- A Buk missile launcher on its way to take part in a rehearsal of the Independence Day parade, came off the street and rammed into a wall of the Astarta business center in the city’s Podil district.
- Just three days after heavy rainfalls left Kyiv streets in havoc, a fresh downpour swamped the city on the night of Aug. 19. Video footage from a square near the Gulliver shopping center showed cars semi-submerged in water and floating.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, as well as Iran and a gas pipeline project that has drawn U.S. ire during tough talks outside Berlin that ended with no clearcut progress.
- Russian-led forces mounted 43 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in the Donbas in the past 24 hours, with two Ukrainian soldiers reported as killed in action, and another two wounded.
- Gas supplies for the residents of Avdiyivka and seven villages in the front-line Yasunuvata District of Donetsk Oblast are to be restored on Aug. 20, Oleksandr Kuts, the chairman of Donetsk Regional Military-Civil Administration, wrote on Facebook.
- Politico: Some politicians and anti-corruption advocates in Ukraine believe new information disclosed in Paul Manafort’s trial on bank and tax fraud charges should trigger new criminal action in Ukraine against officials and oligarchs who lavished Manafort with cash.
- Ukrainian women’s tennis star Elina Svitolina lost to Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands in the semifinals of the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati on Aug. 18.
EXCLUSIVE