Here is the situation on Sunday, August 6, 2023.
Fighting
- A blood transfusion centre, a university and an aeronautics facility in Ukraine were damaged in deadly air raids as Russian and Ukrainian forces escalated their attacks late on Saturday.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blamed Russia for the attack on the blood bank in the eastern town of Kupiansk and described it as a “war crime”.
- He said the “guided aerial bomb” attack caused deaths and injuries but did not say how many people were killed and wounded.
- Zelenskyy also reported a Russian attack on an aeronautics facility belonging to Motor Sich, a maker of plane and helicopter engines as well as other components. The site is located near the city of Khmelnytskyi in western Ukraine, about 300km (190 miles) southwest of Kyiv.
- In the Russian-controlled Donetsk region, the Moscow-installed governor accused Ukrainian forces of attacking a university with cluster munitions. The attack set the building on fire, he said.
- Earlier on Saturday, Russian officials pledged retaliation for a Ukrainian naval attack on what they said was a civilian tanker in the Black Sea.
- A Telegram post by Deputy Chair of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev implied that Russia would increase its attacks against Ukrainian ports in response to Kyiv’s attacks on Russian ships in the Black Sea. “Apparently, the strikes on Odesa, Izmail, and other places were not enough for them,” he wrote.
- On the front line, the Russian defence ministry said its forces had captured the settlement of Novoselivske in northeastern Ukraine, where Kyiv said it was confronted with a growing number of attacks. Footage from the Russian army showed Novoselivske completely destroyed, with white smoke billowing over crumbling buildings.
Diplomacy
- Saudi Arabia kicked off a Ukraine-organised peace summit that included delegates from 40 countries, including China, India and the United States, but not Russia.
- A European Union official told the Reuters news agency there would be no joint statement after the meeting but that the Saudis would present a plan for further talks, with working groups to discuss issues such as global food security, nuclear safety and prisoner releases. The official described the talks as positive and said there was “agreement that respect of territorial integrity and [the] sovereignty of Ukraine needs to be at the heart of any peace settlement”.
