Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,240
Fighting
The Russian Ministry of Defence claimed that its forces have captured three Ukrainian settlements: Kamianske in the southeastern Zaporizhia region, Dehtiarne in the northeastern Kharkiv region, and Popiv Yar in the Donetsk region.
Russian air defences destroyed a Ukrainian drone headed for Moscow, the city's mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said.
Russia's Defence Ministry said 46 Ukrainian drones were destroyed over a period of four hours on Thursday evening, including a single drone over the Moscow region. Most were downed in areas near the Ukraine border, including 31 over Russia's Bryansk region and 10 over the Russian-annexed Crimea peninsula.
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged more bodies of their war dead, a Kremlin aide said, part of an agreement struck at the second round of peace talks in Istanbul in June. A total of 1,000 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers were turned over in exchange for 19 bodies of Russian soldiers.
Military aid
Preparations are under way to quickly transfer additional Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine, NATO's top military commander, Alexus Grynkewich, said.
Czech-coordinated shipments of artillery ammunition for Ukraine are rising this year, according to Ales Vytecka, director of the Czech Defence Ministry's AMOS international cooperation agency. So far this year, shipments have totalled 850,000 shells, including 320,000 NATO 155mm calibre projectiles.
Ukraine will let foreign arms companies test out their latest weapons on the front line of its war against Russia, Kyiv's state-backed arms investment and procurement group Brave1 said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the US publication The New York Post that he and United States President Donald Trump are considering a deal that involves Washington buying battlefield-tested Ukrainian drones in exchange for Kyiv purchasing weapons from the US.
Zelenskyy told the country's parliament that he expects his new government to increase the amount of domestically-produced weapons on Ukraine's battlefield from 40 percent to 50 percent within the next six months.
The US has informed Switzerland of delays to the delivery of Patriot air defence systems, the Swiss Defence Ministry said, adding that Washington wants to prioritise delivery of the systems to Ukraine.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said clarity is needed on how the US could replace any weapons that Europe plans to send to Ukraine. He issued the statement during a visit to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Politics and diplomacy
President Trump's decision to ramp up arms shipments to Ukraine is a signal to Kyiv to abandon peace efforts, Russia Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia had no plans to attack NATO or Europe but floated the idea of preemptive strikes if it believed the West was escalating what he cast as its full-scale war against Russia.
Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico said his country will stop blocking the approval of the 18th package of European Union sanctions against Russia, which could be approved on Friday.
Ukraine's parliament appointed Yulia Svyrydenko, 39, as the country's first new prime minister in five years, part of a major cabinet overhaul aimed at revitalising wartime management of the country as prospects for peace with Russia grow dim. Ukraine's former Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has been named defence minister.
Ukraine's parliament also voted to keep Andrii Sybiha as foreign minister, while appointing Olha Stefanishyna, a deputy prime minister responsible for Euro-Atlantic integration, as the country's new ambassador to the US.
Russian lawmakers have advanced a bill that would outlaw opening or searching for content online judged to be 'extremist' in nature, such as songs glorifying Ukraine and material by the feminist rock band, Pussy Riot.
