Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 08-20-2024

Ukraine has said large numbers of Russian servicemen – reportedly in the hundreds – gave themselves up during the offensive that began on Aug. 6.

Some are wounded, most are very young and all want to go home. President Volodymyr Zelensky calls Russian soldiers captured in the lightning offensive into the Kursk region, Ukraine’s “exchange fund.”

He hopes the prisoners of war taken in the surprise push that caught Russia off guard can be quickly exchanged for some of the 6,500 or so Ukrainian soldiers that Moscow says it holds.

22 out of 74 fuel tanks are now reportedly burning at the Kavkaz Oil Depot, which was helping to fuel the Russian military.

Three days in a row, hundreds of Russian firefighters have been trying to extinguish a fire at the Kavkaz oil depot in Proletarsk, where 22 out of 74 fuel tanks are now burning.

The depot, which stores fuel for the Russian military, was attacked by drones from Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR).

Kyiv’s forces seized more land in Russia in two weeks than Moscow has in Ukraine all year, but they haven’t diverted Russian manpower or eased pressure on eastern Ukraine’s toughest battlefronts.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) has once again begun to limit the use of shells in the Donetsk region, one of the artillery brigade commanders told the Financial Times (FT).

According to him, the shortage of shells arose because resources were transferred to the Kursk region.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine has been rapidly transforming since the full-scale invasion. Now a whole battalion of drone operators has been created in response to the needs of modern warfare.

Before the Russo-Ukrainian War, UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), or drones were toys for civilian hobbyists. Belatedly, they became a niche within the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). 

Today, no unit can do without drones: reconnaissance drones, attack drones, bombers, and FPV fighter systems. The technology and techniques of drone warfare has progressed astonishingly over the past two years.

Russian and Ukrainian reports are split on who’s winning each individual battle across a 50-km (31 mile) front, but they agree the Kremlin has the firepower advantage and is still gaining ground.

Relentless, high-cost Kremlin assaults in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region are not letting up despite a Kyiv counteroffensive launched two weeks ago into Russia and Western promises of more arms and ammunition, according to official statements and information platforms in both Russia and Ukraine.

“Our operations in the Donetsk direction have… accelerated. This concerns [the Donbas towns and villages] Niu-York, Dzerzhinsk [Soviet name for Toretsk], Pokrovsk and Selydove. We also see active assaults in the Vuhledar region: there is significant progress there as well,” said Boris Rozhin, a Kremlin-sponsored “war correspondent,” in a Tuesday statement.

In an exclusive interview, Garry Kasparov called on people to sign a petition, demanding that Germany send Ukraine weapons, without any restrictions on their use, so that Ukraine can win.

Chess champion Garry Kasparov is carefully focused on checkmating his opponent, Vladimir Putin.

Kasparov’s strategy is straightforward: Fully arm Ukraine so that it can defeat Russia on the battlefield. Such a triumph, argues Kasparov, will lead to “freedom for Russia” as the Putin Regime would not be able to absorb such a stunning loss.

Ukraine surprised everybody when it sent troops over the border on August 6 two-and-half years after Russia launched its invasion, and has made claims of new gains almost daily.

Ukraine's military incursion into Russia, a first in the two-year-old war, has handed Kyiv the initiative on the battlefield, but its outcome remains highly uncertain, analysts say.

Ukraine surprised everybody, including its own allies, when it sent troops over the border on August 6 two-and-half years after Russia launched its invasion, and has made claims of new gains almost daily.

Russian authorities issued a memo to warn citizens of the risks associated with geolocation leakage and issued additional orders to troops to prevent Ukraine from accessing military chats.

Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs issued a memo on Tuesday to locals in the Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk regions bordering Ukraine against the use of CCTV and dating sites to prevent Kyiv from collecting intelligence during its offensive in the regions.

It said Kyiv can remotely collect intelligence from CCTV footage and hinted that using dating apps can enable “the covert collection of information” by Ukraine.

Lord Ashcroft meets the undaunted commanders of the Azov Brigade in war-torn Ukraine.

For nearly three months, the eyes of the world were on him and his men, the brave “defenders of Mariupol”, as they came under a relentless enemy assault, eventually being surrounded and trapped in the Azovstal steel works.

Awarded the prestigious “Hero of Ukraine” decoration from President Zelensky, Colonel Denys Prokopenko and his soldiers repeatedly defied the much larger and better equipped Russian forces. In fact, members of the elite Azov Brigade had pledged to fight to the last man in the military unit’s home city in south-eastern Ukraine.

The Kremlin has stated that it is not willing to negotiate at the moment. Europe's media see Putin under pressure.

Ukraine says it has captured 92 Russian towns and villages in the Kursk region. According to Zelensky, the goal of the offensive is to increase the pressure on Russia regarding peace negotiations and also create a buffer zone. The Kremlin has stated that it is not willing to negotiate at the moment. Europe's media see Putin under pressure.

