Summary of the day
It is almost 6pm in Ukraine and Russia. Here are the key events you might have missed from the day:
The Ukrainian air force attacked another bridge in Russia’s Kursk region on Sunday. Footage posted on a commander’s Telegram channel showed an attack on a bridge in Zvannoe, Kursk over the Seym river. This is the same river over which another key bridge was destroyed by Ukrainian strikes earlier this week. Ukraine’s destruction of infrastructure in the area is believed to be an attempt to hamper Russian supply lines and reinforcements.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Sunday that Ukraine stationed more than 120,000 troops at its border with Belarus. In response, Minsk deployed nearly a third of its armed forces along the entire border, the Belta state news agency reported. The exact number of soldiers was not specified, but Belarus’ professional army consists of 48,000 and about 12,000 state border troops, according to the 2022 International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance. “Seeing their aggressive policy, we have introduced there and placed in certain points – in case of war, they would be defence – our military along the entire border,” Belta cited Mr Lukashenko, a staunch ally of Vladimir Putin, as saying in an interview with Russian state television. Kyiv did not respond to a Reuters request for comment but the news wire service reports that Andriy Demchenko, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian border service, told media outlet Ukrainska Pravda that the situation on the border with Belarus remained unchanged. “We are not seeing any increase in the number of equipment or personnel of Belarusian units near our border,” Demchenko said.
Ukraine says it repelled a Russian missile attack on Kyiv. Agence France-Presse reports that air raid sirens sounded in the Ukrainian capital before dawn on Sunday. “This is the third ballistic missile attack on the capital in August with a clear interval of six days between each attack,” the Kyiv city military administration posted on Telegram after the early morning barrage. Simultaneous to the missile attack, drones were spotted heading to Kyiv. “All enemy drones were destroyed far outside the city,” it added.
Ukraine has captured more than 150 Russian prisoners of war on some days in the cross-border military operation that a key civilian official said was the first of “several stages” in taking the fight to Moscow.
Ukraine’s offensive in Kursk has generated frontline-wide pressures on Russian forces, analysts at the Institute for the Study of War have said on Sunday. Vladimir Putin is almost certain to attempt to retake the Russian territory, which will require more manpower and equipment from elsewhere in the theatre, the US-based thinktank added. Long-term, Putin will be forced to make a decision about committing more resource Russia’s long international border with Ukraine, imposing “constraints” on theatre-wide planning that “Russia previously did not face”.
Russian forces took control of the village of Svyrydonivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, according to TASS state news agency reports citing the Russian defence ministry. The Guardian could not independently verify the battlefield report.
North Korea condemned Ukraine’s incursion into Russia as an unforgivable act of terror backed by Washington and the West, saying that the US’s anti-Russian policies were driving the global security environment to the brink of World War III and adding it will always stand with Russia as it seeks to protect its sovereignty, state media announced.
Russia denied a report that Ukraine’s attack on the Kursk region had derailed indirect talks with Kyiv on halting strikes on energy and power targets, saying there had been no talks with Kyiv about civilian infrastructure facilities. The Washington Post reported on Saturday that Ukraine and Russia were set to send delegations to Qatar this month to negotiate a landmark agreement halting strikes on energy and power infrastructure on both sides. The Post said the agreement would have amounted to a partial ceasefire but that the talks were derailed due to Ukraine’s attack on Russian sovereign territory. “No one broke anything off because there was nothing to break off,” Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry, said of the Post report.
The UN’s nuclear watchdog warned on Saturday that the safety situation at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was “deteriorating” after a nearby drone strike. Earlier on Saturday, Russia accused Ukraine of dropping an explosive charge on a road near the occupied plant in southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy says his forces are “strengthening” their positions in Russia’s Kursk region where Kyiv has been mounting a major ground offensive. He said his army chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, had reported that Ukrainian troops continued their advance and also took more Russian servicemen as prisoners.
Ukrainian drones attacked an oil storage facility in Russia’s southern Rostov region early Sunday morning, sparking a large fuel fire, the local governor said. Videos published on social media showed thick black smoke and bursts of flames coming from the site of the blaze, which the governor said was in the town of Proletarsk. There were no reported injuries.
Suggestions that Ukrainian authorities supported by Poland were behind planning and executing the sabotage attack on Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022 are groundless, the Polish president’s aide said on Sunday.
Authorities in Russia’s Tuva republic in southern Siberia ordered the evacuation of nearly 500 schoolchildren from summer camps, as emergency workers battled to contain 31 wildfires raging across forests, the regional governor said on Sunday.
Updated
Authorities in Russia’s Tuva republic in southern Siberia have ordered the evacuation of nearly 500 schoolchildren from summer camps.
Emergency workers battled to contain 31 wildfires raging across forests, the regional governor said on Sunday.
Vladislav Khovalyg said on the Telegram app that the children would be transported on buses to the regional capital Kyzyl “in the next few hours”.
Authorities declared a state of emergency earlier on Sunday in forested parts of Tuva. Regional emergency services wrote on Telegram that about 2,850 hectares (7,043 acres) of forest were on fire as of Sunday morning, and that some blazes were close to populated areas.