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Al Jazeera
15 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,260
Here is how things stand on Thursday, August 7: Fighting Russian artillery shelling on a car belonging to Ukraine's state emergency services killed three people, including an emergency worker, and injured four others in the southeastern Ukrainian town of Nikopol, the regional governor, Serhiy Lysak, said. Dozens of Russian drones attacked a gas pumping station in southern Ukraine, part of an LNG imports scheme from the United States and Azerbaijan, Ukraine's Ministry of Energy said. Russia struck a gas facility in Ukraine's southern Odesa region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, as Ukraine's gas reserves are now at their lowest in 12 years, with storage facilities currently less than a third full, according to analysis firm ExPro. Ceasefire US President Donald Trump said his envoy Steve Witkoff made 'great progress' in his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Trump added that he updated some of Washington's allies in Europe after the meeting. Witkoff held about three hours of talks with Putin in the Kremlin on Wednesday, two days before the expiry of a deadline set by Trump for Russia to agree to peace in Ukraine or face new sanctions. The US has a better understanding of the conditions under which Moscow would be prepared to end its war in Ukraine after the meeting, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, adding that the key elements of any agreement would involve territory. Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said talks between Putin and Witkoff were 'useful and constructive'. He said Moscow had received certain 'signals' from Trump and had sent messages in return. President Zelenskyy said he had discussed Witkoff's visit to Moscow with Trump and that he had reiterated Ukraine's support for a just peace and its continued determination to defend itself. Zelenskyy added that it seemed Russia was 'more inclined to a ceasefire' following Witkoff's meeting. 'The pressure on them works. But the main thing is that they do not deceive us in the details – neither us nor the US,' Zelenskyy said in his nightly address. Trump could meet Putin as soon as next week, a White House official said, as the US continued preparations to impose secondary sanctions, including potentially on China, to pressure Moscow to end the war in Ukraine. Trump said he could announce further tariffs on China, similar to the 25 percent duties announced earlier on India, over its purchases of Russian oil. Military aid Ukraine's Defence Minister Denys Shmyhal thanked the US for approving more than $200m in deals to supply arms to Ukraine, which will be funded by Kyiv's allies. The partner-funded packages will provide technical support for howitzers and logistical services, he wrote on X. Regional developments Germany's coalition government plans to cut state benefits for newly arrived Ukrainian refugees, which could result in 100 euros ($116) less per month per refugee, the Reuters news agency reported, citing a draft law. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte discussed with Lithuania's foreign minister the subject of Russian military drone violations of Lithuanian airspace, a NATO spokesperson said.
Al Jazeera
a day ago
- Al Jazeera
Russia eyes Ukraine's ‘fortress belt' after fall of Chasiv Yar
During a difficult week in Ukraine's ground war, Russian troops completed their conquest of Chasiv Yar, a high ground in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, and claimed to have breached the outskirts of Kupiansk, a city with a pre-war population of more than 26,000, in Ukraine's northern Kharkiv region. Both conquests are the result of months-long efforts and have cost the Russians dearly in blood and weapons. At the same time, Russian forces pushed into Dnipropetrovsk, a Ukrainian region whose borders they first breached over the weekend of June 7-8, capturing the village of Sichneve, which Russians call Yanvarskoye. It was the third claimed conquest in Dnipropetrovsk. Earlier, Russia captured Dachnoye and Malynivka. Russia also began to launch jet-powered unmanned aerial vehicles to deadly effect, killing 31 people in Kyiv on July 31. Ukraine responded with deep strikes on Russian transport networks and energy hubs. Chasiv Yar and the 'fortress belt' Russia's Ministry of Defence said its paratroopers overran Chasiv Yar on July 31. Moscow's forces began to besiege the city in March 2024, about a month after the fall of Avdiivka, 30km (20 miles) to the south freed up offensive troops. Russia prioritised this line of attack after conquering the city of Bakhmut in May 2023, following months of battles led by Wagner Group mercenaries. Since Bakhmut fell, Russian forces have conquered a salient running 27km (17 miles) west of it. Chasiv Yar presented a challenge and a prize – a challenge because it sat astride a canal that formed a natural defensive barrier, and a prize because it is a vantage point from which Russia can survey the remaining free areas of Donetsk. 'Chasiv Yar is a key height in terms of adjusting observation and conducting combat operations,' military expert Vitaly Kiselyov told the Soloviev Live television network in Russia. 