As the war enters its 917th day, these are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Friday, August 30, 2024.
Fighting
- At least one person was killed and six injured in Russian shelling of the eastern Ukrainian town of Kostiantynivka, Donetsk Governor Vadym Filaskhin said. Kostiantynivka is miles from the front line, but comes under attack almost every day, he added.
- Ukraine’s top commander Oleksandr Syrskii, who said he spent several days on the eastern Pokrovsk front, described fighting there as “exceptionally tough”. He said the most intense clashes were taking place around Krasnyi Yar, some 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) from Pokrovsk, and that Russia was throwing everything into the fight despite Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Kursk.
- Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces captured two villages in eastern Ukraine – Mykolaivka in the Donetsk region, about 15km (nine miles) from Pokrovsk, and Stelmakhivka in the neighbouring Luhansk region. Ukraine’s military said earlier its forces were repelling attacks around Stelmakhivka.
- Ukraine’s Air Force said 60 out of 74 Russian attack drones and two out of five missiles were destroyed.
- The Ukrainian General Staff said one of its F-16 fighter jets crashed while repelling a major Russian drone and missile attack on Monday, the first loss since the planes began arriving in Ukraine earlier this month. The pilot was killed. A United States defence official told the Reuters news agency that the crash did not seem to be the result of Russian fire and possible causes from pilot error to mechanical failure were being investigated.
- A Ukrainian mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Russia’s intense drone and missile attack on Monday forced Ukraine to disconnect several nuclear power units from the grid, posing a risk to the nuclear power sector. The attack targeted the country’s energy network.
- One person was killed and two more injured in Ukrainian shelling of the town of Shebekino in Russia’s Belgorod region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
- Ukraine’s military said it attacked an artillery depot and two oil storage facilities in Russia, starting a fire at the Atlas oil depot in the southern Rostov region.
Politics and diplomacy
- The IAEA said Director-General Rafael Grossi will travel to Ukraine next week to hold high-level talks and assess developments at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which was occupied by Russia soon after it began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
- A Moscow military court ordered the detention of Pavel Popov, a former deputy defence minister, on suspicion of fraud in a widening corruption scandal that has targeted those linked to former Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. Popov is being investigated over the construction of the war-themed Patriot Park near Moscow. His lawyer said he denied the charges.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Mongolia on September 3, the Kremlin said. It will be his first visit to a member country of the International Criminal Court (ICC) since it issued a warrant for his arrest in March 2023 over the forced deportation of Ukrainian children.
Weapons
- Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he had “conveyed a sense of urgency” to allies in the European Union to speed up the delivery of promised military aid, particularly air defence systems.
- The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, stepped up pressure on Ukraine’s allies to lift their restrictions on the use of Western weapons inside Russia. Borrell said that curbs needed to be lifted in accordance with international law.
