Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 08-16-2024

Russia’s authorities often apply those labels to dissidents and those who have campaigned against the Kremlin or its invasion of Ukraine.

Russia added at least nine more people linked to late opposition leader Alexei Navalny to its blacklist of “terrorists and extremists” on Friday, exactly six months after he died in prison.

Navalny’s former spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh and the chair of his Anti-Corruption Foundation Maria Pevchikh were added to the list, according to the website of Russian financial monitoring service Rosfinmonitoring.

Chuck Pfarrer, a former SEAL Team Six Squadron Leader explores Ukraine’s successful and rapidly expanding offensive against the Kursk region of Russia.

Rumors have begun to circulate on Russian media that criminal cases are being prepared against the generals who failed to prevent Ukraine’s Aug. 6 incursion into the Kursk region.

The Russian news site Vestka, citing sources in the government and parliament, reports that because of what is happening near Kursk following Ukraine’s invasion, where Moscow has lost control over a territory of 1,000 square kilometers (621 square miles) and 82 settlements, criminal cases may be taken out against representatives of the military, security and civilian authorities, who allowed this situation to happen.

One of its contacts said that when the news of the initial stages of Ukraine’s move into Kursk took place on Tuesday, Aug. 6, it was met with apathy amongst officials who did not consider it to be a serious threat.

The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.

Russia appears to have diverted several thousand troops from occupied territory inside Ukraine to counter a surprisingly successful Ukrainian offensive inside Russian borders in a move that potentially weakens Moscow’s war effort, two senior US officials told CNN. The report confirms what the Wall Street Journal wrote on Friday. CNN says: “The development has drawn American attention and US officials are now working to determine precisely how many troops Russia is moving, but sources said multiple brigade-sized elements made up of at least 1,000 troops each appeared to have shifted to the Kursk region, where Ukraine launched an operation last week.” “It is apparent to us that Mr. Putin and the Russian military are diverting some resources, some units, towards the Kursk Oblast to ostensibly counter what the Ukrainians are doing,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told CNN on Thursday. The Russian troop movements away from Ukraine “doesn’t mean that Mr. Putin has given up military operations in the northeast part of Ukraine or even down towards the south, towards places like Zaporizhya,” Kirby said. “There’s still active fighting along that front.”

Ukraine has set up a military administrative office in Russia's western Kursk region, where its surprise incursion into Russian territory continues, according to its top military commander. Gen Oleksandr Syrsky said the office would "maintain law and order" and "meet the immediate needs" of the population in the area. In a video posted on social media, Gen Syrsky is seen telling a meeting chaired by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the office has been created "on the territories controlled by Ukraine". Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov has said Moscow will send reinforcements to "safeguard" the population in the region - BBC

“We have absolutely no plans to beg,” Zelensky said.

Ukraine said Friday its incursion into Russian territory was aimed at forcing Russia to negotiate on “fair” terms, as Moscow’s troops announced new gains in eastern Ukraine.

Two and a half years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv’s troops last week launched a major counter-offensive into Russia’s Kursk region, sending more than 120,000 people fleeing.

The pro-Ukrainian volunteer battalion that took part in previous border raids on Russian border communities called on Russian troops to switch sides or surrender.

Freedom of Russia Legion, a volunteer battalion affiliated with Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence (HUR), has called for Russian troops to surrender or defect to the Ukrainian side to fight “for a normal future for Russia” amidst Ukraine’s ongoing incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.

In a Telegram announcement on Friday, Aug. 16, the group criticized the Russian elites, including Russia’s Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov.

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has captured hundreds of enemy soldiers in one of Russia’s worst defeats of the war. Now Kyiv thinks it has negotiating leverage to bring its own fighters home.

Operators from Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Directorate (HUR) and agents from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) will take the lead in future talks between Kyiv and the Kremlin on prisoner-of-war exchanges, HUR chief Kyrylo Budanov said in a Thursday evening statement.

Ukraine’s government will centralize efforts to return soldiers captured by Russia home through a Prisoner of War Coordination Headquarters including representatives from HUR, the SBU, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) “and others,” Budanov said.

Cannabis-based medicine will be available in the form of oral drops, hard capsules and toothpaste and require an electronic prescription, with recreational cannabis remaining illegal.

A new law that legalizes medical marijuana use in Ukraine entered force on Friday, Aug. 16.

