Here is the situation on Monday, August 14, 2023.
Fight
- Russian bombing has killed seven people, including a 23-day-old baby, and injured at least 22 people in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, according to officials.
- The boy’s parents and his 12-year-old brother were also killed in the Russian attack on the village of Shyroke Balka, according to Ukraine’s interior minister.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised a response to the attack. He said that as of 6 pm local time (15:00 GMT) on Sunday, there were 17 reports of shooting in Kherson region alone, as well as incidents in Mykolaiv, Zaporizhia, Donbas, Kharkiv regions. and the border areas in the northeast of the country.
- In Russia, the defense ministry said that air defenses shot down at least five Ukrainian drones in the west of the country. Among them are four in the Belgorod region and one in the Kursk region.
- Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced a “state of emergency” in the border region, sharing images of damage to an apartment building that he said was caused by a Ukrainian drone. He said there were no casualties in the attack.
- On the front lines in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, an official stationed in Moscow reported heavy fighting south of the Velyka Novosilka area, with Ukrainian troops trying to break through Russian lines to will be pushed to the shores of the Sea of Azov.
- “The enemy managed to enter and gain a foothold in the northern part of Urozhaine after two weeks of the heaviest and bloodiest battles for this settlement,” said Vladimir Rogov, referring to a village of Velyka Novosilka.
- Rogov added that Russian soldiers still control the southern part of Urozhaine and Ukrainian forces are clearly aiming to control a town in the south, Staromlynivka.
- The defense ministry of the United Kingdom, meanwhile, says that there is a realistic possibility that Russia will no longer finance the activities of the Wagner group. “If the Russian state no longer pays Wagner, the second most credible paymasters are the Belarusian authorities,” it said.
eCONOMY
- A Russian warship fired warning shots at a cargo ship in the southwestern Black Sea as it headed north, marking the first time Russia has fired on merchant shipping beyond Ukraine since the withdrawal of a landmark United Nations-brokered grain deal last month.
- A senior adviser to Zelenskyy said the incident was a “clear violation of international maritime law, an act of piracy and a crime against civilian ships of a third country in the waters of other states” . The adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, added: “Ukraine will draw all necessary conclusions and choose the best possible response.”
Diplomacy
- German Chancellor Olaf Scholz welcomed a recent Saudi Arabian-led summit on a peace settlement to end the conflict in Ukraine and called for more diplomatic efforts. “It makes sense for us to continue these talks because it increases the pressure on Russia to realize that it has taken the wrong path and that it must withdraw its troops and make peace possible,” Scholz told the German broadcaster. that ZDF.