Putin potentially facing awkward questions

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

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Ukraine this week and meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky, the two countries announced Monday, weeks after he met President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Modi will visit Ukraine on Zelensky’s invitation on Friday, Tanmaya Lal, a senior official at the Ministry of External Affairs, said at a briefing in New Delhi. He said the visit will provide an opportunity for the two leaders to discuss co-operation in defence, economic and business ties, science and technology and other sectors. Ukraine’s Presidential Office also announced Modi’s trip, saying it’s his first visit during which two leaders will sign multiple co-operation documents and discuss “matters of bilateral and multilateral co-operation.” Modi’s trip to Ukraine comes a month after Zelensky criticized his two-day visit to Moscow in July, when he met with Putin on the day Russian missiles struck across Ukraine, killing scores of people. - Globe and Mail

The Democratic National Convention ‘s first night showcased speeches from the last Democrat to lose to Donald Trump and the last one to beat him. Hillary Clinton spoke hopefully of finally breaking the “glass ceiling” to elect a female president. Joe Biden laced into Trump and directly acknowledged the concerns of protesters against the war in Gazawho demonstrated a few blocks from the convention hall. President Joe Biden wrapped up the convention’s opening night by beginning his long political farewell with an address that both framed his own legacy and signaled he was ready to start ceding control of the party to Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden ticked through many of his administration’s achievements, including a major public works package and climate program, and shared the credit with Harris. He said picking Harris as his running mate was the best decision he ever made and promised to be the “best volunteer” that Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have ever seen. - AP

Ukraine's daring military foray into Russia's Kursk region calls for a new strategy of defeating Russia in Ukraine.

We see, therefore, in the first place, that under all circumstances War is to be regarded not as an independent thing, but as a political instrument; and it is only by taking this point of view that we can avoid finding ourselves in opposition to all military history. 

When observing the events, big and small, in contemporary wars, I find myself drawn back to the theory of war to provide the intellectual foundations to understand what is happening and why. Not everything can be explained by satellite images, newspaper articles or the online OSINT community (as good as it is). Military theory often provides context to better explain what we are seeing in the war in Ukraine. As Clausewitz’s quote above notes, the major campaigns of this war are always grounded in politics, not just the search for military advantage.

The big development in the war in Ukraine in the past two weeks has been Ukraine’s Kursk offensive and the seizing of over 1100 square kilometres of Russian territory. This has been an impressively planned and executed Ukrainian ground operation. It has demonstrated Ukrainian learning and adaptation after the failure of its 2023 counteroffensive, which will be the topic of a future article here. The Kursk operation may also change the direction of the war.

The Transnistrian Ministry of Defense of the Moldovan Republic reported that it had begun to fit its tank fleet with anti-drone systems, based on Russian experience in Ukraine.

Transnistria, which calls itself the “Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic” (PMR), has started equipping the T-64BV main battle tanks (MBT) of its grandiosely named First Independent Guards Motorized Infantry Brigade with anti-drone “grills.”

The Brigade’s tank battalion is stationed in the village of Vladimirovka, just four kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Ukrainian border holds a total of 17 of the Soviet-era MBT, of which 12 are operational, claiming the other five are in “reserve.”

As Ukrainians expand control of territory taken from Russia in their surprise Kursk incursion, Kyiv Post went along with the military to get a firsthand look at the interaction with civilians.

Due to the noise, chatting in the back of an American-made Humvee of the Ukrainian military as it rolled into Russia was challenging. But the ride still proved to be informative.

As hundreds of Ukrainian military vehicles fly back-and-forth on the destroyed road between Ukraine and occupied Russia, one notices that there is clearly a well-organized Ukrainian plan being executed which has caught the Russians totally off guard.

The measure banning a church considered in Ukraine to be aligned with Putin's "Russian world" ideology needs to be signed into law by President Volodymyr Zelensky to take effect.

Ukraine's parliament on Tuesday voted to ban the Russia-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as Kyiv cuts religious, social and institutional ties with bodies it considers aligned with Moscow. 

Kyiv has been trying to curb spiritual links with Russia for years – a process that was hugely accelerated by Moscow's 2022 invasion, which the powerful Russian Orthodox Church sanctified.  

Stockholm has tasked its Defense Materiel Agency (FMV) to investigate the possibility of deploying personnel to Ukraine to provide direct support for Sweden’s equipment donations.

Sweden's Defense Minister Pål Jonson announced at a press conference on Thursday morning that his government has decided that the Defense Materiel Agency (FMV) should investigate the possibility of sending specialist support to Ukraine in the fall of 2024. This means that the FMV could station a number of military staff on the ground in Ukraine to provide practical support to Kyiv’s procurement of defense equipment.

In considering FMV's expanded role, Stockholm is signaling the government's effort to enhance its support for Ukraine. The Swedish personnel, who are expected to be based in their embassy in Kyiv, will focus on securing maintenance, spare parts and logistics assistance for the military equipment that Sweden has already provided.

Kyiv Post’s Chief Editor Bohdan Nahaylo comments on the forthcoming visit to Ukraine of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi.

The prime minister of the supposedly largest “democratic” country in the world, India, will visit Ukraine on Friday. This is good in itself and a little embarrassing for India’s close friend Russia. What will it bring?

