Here is the situation on Sunday, August 13, 2023.
Fighting
- Russia’s defence ministry said Ukrainian forces hit the Crimea bridge and several other unspecified targets in the annexed Crimean peninsula in a flurry of rocket and drone attacks. There were no casualties or damage, the ministry said.
- Russia’s foreign ministry pledged retaliation for what it called a “terrorist attack” on the Crimean Bridge.
- In Ukraine, officials said an elderly woman and a police officer were killed in Russian shelling in eastern Kharkiv and the southern Zaporizhia region.
- Ukrainian officials also reported Russian attacks in the southern Kherson region and the central city of Kryvyi Rih. Two elderly people were reported wounded in Kherson and there were no known casualties in Kryvyi Rih.
- In the Russian-controlled eastern region of Donetsk, a Moscow-installed official said Ukrainian shelling killed one person and wounded six others. Denis Pushilin said Ukrainian forces had fired 127 rounds of ammunition at the region.
- Ukrainian military officials, meanwhile, reported progress on the southern front, saying Kyiv’s forces had recaptured territories in the region of Tavria and claimed partial success near the key village of Robotyne.
- The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Russian forces had launched six rockets, 36 air raids and fired 32 rocket salvo fire systems at populated areas and Ukrainian troop positions on Saturday. Children were among the dead and wounded, it said.
- Russia also claimed progress, saying it had regained control of the village of Urozhaine in Ukraine’s easternmost Luhansk region in an overnight counterattack.
- In Poland, Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said his country has increased the number of troops protecting its border with Belarus as a deterrent amid “destabilising” actions by its pro-Russian neighbour. These include an incident in which two Belarusian military helicopters entered Poland’s airspace last week, a move Warsaw said was a deliberate provocation. Poland is also concerned about the presence in Belarus of Russian-linked mercenaries and about Middle Eastern and African asylum seekers trying to cross into the country from Belarus.
Military aid
- Germany’s Rheinmetall will deliver a Luna New Generation drone system to Ukraine by the end of the year, according to the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. The package consists of a ground control station with several drones, a launch catapult and military trucks, and can be used as a reconnaissance system, provide an LTE network and intercept or jam communications, Bild reported.
Economy
- Ukraine, which is seeking to establish safe shipping routes in the Black Sea, has started registering ships willing to use a humanitarian corridor it announced last week, according to the Interfax news agency. The corridor is a new test of Russia’s de facto blockade since Moscow abandoned a deal last month to let Kyiv export grain.
- A top Ukrainian official said the country’s grain harvest this year is exceeding expectations and could be 5 percent higher than in 2022, “thanks to good weather and rains in the summer”.
- On Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, the city of Odesa opened up six beaches for swimming for the first time since the Russian full-scale invasion began. Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said accessing beaches during air alerts was forbidden.
