As the war enters its 903rd day, these are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Friday, August 16, 2024.
Fighting
- President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine had taken full control of the town of Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk region, after sending thousands of troops across the border in a surprise attack that began on August 6.
- Ukraine’s top military commander Oleksandr Syrskii said its forces had moved forward by 1.5km (0.93 miles) over the previous 24 hours, advancing some 35km into Russia’s Kursk region since the start of the incursion. Its forces were now in control of 1,150 square kilometres (444 square miles) of Russian territory and 82 settlements, he added.
- Russia’s Ministry of Defence did not respond to the Ukrainian claims about Sudzha. The ministry said earlier that Russian forces had blocked Ukrainian attempts to take several settlements in the region and that they had retaken the village of Krupets.
- Kursk acting governor, Alexei Smirnov, ordered the evacuation of the Glushkovo district, about 45km (28 miles) northwest of Sudzha. Authorities say more than 120,000 Kursk region residents have already been evacuated because of the fighting.
- Vasyl Maliuk, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), said Ukrainian special forces captured a group of 102 Russian soldiers on Wednesday in the Kursk region.
- Russia said it would beef up its border defences, improve the command and control system and send in additional forces as a result of the Kursk incursion.
- At least two people were killed and 12 injured in a Russian-guided bomb attack on Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said on Telegram.
- Serhiy Tsehotskiy, an officer with Ukraine’s 59th Motorized Brigade, told national television there had been no letup in Russian military pressure in Ukraine’s partially-occupied eastern Donetsk region. “The enemy, despite what is happening on the territory of Russia, is still … keeping the bulk of its troops in this direction and trying to achieve success,” Tsehotskiy said.
- Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it captured the Donetsk village of Ivanivka, a frontline village about 15km (nine miles) from the strategically important town of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine.
- Ukraine’s air force said it shot down all 29 Russian drones targeting eight Ukrainian regions, and the attack caused only minor damage.
Politics and diplomacy
- A court in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg jailed 32-year-old Ksenia Karelina, a dual United States-Russian citizen, for 12 years after finding her guilty of treason for donating $51.80 to a New York-based charity that provides aid to children and the elderly in Ukraine. Karelina, who lives in Los Angeles where she made the donation, was arrested earlier this year when she flew to Russia to see family.
- Mykhailo Podolyak, aide to Ukraine’s president, rejected suggestions Kyiv was involved in the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea. The Wall Street Journal reported late on Wednesday that Ukraine’s then-top military commander, Valerii Zaluzhny, oversaw the plan to blow up the pipelines in September 2022. The report came after Germany issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian over the attacks.
- Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko, a key Russian ally, told Russian state television Moscow and Kyiv should negotiate an end to the war. Lukashenko claimed only “high-ranking people of American origin” wanted the war to continue.
Weaponry
- The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence said Ukraine was allowed to use British weapons in operations on Russian territory, but restrictions remained on the use of long-range Storm Shadow missiles.
- Sky News and other UK media outlets reported Challenger 2 tanks donated by the UK to Ukraine were being used in the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk.
