has passed.
Zelenskyy issued the warning as the humanitarian crisis in the encircled port city of Mariupol deepened, with Russian forces blocking evacuation operations for the second day in a row, and the Kremlin accused the Ukrainians of launching a helicopter attack on a fuel depot on Russian soil.
Ukraine denied responsibility for the fiery blast, but if Moscow’s claim is confirmed, it would be the war’s first known attack in which Ukrainian aircraft penetrated Russian airspace.
“Certainly, this is not something that can be perceived as creating comfortable conditions for the continuation of the talks,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, five weeks after Moscow began sending upwards of 150,000 of its own troops across Ukraine’s border.
Russia continued withdrawing some of its ground forces from areas around Kyiv after saying earlier this week it would reduce military activity near the Ukrainian capital and the northern city of Chernihiv.
The mayor of a town just outside of Kyiv called Bucha told AFP reporters on Saturday that the Ukrainian army retook control of the commuter town from the Russians. Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said corpses fill the streets of the heavily destroyed town, and the dead are being buried in mass graves.
“In Bucha, we have already buried 280 people in mass graves,” Fedoruk told AFP by phone.
In Kyiv, there is relief that Ukraine has managed to halt Russia’s advance on the capital for now – but they are not letting down their guard. Many there are convinced it could be short-lived, CBS News’ Debora Patta reports.
From soldiers like Sergei defending Kyiv, there’s only contempt for Russia’s claim it dramatically reduced operations near the capital. Sergei said he doesn’t believe Russia and that maybe it’s just a retreat in preparation for a stronger attack.
Sergei last picked up a gun 25 years ago during his conscription. In a few weeks, his son turns 18 and will join him in the fight — Russian brutality serving only to strengthen their resolve.
Ukraine and its allies warned that the Kremlin is not de-escalating to promote trust at the bargaining table, as it claimed, but instead resupplying and shifting its troops to the country’s east. Those movements appear to be preparation for an intensified assault on the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region in the country’s east, which includes the city of Mariupol.
There are still more than 150,000 residents left inside that city — unable or unwilling to leave as Russian tanks continue to pound what’s left of it. On Saturday, another Red Cross convoy will attempt to evacuate more residents from the city, which has been under siege for five weeks.
Zelenskyy: Mines in wake of Russian retreat keep Kyiv unsafe
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As Russian forces pull back from Ukraine’s capital region, retreating troops are creating a “catastrophic” situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and “even the bodies of those killed,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Saturday.
Ukraine and its Western allies reported mounting evidence of Russia withdrawing its forces from around Kyiv and building its troop strength in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian fighters reclaimed several areas near the capital after forcing the Russians out or moving in after them, officials said.
The visible shift did not mean the country faced a reprieve from more than five weeks of war or that the more than 4 million refugees who have fled Ukraine will return soon. Zelenskyy said he expects departed towns to endure missile strikes and rocket strikes from afar and for the battle in the east to be intense.
“It’s still not possible to return to normal life, as it used to be, even at the territories that we are taking back after the fighting. We need wait until our land is demined, wait till we are able to assure you that there won’t be new shelling,” the president said during his nightly video address, though his claims about Russian mines couldn’t be independently verified.
Moscow’s focus on eastern Ukraine also kept the besieged southern city of Mariupol in the crosshairs. The port city on the Sea of Azoz is located in the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region, where Russia-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian troops for eight years. Military analysts think Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to capture the region after his forces failed to secure Kyiv and other major cities.
The International Committee of the Red Cross planned to try Saturday to get into Mariupol to evacuate residents. The Red Cross said it could not carry out the operation Friday because it did not receive assurances the route was safe. City authorities said the Russians blocked access to the city.
The humanitarian group said a team with three vehicles and nine Red Cross staff members was headed to Mariupol on Saturday to help facilitate the safe evacuation of civilians. It said its team planned to accompany a convoy of civilians from Mariupol to another city.
“Our presence will put a humanitarian marker on this planned movement of people, giving the convoy additional protection and reminding all sides of the civilian, humanitarian nature of the operation,” it said in a statement.
The Mariupol city council said Saturday that 10 empty buses were headed to Berdyansk, a city 84 kilometers (52.2 miles) west of Mariupol, to pick up people who manage to get there on their own. About 2,000 made it out of Mariupol on Friday, some on buses and some in their own vehicles, city officials said.