Approximately 460 personnel were involved in extinguishing the blazes, the Interfax news agency cited local authorities as saying.
Intense heat, strong winds and dry thunderstorms frequently cause forest fires across Russia in summer months.
Updated
Watch: Ukraine attacks Russian bridge
We can now bring you video of the Ukrainian strike on another bridge in Kursk this week.
A plume of smoke can be seen erupting from the construction in footage published by the Ukrainian air force.
Here is a graphic depicting Ukrainian strikes on multiple bridges in Kursk from the last few days.
The attacks on bridges crossing the river Seym, one in Zvannoe and the other in Glushkovo, are thought to be attempts to hamper Russian attempts to resupply its troops in the region.
Updated
More than 150 Russian PoWs captured on some days, says Ukrainian official
Ukraine has captured more than 150 Russian prisoners of war on some days in the cross-border military operation that a key civilian official said was the first of “several stages” in taking the fight to Moscow.
Oleksii Drozdenko, the head of the military administration in the Ukrainian city of Sumy, added that the attack had fared better than expected and there had only been 15 casualties needing hospital treatment on the first day.
“Sometimes there are more than 100 or 150 prisoners of war a day,” Drozdenko said. Many of the Russian troops who have been guarding the border are young conscripts. “They do not want to fight us,” he added.
Several videos have circulated of Ukrainians capturing prisoners of war, including at the border in the first hours of the incursion into the Russian territory of Kursk on Tuesday 6 August. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said Kyiv is increasing its “exchange fund” to swap for PoWs held by Russia.
Sumy is the Ukrainian city closest to the incursion and Drozdenko said he had been closely involved in its planning but had been sworn to secrecy, zipping his lips in a gesture to describe the importance of operational security before the surprise attack.
Other local civilian leaders, notably the Sumy region’s governor, Volodymyr Artyukh, have said they were not warned in advance, suggesting Drozdenko was in a trusted circle.
You can read the full story here
Russia has denied a report that Ukraine’s attack on the Kursk region had derailed indirect talks with Kyiv on halting strikes on energy and power targets, saying there had been no talks with Kyiv about civilian infrastructure facilities.
The Washington Post reported on Saturday that Ukraine and Russia were set to send delegations to Qatar this month to negotiate a landmark agreement halting strikes on energy and power infrastructure on both sides
The Post said the agreement would have amounted to a partial ceasefire but that the talks were derailed due to Ukraine’s attack on Russian sovereign territory
“No one broke anything off because there was nothing to break off,” Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry, said of the Post report.
“There have been no direct or indirect negotiations between Russia and the Kyiv regime on the safety of civilian critical infrastructure facilities.”
Ukraine’s government did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
There has been some response from Ukraine to comments by Alexander Lukashenko that Minsk has deployed nearly a third of its troops to the border in response to what the autocratic Belarusian leader and Putin ally described as Kyiv’s “aggressive policy” (see post at 12.08 BST).
Kyiv did not respond to a Reuters request for comment but the news wire service reports that Andriy Demchenko, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian border service, told media outlet Ukrainska Pravda that the situation on the border with Belarus remained unchanged.
“As we can see, Lukashenko’s rhetoric does not change either, constantly escalating the situation with regularity to please the terrorist country,” Demchenko said.
“We are not seeing any increase in the number of equipment or personnel of Belarusian units near our border.”
Updated
Suggestions Poland helped Nord Stream sabotage are groundless, says Polish presidential aide
Suggestions that Ukrainian authorities supported by Poland were behind planning and executing the sabotage attack on Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022 are groundless, the Polish president’s aide said on Sunday.
Germany’s former intelligence chief August Hanning told Die Welt this week he believed there were agreements between presidents of Poland and Ukraine to carry out the attack.
“These are completely groundless insinuations,” Mieszko Pawlak, head of the international policy bureau at the office of President Andrzej Duda said when asked about the allegations by Polsat broadcaster, PAP newswire reported.
Pawlak said Hanning was serving when Gerhard Schroeder was German chancellor and pillars of Nord Stream 1 were emerging, and “as head of intelligence definitely played a shameful and important role in the investment”.
German media reported this week that German prosecutors had identified a Ukrainian diving instructor as a key suspect in the Nord Stream sabotage attack and issued a warrant to arrest him in Poland.
Poland received the warrant but the suspect has left the country as Germany failed to include his name in a database of wanted persons, Polish prosecutors told Reuters.
Belarus sends third of army to border 'in case of war', says president
We’ve had more details come through on the wires from Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on his movement of troops to the Ukrainian border.
Minsk has deployed nearly a third of its armed forces along the entire border, the Belta state news agency reported.
The exact number of soldiers was not specified, but Belarus’ professional army consists of 48,000 and around 12,000 state border troops, according to the 2022 International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance.
The president, a staunch ally of Vladamir Putin, claimed Ukraine had stationed more than 120,000 troops at its border with Belarus.
“Seeing their aggressive policy, we have introduced there and placed in certain points – in case of war, they would be defence – our military along the entire border,” Belta cited Mr Lukashenko as saying in an interview with Russian state television.