'To all appearances, we will be outflanking from the south and the north, gradually puncturing the enemy forces and edging them out, all the more so as we now hold an advantageous height relative to all other settlements,' said Kiselyov. Another Russian military expert said the capture of Chasiv Yar enabled Russian forces to advance towards the so-called 'fortress belt' of heavily defended Ukrainian cities in Donetsk. 'Chasiv Yar is situated on a hilltop, and beyond it, there are very vast expanses of flat terrain. The nearest agglomeration – Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka – is well fortified,' Andrey Marochko told the Russian newswire TASS. Chasiv Yar sits at the northern end of an attempted Russian encirclement of Konstiantynivka, and on Saturday, the Russian Defence Ministry claimed its forces had captured Aleksandro-Kalinovo, on the southern end of the crab's claw enclosing Konstiantynivka. Some analysts disagreed that the fall of Chasiv Yar was as important as Russian analysts made it sound. 'Tactical Russian advances westward in Chasiv Yar do not constitute an operationally significant development in this area,' said the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank. 'Russian forces have held most of northern and central Chasiv Yar since late January 2025 and began advancing in southwestern Chasiv Yar in mid-June 2025,' the ISW said. It added that Ukrainian lines of communication were not further threatened, since 'Russian forces have been within tube artillery range of Ukraine's main logistics route through the fortress belt since late January 2025 and have held positions along the T-0504 Bakhmut-Kostyantynivka highway for several months, and have yet to significantly threaten Ukrainian positions in Kostiantynivka.' The situation was different in Pokrovsk, some 35km (22 miles) southwest of Chasiv Yar, which Russia has also besieged. Denis Pushilin, the head of the pro-Russian, self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, said Ukrainian lines of communication into Pokrovsk had been impaired. 'The enemy has been largely denied the possibility to deliver ammunition and carry out troop rotation,' Pushilin said. Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii said on Telegram, 'The most difficult situation now is in the Pokrovsk, Dobropillia, and Novopavlivka directions,' naming two more settlements that lie behind Pokrovsk in unoccupied Donetsk. 'The enemy is increasing efforts to capture our key agglomerations, looking for vulnerable spots in our defence, and conducting active combat operations simultaneously on several fronts,' he said. He said Russian forces were forming sabotage groups in the Ukrainian rear in an attempt at 'total infiltration', and that Ukraine was 'using anti-sabotage reserves, whose task is to search for and destroy enemy sabotage groups'. Kupiansk and the 'buffer zone' At the northern end of the front, Russia claimed to have entered Kupiansk in Kharkiv on Tuesday. Russian troops were fighting street battles in Kupiansk, Russian military expert Andrey Marochko told TASS. He said troops were deploying small, mobile groups targeting Ukrainian positions with precise strikes. Russia's forays into Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv lie beyond Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, the four regions Russia formally annexed in September 2022. Russia claims to be creating a buffer zone to protect those regions, but Ukraine believes that claim to be an excuse for further occupation. Russian low-level officials have suggested that the buffer zone should be at least 30km (20 miles) deep, but the Russian leadership has placed no such limit. Moscow also continued its long-range strikes against Ukraine. An overnight drone attack on July 31 killed 31 people in Kyiv. The Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said Russia used jet-powered Shahed drones, which travel much faster than the propeller-driven kind, and are difficult to intercept. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russian forces launched eight Iskander-K cruise missiles from Kursk city and 309 Shahed-type and decoy drones. United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer called it 'an absolutely vile, brutal strike'. The war of words Even as he pressed on with these offensives, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Ukraine was not ready for peace talks. During a news conference with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday, Putin said, 'In principle, we can wait if the Ukrainian leadership believes that now is not the time,' adding that 'all disappointments arise from excessive expectations.' He was referring to the fact that three rounds of direct negotiations have yielded no ceasefire. United States President Donald Trump repeated last week that he was 'disappointed' in Putin, and has in recent weeks allowed US weapons to flow to Ukraine. On Friday, the US Pentagon said it would sell Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air (AMRAAM) missiles to Ukraine. Trump also got into a social media spat with Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia's National Security Council, after Medvedev objected to Trump's August 9 deadline for Russia to seal a ceasefire deal. On Saturday, Trump wrote on his TruthSocial service that he had 'ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that'. On the same day, Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on India for buying Russian oil. On Tuesday, he told CNBC, 'I'm going to raise that very substantially over the next 24 hours, because they're buying Russian oil, they're fuelling the war machine, and if they're going to do that, I'm not going to be happy.' Ukraine's strikes Meanwhile, Ukraine stepped up its interdiction campaign against Russian energy and transport infrastructure. On July 31, Russia said it shot down 32 Ukrainian long-range UAVs in its western border regions. As a result of the Ukrainian attack, it said rail services in the Volgograd region were delayed. Ukraine has been attacking the Russian railways connecting defence factories to the front, said open-source intelligence gatherer Frontelligence Insight. Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, said a radio factory in Penza, Russia was attacked, which made mobile command complexes and automated combat control systems. On Saturday, Ukraine unleashed a wide-ranging set of strikes. Kovalenko said the Radio Plant in Penza was attacked a second time, along with Electropribor, a manufacturer of encryptors, secure modems and switches for military and intelligence agencies. Ukraine also hit a storage and launch site for Shahed drones at the Primorsko-Akhtarsk military airfield in Krasnodar. But its biggest hits were against oil refineries. Ukraine attacked the Ryazan Oil Refinery, one of Russia's four largest, responsible for more than 6 percent of all refining in Russia, causing a fire. Also hit was the Novokuybyshevsk Oil Refinery near Samara city, where explosions were filmed. Ukraine also struck the Annanafteproduct oil depot in the Voronezh region, setting it alight, and on Sunday, a Ukrainian long-range strike hit an oil depot in Sochi on the Black Sea. Ukrainian media reported that explosions damaged the main Russian gas pipeline carrying gas from Turkmenistan to Russia, shutting it down indefinitely. The media outlets said it supplied military industries, including the Demikhov Machine-Building Plant, the MiG aircraft company, and the Magnum-K ammunition plant.
Al Jazeera
2 days ago
- Al Jazeera
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,259
Here is how things stand on Wednesday, August 6: Fighting Russian forces launched attacks on six settlements in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said, with three people killed and 10 injured in the village of Lyman and the town of Vovchansk. Russian forces also shelled a railway station in the town of Lozova, killing a duty mechanic. Four other railway workers were among the 10 people injured, Syniehubov said. Russian forces launched 431 air attacks on 16 settlements in Ukraine's Zaporizhia region, killing four people and wounding three others, Governor Ivan Fedorov said. A Ukrainian drone attack killed four employees of the water utility in the district of Svatovsky, in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region, according to the region's Russia-installed governor, Leonid Pasechnik. The head of the region's health service, quoted by Russia's state-run TASS news agency, later said that a fifth worker wounded in the strike had died in hospital. TASS also reported that a 30-year-old man was killed and a 51-year-old woman was injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on a car near the Russian-occupied village of Nyzhnia Duvanka in the Svatovsky district on Monday. Ukraine's military intelligence claimed that Ukrainian forces killed 334 Russian troops and wounded more than 550, in a failed attack on Ukraine's Sumy region. Al Jazeera was not able to verify the report. Ukraine's presidential chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram that Kyiv has found components from India in Russian drones used for attacks on Ukraine. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the information. Military aid Sweden, Norway and Denmark will together contribute about 5 billion Norwegian crowns ($486.16m) to buy US weapons for Ukraine, the Norwegian government said in a statement. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged the promised funding, saying that Ukraine had secured an 'additional $500 million from our friends in Northern Europe: Sweden, Norway, and Denmark' for US weapons. The US Department of State approved the potential sale of repair and sustainment support for M777 howitzer artillery guns, and transportation and consolidation services to Ukraine from BAE Systems and other United States contractors for an estimated total of $203.5m, the Pentagon said. Regional security The German air force will station five Eurofighter combat aircraft in Poland for several weeks, in response to a Polish request, an air force spokesman told Germany's DPA news agency. The Kyiv Independent news outlet reported that the move was a deterrent ahead of joint Russian-Belarusian military drills. Lithuania's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has written to the NATO military alliance asking it to help strengthen its air defences, after two military drones crossed into its territory from Belarus last month. Ceasefire and sanctions Zelenskyy said he had a 'productive conversation' with US President Donald Trump, 'with the key focus of course being ending the war'. Trump told CNBC news that declining energy prices could pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to halt Moscow's war in Ukraine. 'If energy goes down enough, Putin is going to stop killing people,' Trump said. 'If you get energy down, another $10 a barrel, he's going to have no choice because his economy stinks.'