Evacuees boarded about 25 buses in Berdyansk and arrived around midnight to Zaporizhzhia, a city still under Ukrainian control that has served as the destination under previous cease-fires announced — and then broken — to get civilians out and aid into Mariupol.
Among them was Tamila Mazurenko, who said she fled Mariupol on Monday and made it to Berdyansk that night. Mazurenko said she waited for a bus until Friday, spending one night sleeping in a field.
“I have only one question: Why?” she said of her city’s ordeal. “We only lived as normal people. And our normal life was destroyed. And we lost everything. I don’t have any job, I can’t find my son.”
Mariupol, which was surrounded by Russian forces a month ago, has suffered some of the war’s worst attacks, including on a maternity hospital and a theater that was sheltering civilians. Around 100,000 people are believed to remain in the city, down from a prewar population of 430,000, and they are facing dire shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine.
The city’s capture would give Moscow an unbroken land bridge from Russia to Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014. But its resistance has also has taken on symbolic significance during Russia’s invasion, said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Ukrainian think-tank Penta.
“Mariupol has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance, and without its conquest, Putin cannot sit down at the negotiating table,” Fesenko said.
An adviser to Zelenskyy, Oleksiy Arestovych, said in an interview with Russian lawyer and activist Mark Feygin that Russia and Ukraine had reached an agreement to allow 45 buses to drive to Mariupol to evacuate residents “in coming days.”
About 500 refugees from eastern Ukraine, including 99 children and 12 people with disabilities, arrived in the Russian city of Kazan by train overnight. Asked if he saw a chance to return home, Mariupol resident Artur Kirillov answered, “That’s unlikely, there is no city anymore.”
On the outskirts of Kyiv, signs of fierce fighting were everywhere in the wake of the Russian redeployment. Destroyed armored vehicles from both armies left in streets and fields and scattered military gear covered the ground next to an abandoned Russian tank.
Ukrainian forces recaptured the city of Brovary, 20 kilometers east of the capital, Mayor Ihor Sapozhko said in a televised Friday night address. Shops were reopening and residents were returning but “still stand ready to defend” their city, he added.
“Russian occupants have now left practically all of the Brovary district,” Sapozhko said. “Tonight, (Ukrainian) armed forces will work to clear settlements of (remaining) occupants, military hardware, and possibly from mines.”
A prominent Ukrainian photojournalist who went missing last month in a combat zone near the capital was found dead Friday in the Huta Mezhyhirska village north of Kyiv, the country’s prosecutor general’s office announced. Maks Levin, 40, worked as a photojournalist and videographer for many Ukrainian and international publications.
The prosecutor general’s office attributed his death to two gunshots allegedly fired by the Russian military, and it said an investigation was underway.
Elsewhere, at least three Russian ballistic missiles were fired late Friday at the Odesa region on the Black Sea, regional leader Maksim Marchenko said. The Ukrainian military said the Iskander missiles did not hit the critical infrastructure they targeted in Odesa, Ukraine’s largest port and the headquarters of its navy.
Ukraine’s state nuclear agency reported a series of blasts Saturday that injured four people in Enerhodar, a city in southeastern Ukraine that has been under Russian control since early March along with the nearby Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
Ukrainian officials also reported that the death toll from a Russian rocket strike Tuesday on a government building in Mykolaiv, a port city east of Odesa, had risen to 33, with a further 34 people wounded. The confirmed death toll has risen steadily as the search and rescue operation continues.
As the war dragged on, the U.S. Defense Department said Friday night it is providing an additional $300 million in arms to Ukrainian forces, including laser-guided rocket systems, unmanned aircraft, armored vehicles, night vision devices and ammunition. Also included are medical supplies, field equipment and spare parts.
There was no immediate word Saturday on the latest round of talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators, which took place Friday by video. During a round of talks earlier in the week, Ukraine said it would be willing to abandon a bid to join NATO and declare itself neutral — Moscow’s chief demand — in return for security guarantees from several other countries.
On Friday, the Kremlin accused Ukraine of launching a helicopter attack on a fuel depot on Russian soil.