Kyiv did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for comment. Yesterday, Kyiv said it had seen no signs of a Belarusian troop buildup at the border.
Belarusian defence minister Viktor Khrenin said on Friday there was a high probability of an armed provocation from Ukraine and that the situation at their shared border “remains tense”.
Lukashenko said the Belarusian-Ukrainian border is mined “as never before” and that Ukrainian troops would incur huge losses if they tried to cross it.
Updated
Kursk offensive puts new pressures on Russian frontline, analysts say
Ukraine’s offensive in Kursk has generated frontline-wide pressures on Russian forces, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
Vladimir Putin is almost certain to attempt to retake the Russian territory, which will require more manpower and equipment from elsewhere in the theatre, the US-based thinktank said.
Long-term, Putin will be forced to make a decision about committing more resource Russia’s long international border with Ukraine, imposing “constraints” on theatre-wide planning that “Russia previously did not face”.
“The Ukrainian incursion in Kursk Oblast and the heightened Russian priority of maintaining the tempo of offensive operations in Donetsk Oblast will likely place greater strain on Russia’s remaining operational reserves and likely begin to impact Russia’s ability to sustain consistent offensive operations throughout the theatre,” the ISW said.
“Further Russian redeployments to Kursk Oblast would also further weaken Russia’s ability to sustain offensive operations in northeastern and eastern Ukraine.”
NEW: It is too early to assess the outcomes and operational significance of the Ukrainian incursion into Russia and the ongoing Russian offensive effort in eastern Ukraine. 🧵(1/14)
— Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) August 18, 2024
1/ The Ukrainian operation in Kursk Oblast has already generated theater-wide operational and… pic.twitter.com/DCg9vAGswl
Russian forces capture village in Ukraine's Donetsk region, TASS reports
Russian forces took control of the village of Svyrydonivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the TASS state news agency reported on Sunday, citing the defence ministry.
The Guardian could not independently verify the battlefield report.
Belarus deploys troops along entire border with Ukraine
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Sunday that Ukraine has stationed more than 120,000 troops at its border with Belarus.
Minsk had sent military formations along its entire border in response, Russia’s RIA state news agency said.
Lukashenko, an ally of Vladimir Putin, said the Belarusian-Ukrainian border is mined “as never before” and that Ukrainian troops would incur huge losses if they tried to cross it.
Ukraine blows hole in another Russian bridge
The Ukrainian air force says it has attacked another bridge in Russia’s Kursk region.
Footage posted on a commander’s Telegram channel shows an attack on a bridge in Zvannoe, Kursk over the Seym river.
This is the same river over which another key bridge was destroyed by Ukrainian strikes earlier this week.
Ukraine’s destruction of infrastructure in the area is believed to be an attempt to hamper Russian supply lines or reinforcements.
Air force commander Lt General Mykola Oleshchuk wrote: “Minus one more bridge! The aviation of the air force continues to deprive the enemy of its logistical capabilities with accurate airstrikes, which significantly affects the course of hostilities.”
Updated
US's anti-Russia policy driving global security to brink of WWIII, says North Korea
Anti-Russian policies of the US are driving the global security environment to the brink of World War III, North Korean state media said on Sunday.
North Korea condemned Ukraine’s incursion into Russia as an unforgivable act of terror backed by Washington and the West, adding it will always stand with Russia as it seeks to protect its sovereignty, state media announced.
Good morning and welcome to our blog covering developments in the Russia-Ukraine war as Ukraine says has it repelled a Russian missile attack on Kyiv.
Agence France-Presse reports that air raid sirens sounded in the Ukrainian capital before dawn on Sunday.
“This is the third ballistic missile attack on the capital in August with a clear interval of six days between each attack,” the Kyiv city military administration posted on Telegram after the early morning barrage.
Simultaneous to the missile attack, drones were spotted heading to Kyiv.
“All enemy drones were destroyed far outside the city,” it added.
No damage or casualties were reported from the attack, which the administration said had “most likely used North Korean ballistic missiles of the KN-23 type”.
The United States and Seoul have accused North Korea of providing ammunition and missiles to Russia for its war in Ukraine.
Kyiv has repeatedly called for its allies in the west to provide more air-defence systems.
Last weekend, a 35-year-old man and his four-year-old son were killed in an overnight Russian missile attack near Kyiv. Three other people were seriously injured.
Concern has deepened after Moscow vowed a “tough response” to the recent Ukrainian advance into the Russian territory of Kursk.
In other developments:
The UN’s nuclear watchdog warned on Saturday that the safety situation at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was “deteriorating” after a nearby drone strike. Earlier on Saturday, Russia accused Ukraine of dropping an explosive charge on a road near the occupied plant in southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy says his forces are “strengthening” their positions in Russia’s Kursk region where Kyiv has been mounting a major ground offensive. He said his army chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, had reported that Ukrainian troops continued their advance and also took more Russian servicemen as prisoners.
Ukrainian drones attacked an oil storage facility in Russia’s southern Rostov region early Sunday morning, sparking a large fuel fire, the local governor said. Videos published on social media showed thick black smoke and bursts of flames coming from the site of the blaze, which the governor said was in the town of Proletarsk. There were no reported injuries.
