Sunday, August 18

Russia’s war against Ukraine

Young people attend an emergency first aid demonstration by paramedic volunteers from Ukraine’s Hospitallers voluntary organization in the city of Sumy on Aug. 17, 2024. (Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images)

Ukrainian forces ‘strengthen’ their positions in Kursk Oblast, Syrskyi says. Ukrainian forces have “strengthened” their positions in Russia’s Kursk Oblast as their operation in the Russian region continues, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi reported to President Volodymyr Zelensky on Aug. 17.

Ukraine’s Russia incursion threatens secret efforts to halt energy strikes, WP reports. Ukraine’s incursion into Russia is disrupting plans for indirect talks in Qatar on mutually halting strikes on energy infrastructure, the Washington Post (WP) wrote on Aug. 17, citing undisclosed official sources.

Germany likely won’t approve additional military aid to Ukraine this year, media reports. According to FAZ, Ukraine will receive previously approved assistance, but additional requests from the German Defense Ministry will not be supported.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry says reports on Germany halting military aid are ‘manipulation.’ “The reports that Germany is allegedly stopping military aid to Ukraine are incorrect,” Heorhy Tykhyi, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, told Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform. “This is the same kind of manipulation as the previous reports about halving aid for the next year.”

Kadyrov praises Musk, pledges to send Tesla Cybertruck to fight in Ukraine. “I had the pleasure of testing the new technology and saw for myself that it is not by chance that it is called ‘Cyberbeast.’ … I am sure this ‘beast’ will be of great use to our fighters,” Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov said on Aug. 17.

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Moscow spreads more claims about Ukraine’s alleged plan to attack Kursk nuclear plant. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed on Aug. 17 that Ukraine is allegedly planning to attack the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in Russia, which was dismissed by Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry a day before.

Nuclear safety at Zaporizhzhia plant ‘deteriorating’ after reported drone strike, IAEA warns. “Nuclear power plants are designed to be resilient against technical or human failures and external events including extreme ones, but they are not built to withstand a direct military attack.”

Ukraine appeals to UN, Red Cross over alleged video of beheaded Ukrainian soldier. The video surfaced on social media earlier this week. It shows a man in Russian military fatigues with a covered face with what appears to be a severed head placed upon a spike in the background.

Cyberattack hits Monobank, Ukraine’s largest direct bank. “Yesterday, it subsided at 10:30 p.m., and today, it started again at 3:15 a.m. We are approaching 3 billion service requests in two days,” said Oleh Horokhovskyi, the bank’s co-owner, on Aug. 17.

Kyiv children’s hospital CEO suspended amid reconstruction scandal. Volodymyr Zhovnir, CEO of the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, was suspended until all inspections related to the hospital’s reconstruction are completed, Health Minister Viktor Liashko said on Aug. 17.

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Memorializing fallen soldiers: One asked to be cremated so fighters don’t ‘dig trenches in our bones’

One of the bright, young Ukrainians who stood protesting at EuroMaidan when he was 13, Kostia Yuzviuk couldn’t choose when he would die, but he and other fighters have chosen how they should be remembered. And with that, they make an impact on the Ukrainians’ future after they die fighting for it.

Photo: Personal Archive / Olha Yuzviuk

Ukrainian Valkyries: Women embrace military training to learn to defend their homeland

Anna Syvohip, 24, who works in IT business development, joined the training primarily to learn about self-defense and how to use weapons. “The war has been with us for a long time, and we never know when it might return to Kyiv, so it would be good not to freeze up like on Feb. 24, 2022.”

Photo: Oksana Parafeniuk / The Kyiv Independent

Human cost of war

Russian attack on Myrnohrad in Donetsk Oblast kills at least 1, injures 4. An unfinished nine-story building came under the Russian attack in Myrnohrad, Donetsk Oblast Governor Vadym Filashkin said.

Russian attacks against Ukraine kill 3, injure 10 over past day. Russian forces attacked the northeastern city of Sumy on Aug. 17 with an Iskander-K missile and an aerial bomb, injuring at least two civilians, local authorities reported.

General Staff: Russia has lost 598,180 troops in Ukraine since Feb. 24, 2022. This number includes 1,230 casualties Russian forces suffered just over the past day.

International response

UK waiting for US’ approval to greenlight Kyiv’s Storm Shadow strikes in Russia, Times reports. One British government source told The Times that the request has been effectively “stuck in their (U.S.) system,” while another called it a “routine U.S. process.“7

Boris Johnson calls on West to let Ukraine strike Russian territory with long-range missiles. “The only way to stop the glide bombs is to hit the air bases used by those Russian planes; and the only way to hit those bases is to use the Western kit they already have,” he said.

Italian journalists reporting from Kursk to return home after Moscow’s threats. The RAI news team were the first to publish a foreign media report of Ukraine’s incursion in Kursk Oblast.

How drones are shaking up the air war in Ukraine

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Today’s Ukraine Daily was brought to you by Martin Fornusek, Kateryna Denisova, Toma Istomina, Oleksiy Sorokin, Oleg Sukhov, and Abbey Fenbert.

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