Ukraine denied responsibility for the fiery blast at the civilian oil storage facility on the outskirts of the city of Belgorod, about 25 kilometers (16 miles) from the Ukraine border. If Moscow’s claim is confirmed, it would be the war’s first known attack in which Ukrainian aircraft penetrated Russian airspace.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, said on Ukrainian television: “For some reason they say that we did it, but in fact this does not correspond with reality.” Later, in an interview with American TV channel Fox News, Zelenskyy refused to say whether Ukraine was behind the attack.
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Karmanau reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Andrea Rosa in Irpin, Ukraine, and Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Hunter Biden firm helped a Chinese company purchase one of world’s largest cobalt mines
An investment firm founded by Hunter Biden assisted a Chinese company in purchasing one of the world’s richest cobalt mines from an American company for $3.8 billion – helping the conglomerate gain a massive share of the key metal used to make electric car batteries.
The president’s son was one of three Americans who joined Chinese partners in establishing the Bohai Harvest RST Equity Investment Fund Management Company, or BHR, in 2013.
The Americans controlled 30 percent of the company and made successful investments that culminated in aiding China Molybdenum purchase the Tenke Fungurume cobalt mine in the Congo from the American company Freeport-McMoRan in 2016, the New York Times reported.
The news comes after President Joe Biden had warned that China could use its dominance of mined cobalt to disrupt America’s development of electric vehicles.
It also adds to the scrutiny Biden and his father have faced for his dealings with Chines and Ukrainian companies while Joe was vice president and later running for president.
Hunter Biden (pictured on November 10) was one of three American founders of a investment firm primarily owned by Chinese partners. The firm helped secure the richest cobalt mine in the world for a Chinese company in 2016
Biden founded BHR with two other Americans and Chinese partners in 2013. He was no longer part of the board as of April 2020
Bohai Harvest RST Equity Investment Fund Management Company, or BHR, partnered with China Molybdenum to buy the Tenke Fungurume cobalt mine in the Congo (pictured)
Biden’s firm made the deal with Joe Biden, right, was still vice president. The now president has warned that America’s electric vehicle production could he stunted by China’s dominance over cobalt, one of the key components of the electric batteries
BHR slowly made its way into an investment powerhouse after helping finance an Australian coal-mining company controlled by a Chinese state-owned firm, the paper reported.
The investment company’s big break came in 2016 when it bought and sold a stake in CATL, a Chinese company that is now the world’s biggest maker of batteries for electric vehicles.
That same year, China Molybdenum – one of the world’s leading producers of the precious metals molybdenum and tungsten – announced it would purchase the Tenke Fungurume cobalt mine from Freeport-McMoRan, an American mining company.
But in order to purchase the mine, the Chinese company needed a partner to buy out one of the stakeholders, Lundin Mining of Canada.
That’s when BHR came in to buy out Lundin with $1.14 billion raised entirely from obscure Chinese state-backed companies, according to the Times.
Biden still controlled 10 percent of BHR when its shares of the mines were sold to China Molybdenum in 2019.
The Tenke Fungurume cobalt mine, in the Congo, is worth $3.8 billion and holds the largest deposit of the metal
The mines were purchased from the American-based Freeport-McMoRan company, which owns mines across the nation (pictured a Freeport-McMoRan mine in Colorado)
Chris Clark, one of Biden’s lawyers, said the president’s son ‘no longer holds any interest, directly or indirectly, in either BHR or Skaneateles,’ a firm Biden used to control his BHR shares.
Chinese records show Biden was no longer on BHR’s board as of April 2020, and a former board member told the Times that the American founders were not directly involved in the mine deal and supposedly earned only a nominal fee from it.
‘We don’t know Hunter Biden, nor are we aware of his involvement in BHR,’ Vincent Zhou, a spokesman for China Molybdenum, said in a statement.
A White House spokesman told the Times that President Biden has not been made aware of his son’s connection to the sale.
The president has often faced backlash for Biden’s dealings with Chines and Ukrainian companies through banks, lobbies and investment firms.
The necessity for cobalt by American companies was made even more vital after the president signed an executive order in August outlining a goal to have electric and other zero-emissions vehicles make up half of the new cars and trucks sold in the U.S. by 2030.
The 50 percent goal is nonbinding and mostly symbolic, but it sets the expectation for U.S. automakers to begin the transition from building gas-powered vehicles to electric ones.
It includes battery electric, plug-in hybrid electric, or fuel cell electric vehicles. Biden also included the first-ever national network of electric vehicle charging stations in his $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.