As the war enters its 906th day, here are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Monday, August 19, 2024.
Fighting
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Russia’s state news agency RT reported that Russian marines had captured a group of 19 Ukrainian soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region, describing the Ukrainians as “saboteurs.” The agency released what it said was a video of the captured soldiers, but the claim could not be independently verified.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky first announced the purpose of the Ukrainian forces’ incursion into Russia’s Kursk region on August 6, saying the operation was necessary to create a buffer zone.
- Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said the air force had destroyed a second strategically important bridge over the Seim River in the Kursk region. He released an aerial video of an explosion that destroyed the bridge, which appeared to be located near the village of Zhvanoe, about 15 kilometers (9 miles) north of the Ukrainian border.
- Falling debris from a Ukrainian drone attack caused a major fire at an oil storage facility in the town of Proletarsk, the governor of Russia’s southern Rostov region, Vasily Golubev, said. No casualties were reported. Ukraine acknowledged the attack.
- Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had taken control of the village of Sverdunivka, about 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the main city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
- Kyiv’s military administration said Russia had carried out its third ballistic missile attack on the Ukrainian capital this month, but initial data suggested the weapons were shot down as they approached. Separately, the air force’s Oleshchuk said eight Russian attack drones and five of eight missiles fired across the country, including Kyiv, had been destroyed.
- Zelensky said Russia had fired more than 40 missiles, 750 guided aerial bombs and 200 attack drones in the past week against Ukrainian villages and cities.
- Safety at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine has deteriorated following a drone strike that hit the access road around the plant on Saturday, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said.
- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed that Kyiv had deployed more than 120,000 troops along its border with Belarus, telling the state news agency that he had deployed a third of all Belarusian troops to the border. Andriy Demchenko, spokesman for the Ukrainian border service, told the Ukrainian news agency Ukrainska Pravda that the situation on the Belarusian border had not changed.
Politics and Diplomacy
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it was “obvious” that the United States ordered attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipeline in 2022. “There were orders from the highest level, as they say, the top of the West is, of course, Washington,” Lavrov said in an interview with the Izvestia news agency.
- Russia has complained to Germany about its investigation into the 2022 explosions that ruptured the Nord Stream gas pipeline, after a key suspect escaped arrest in Poland, Russia Today news agency reported. German media reported that German prosecutors had identified a Ukrainian diving instructor. As the main suspect in the attack, an arrest warrant was issued for him in Poland.
- The Kremlin said on Monday it would “not talk” to Ukraine over its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. “At the moment it would be completely inappropriate to enter into a negotiation process,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told Russia’s Shot Telegram channel.
- North Korea condemned Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region on Aug. 6 as a “terrorist act” and said it would always stand by Russia, state media reported.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in the Azerbaijani capital Baku for a two-day state visit, Russian news agencies reported. The Kremlin said Putin would hold talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev on bilateral relations and “international and regional problems.”