The law, signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, declassifies cannabis, its resin, extracts and tinctures from the list of “particularly dangerous substances” (List 1) and moves them to the list of “permitted under strict control” (List 2), lifting existing ban on circulation but with certain restrictions.

The head of Pokrovsk’s military administration, Sergiy Dobryak, warned that Russia was a little over 10 km (6 miles) from the outskirts of the city and urged remaining residents to evacuate.

Russia said Friday its forces had captured Sergiivka, another frontline village some 15 km (nine miles) away from the Ukrainian-held logistics hub of Pokrovsk.

Pokrovsk lies on the intersection of a key road that supplies Ukrainian troops and towns across the eastern front and has long been a target for the Russian army.

Ukrposhta is ready to open a branch in Sudzha to deliver parcels to Ukraine’s Armed Forces as soon as permits, funding, and safety measures come through.

Ukraine’s national postal service Ukrposhta stated that it’s ready to open a branch in Sudzha, captured by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) during the offensive on Russian territory, which began on Aug. 6, 2024.

Ukrposhta CEO Ihor Smilyansky may see it as a necessary step to deliver parcels to Ukraine’s military officers currently located in Sudzha. Instead of premises, the CEO intends to install a “mobile branch.”

A renewed heat wave expected next week would likely overload Ukraine’s energy system and lead to the resumption of rolling blackouts, officials and energy operators said.

Rising temperatures expected next week might once again cause rolling blackouts in Ukraine due to existing energy deficit, said officials and Ukrenego, the country’s transmission network operator.

“What we will observe next week may lead to the fact that energy companies will have to apply blackout schedules,” Deputy Minister of Energy Svitlana Hrynchuk announced on television on Friday.

Ukraine’s offensive in the Kursk region poses difficult geopolitical challenges for the self-proclaimed President of Belarus, which require asymmetric responses.

The self-proclaimed President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, under whose leadership Belarus participated in the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 by providing territory for an offensive on Kyiv, and who justified the Russian attack as a preemptive strike against the “Kyiv regime,” has now declared the need for peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.

“Neither the Ukrainian people, nor the Russians, nor the Belarusians need this fight,” the Belarusian dictator said, surprising everyone around him.

Germany – a key ally of Kyiv – has been on high alert for sabotage and attacks on military facilities in the country in the wake of Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Authorities in western Germany have warned some 10,000 residents not to drink the tap water after a hole was found in a fence around a water tank that also supplies a nearby military base, in the second such incident this week.

Local authorities in the town of Mechernich said the cut fence was discovered Thursday afternoon and that tests were currently being carried out to determine if the water had been contaminated. 

Kyiv targeted a ferry crossing in Kerch and a boat in Chornomorsk in occupied Crimea. Authorities in Kerch and the Ukrainian side have not yet commented on the attacks.

Ukrainian Armed Forces struck a ferry crossing in Kerch port and a boat in Chornomorsk in the early morning hours of Friday, Aug. 16, Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Southern Volunteer Army wrote on Telegram.

The channel “Crimean Wind” reported smoke from the ferry crossing in Kerch and a fire in the Kamyanka area near Simferopol.

Representatives of the "Union of Television and Film Industry Entrepreneurs" together with other volunteers handed over cars, drones and quadrocopters to the military from Khmelnytsky

Servicemen of the 36th Separate Rifle Battalion from Khmelnytsky region received another reinforcement thanks to the efforts of volunteers and the cultural front. About this write Ukrainian news.

This time they were given a high-speed vehicle, FPV-drones and Mavic quadrocopters, which will be used to more effectively perform combat missions on the front line.

Ukraine's commander-in-chief said that his troops have captured 82 settlements, Russia claimed it recaptured one village.

Ukraine said it now controlled dozens of settlements and Sudzha, a town eight kilometers (five miles) from the border.

“We have taken control of 1,150 square km [715 square miles] of territory and 82 settlements,” said top military commander Oleksandr Syrsky.

An Aug. 14 Facebook post shows the discovery of an unused Volnorez complex still in its packaging and complete with all technical documentation.

An editor from the Censor.net news site posted a video on his Facebook channel on Aug. 14 showing the secret Russian Volnorez (Breakwater) counter-drone electronic warfare (EW) system recovered by Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region along with its technical documentation being unpacked.

Key current drivers for inflation include a rise in the price of processed foods and increased business costs.

Ukraine’s consumer inflation figure for July accelerated to 5.4 percent year-on-year, compared to 4.8 percent in June, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) reports.

According to the NBU, growth is “slightly below” the forecast mark, adding that inflation expectations remain stable.

