Right here is the scenario on Wednesday, August 16, 2023.
Preventing
- Russian air attacks killed three people and left many injured in Lutsk, within the Volyn area of northwestern Ukraine, Kyiv stated. A wave of Russian in a single day assaults additionally broken civilian services and injured individuals in Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine, close to the border with Poland.
- Russia’s defence ministry stated its forces hit key military-industrial services in Ukraine in a single day with high-precision missiles, inflicting “vital injury”, in line with the Interfax information company.
- Russia stated its forces had for the primary time intercepted a SCALP cruise missile provided to Ukraine by France.
- Ukraine stated 16 of not less than 28 cruise missiles launched by Russia overnight were destroyed. The 28 included 20 Kh-101/Kh-555 missiles, 4 Kh-22 and 4 Kalibr missiles, which have been launched from the Russian airfields of Soltsy, Shaykovka, Engels and Olenegorsk in addition to from a ship stationed close to Yalta in Russian-occupied Crimea.
- A Ukrainian drone was destroyed in Russia’s Belgorod area, Russia’s defence ministry stated.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited front-line troops within the southeastern area of Zaporizhia, the place he “mentioned essentially the most problematic problems with their models along with the brigades and combatants”, his workplace stated in an announcement.
- Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu stated that Ukraine’s capacity to struggle was “nearly exhausted”.
- Ukraine’s nationwide resistance centre stated that Moscow is getting ready a “provocation” on the Kursk Nuclear Energy Plant in western Russia. “Preparations for evacuation from the zone of attainable radioactive contamination within the occasion of an accident on the nuclear energy plant are beneath method within the Kursk area,” the resistance centre, which collects intelligence amongst different capabilities stated, including that Russia was planning to evacuate between 21,000 and 57,000 individuals.
- Russian armed forces prevented an try by a bunch of Ukrainian saboteurs to cross the border into Russian territory, the governor of Russia’s Bryansk area stated.
- Russian assaults alongside the eastern front line in Ukraine have decreased as Moscow seeks to replenish its forces, Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar stated. “Through the previous week and on the primary day of this week, we’ve recorded a quantitative lower of shellings and assaults within the east,” Maliar stated in line with Ukrainian media reviews. “However that doesn’t imply that Russia gave up on its plans.”
Navy assist
- Sweden’s Defence Minister Pal Johnson stated that Stockholm would donate a navy assist bundle together with ammunition and spare elements value about 3.4 billion kronor ($313m) to Ukraine.
Financial system
- Russia’s central financial institution hiked its rate of interest to 12 % from 8.5 % after the rouble fell to its lowest worth since March 2022. The choice was introduced after a gathering of the financial institution’s board of administrators and comes amid elevated navy spending and Western sanctions hurting Russia’s economic system.
- Ukraine’s power ministry stated {that a} 330 kV energy line that provided a Chornobyl energy station was shut because of injury that occurred in Belarus. “Within the Lviv area, nearly 290,000 subscribers have been short-term with out energy as a result of blackout of the 330 kV line,” the ministry stated in an announcement.
Regional safety
- Belarusian Defence Minister Viktor Khrenin stated the potential of a direct navy conflict with NATO sooner or later appeared apparent, in line with a report by the Russian state information company RIA.
- Three suspected spies for Russia have been arrested and charged in a significant nationwide safety investigation in the UK, in line with a BBC report. The suspects, all Bulgarian nationals, allegedly labored for the Russian safety service and had been held in custody since February.
- Latvia’s defence minister ordered the military to assist guard the nation’s border with Russian ally Belarus after a reported 96 makes an attempt by migrants to cross in 24 hours. Border Guard officers have been recalled from their holidays to assist with patrols of the 214km-long (133 miles) border.
- Latvia’s state safety service stated it had discovered direct and oblique invites for Latvians to hitch the Russian mercenary pressure Wagner, in line with a report by Latvian media outlet Delfi. Latvian residents are prohibited by legislation from serving within the armed forces or navy organisation of a international nation that poses a threat to Latvia’s nationwide safety.
Politics
- Polish President Andrej Duda commemorated the troopers of the 1917-1921 Ukrainian Folks’s Republic, who died preventing in opposition to the Bolsheviks. The republic’s management allied with the Polish state in 1920 to struggle in opposition to the Soviet Union’s Crimson Military, with Ukrainian troopers participating within the battle of Warsaw alongside Poland. Duda laid a wreath at a monument to the troopers of the Ukrainian Folks’s Republic in a Warsaw cemetery.
- A courtroom in Moscow fined social media web site Reddit 2 million roubles ($20,433), for not deleting “banned content material” associated to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in line with Russian state information company reviews.
Sanctions
- Kyiv will boycott the Olympic Video games if Russia and Belarus are allowed to take part, stated Kira Rudik, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament. Andriy Yermak, head of the Workplace of the President of Ukraine, stated that Russian athletes needs to be banned from collaborating in all worldwide competitions “even beneath a impartial flag”. Yermak’s and Rudik’s feedback got here after Russian assaults broken a sport advanced constructing in Dnipro, Ukraine.