India is a fence-sitter. When it comes to the Russia-Ukraine war, it is closer to Russia for pragmatic, i.e. opportunistic, reasons: cheap oil and arms supplies from Moscow and the outdated ideological need to distance itself from the Western world, whose democratic values it ironically still claims to share, rather than Russia’s despotic and imperialist ones.

Ukraine launched its surprise strike on the Russian region on 6 August, the biggest invasion of Russia since World War Two, in an operation that Kyiv says is aimed at carving out a buffer zone.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday (19 August) his country’s assault on Russia’s Kursk region showed that Kremlin threats of retaliation were a bluff, and he urged Kyiv’s allies to loosen curbs on using foreign-supplied weapons.

Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces now controlled more than 1,250 square kilometres and 92 settlements in Kursk region, while Russia said Ukraine had struck a third bridge in the region, complicating Russian efforts to repel the Ukrainian attack.

Lukashenko had announced on August 18 that he ordered the repositioning of nearly a third of the army to the Ukrainian border.

Belarus has stationed aviation and air defense troops along its border with Ukraine, just a day after the country's self-proclaimed president, Alexander Lukashenko, announced plans to deploy nearly a third of the military to the area, according to the Associated Press.

Major General Andrei Lukyanovich, the commander of Belarus' air defense forces, confirmed the deployment of anti-aircraft missiles and radio engineering corps soldiers near the border. He described the move as a "significant reinforcement" of the military presence.

The way to deal with an adversary who only preys on apparently weaker opponents is to take the fight directly to them. Encouraging Ukrainians to hold back is tantamount to sacrificing them.

In a daring and unprecedented action, the Ukrainian army penetrated deep into Russian territory, attacking the heart of the Kursk region. This action, which would have been unthinkable before February 2022, represents a pivotal moment in the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia. It sends a clear message to Moscow and the world: Ukraine is not afraid of Russian aggression, and the Kremlin’s military power is not as it presents it to be. Instead, this bold and brazen move exposes the fragility of Vladimir Putin’s regime and shatters the myth of Russian invincibility.

Ukraine’s decision to attack inside Russian borders is not just an act of defiance but a calculated strategy that can change the dynamics of the conflict. Russia has been bombing Ukrainian cities for months, destroying civilian infrastructure without consequence. The West has largely condemned these actions but has also urged Ukraine to exercise restraint, especially when it comes to retaliating by using the same measures on Russian soil. However, this restraint did not repel Russian aggression but rather encouraged it.

Ukraine sent troops and tanks over the border on August 6 in a surprise incursion two-and-half years after Russia launched its invasion and it says it makes new gains virtually each day.

Russia on Monday ruled out any peace talks with Ukraine despite Kyiv raising pressure on the Kremlin by claiming fresh advances in its offensive into Russian territory.

Ukraine sent troops and tanks over the border on August 6 in a surprise incursion two-and-half years after Russia launched its invasion and it says it makes new gains virtually each day.

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• Ukrainian forces continued to marginally advance in Kursk Oblast on August 19 amid continued fighting throughout the Ukrainian salient in the area.
• Chechen Akhmat Spetsnaz Commander Apty Alaudinov aggravated a situation that the Kremlin has historically treated with extreme caution by calling for conscripts to participate in combat operations in Kursk Oblast and dismissing concerns from relatives of conscripts.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Azerbaijan on August 18, likely in an effort to shift focus away from the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast and present himself as a continually effective diplomat.
• The Kremlin's response to Ukraine's incursion into Kursk Oblast has emphasized how the Kremlin's internal priorities have increasingly oriented towards regime stability, especially over the past year.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on August 19 further codifying a vague Russian state ideology into Russian law without concretely modifying the Russian Constitution. Putin's effort to codify a specific ideology may be intended to counter the Russian ultranationalist community's own efforts to establish an accepted national ideology.
• Russian officials continued attempts to falsely frame Ukraine as responsible for the lack of negotiations to end the war.
• Russian forces recently advanced near Kupyansk, Svatove, Pokrovsk, and Vuhledar.
• Local Sakhalin Oblast media outlet Sakhalin Media reported on August 19 that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Border Service in Sakhalin Oblast and other federal subjects within the Russian Far East, Northwestern, and North Caucasian federal okrugs has resumed conscription for the first time in an unspecified "long" length of time.

A Ukrainian rocket system that Russia claims to have destroyed by using a ballistic missile was actually an inflatable decoy produced by an ingenious Czech company.

The Prague-based milblogger Praise the Steph, posting on X / Twitter on Aug. 18, drew attention to Russian claims from the day before that its forces had tracked down and destroyed a Ukrainian M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) after it had fired off a salvo of rockets in support of Kyiv’s operations in the Kursk region.

After the M270 moved off, the Russian forces lost sight of the vehicle before one of their drones thought it had found the launcher hiding in trees a few kilometers away from Chervona Dibrova, in Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast. They then called in a $3 million Iskander-M missile to destroy it.