Kyiv said it wants to strike Russian airfields and logistics hubs far behind the front line using the long-range missiles.

While the UK government is allowing Ukraine to use British weapons for its Russia incursion, it’s so far drawn the line at its long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles. However, a report by The Times suggests that British officials are working to persuade allies that it’s a good idea.

“Behind the scenes, ministers are trying to persuade allies to approve Ukraine’s use of Storm Shadow cruise missiles inside Russia,” The Times writes.

Talks opened in Qatar’s capital amid a wider international diplomatic bid to ease tensions that have spiked since the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

International mediators made a new bid Thursday to push Israel and Hamas toward a ceasefire in their war that the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said has now killed more than 40,000 people.

Talks opened in Qatar’s capital amid a wider international diplomatic bid to ease tensions that have spiked since the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. 

Germany has donated several Patriot systems to Ukraine, which has faced repeated Russian missile barrages and drone attacks targeting its infrastructure, leaving it in need of additional air defenses.

The United States on Thursday announced its approval of a $5 billion sale of up to 600 Patriot missiles and related equipment to Germany, which has donated several of the advanced air defense systems to Ukraine.

The proposed sale of the PAC-3 MSE missiles “will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by improving the security of a NATO ally that is an important force for political and economic stability in Europe,” the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said in a statement.

Raiffeisen Bank was once a safe haven for foreign currency transactions abroad for Russian citizens, compared to other Western and Russian banks – now it’s not.

Russian Raiffeisen Bank will stop cross-border transfers from leaving Russia in any foreign currency, the bank reported in its Aug. 15 press release. This means that Russian citizens will be unable to transfer cash in foreign currency from Russia to any other country using Raiffeisen Bank. 

They will still have time to make payments as the new regime will not take effect until Sept. 2, 2024. “We try to give you as much advance notice as possible, given the ever-changing market conditions. Currency payments, properly completed and accepted by the bank for execution before 16:00 Moscow time on Aug. 30, 2024, will be executed under the current terms and restrictions,” the bank’s statement said. 

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• Ukrainian officials are taking steps to consolidate and coordinate the management of ongoing Ukrainian operations in Kursk Oblast while continuing to highlight Ukrainian advances.
• Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces continued advancing in some areas in Kursk Oblast amid a generally slower tempo of Ukrainian operations in the area.
• Russian forces are maintaining their relatively high offensive tempo in Donetsk Oblast, demonstrating that the Russian military command continues to prioritize advances in eastern Ukraine even as Ukraine is pressuring Russian forces within Kursk Oblast.
• The Kremlin and the Russian military command are creating a complicated, overlapping, and so far, ineffective command and control (C2) structure for the Russian response to the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk Oblast.
• The delayed establishment of a complicated Russian C2 structure in Kursk Oblast continues to highlight the fact that the Kremlin failed to plan for the possibility of a significant Ukrainian incursion into Russia.
• The Kremlin appears to have a more coordinated approach to securing its control over the Russian information space than to addressing its military and C2 problems in Kursk Oblast.
• The Kremlin is likely trying to hastily create a new information space that predominantly features coopted Russian milbloggers and established Russian state propagandists.
• Ukrainian forces are reportedly using Western-provided equipment in Kursk Oblast but remain limited in their ability to strike Russian military targets within Russia with Western-provided weapons.
• Ukraine is organizing the creation of a humanitarian corridor through which to evacuate Russian civilians who are impacted by the ongoing Kursk operation, filling an apparent vacuum left by the Kursk Oblast administration and fulfilling international legal requirements for the evacuation of civilian populations.
• The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces successfully conducted drone strikes against Russian air bases in Russia on the night of August 13 to 14.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances in the Pokrovsk and Toretsk directions.
• The Russian government submitted a bill on August 15 to lower the admission age for the Russian Volunteer Society for Assistance to the Army, Aviation, and Navy of Russia (DOSAAF) from 18 years of age to 14.

More than a week after Ukraine’s cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region began Kyiv Post takes stock on where we are.

• Russian reinforcements

Moscow is ransacking other frontline sectors for troops. It will probably be some time – weeks or even months – before its Kursk defenses are ready to counterattack.

After nearly two weeks of Ukrainian army operations inside Russian territory, Kremlin reports and Ukrainian frontline accounts confirm Russia is still struggling to organize a coherent defense of the Kursk region against Kyiv’s forces that still clearly hold the initiative.