War in Ukraine: use of long-range weapons, objectives achieved in Kursk, evacuation of Pokrovsk… update on the situation

Every day, Midi Libre takes stock of the situation in Ukraine. This Monday, August 19, 2024, discover the latest news around this conflict.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit Kiev on August 23

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Ukraine on August 23 at the invitation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said on Monday.

The trip, Modi's first to Ukraine since the start of the war, comes almost a month after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The two leaders will discuss bilateral relations as well as multilateral cooperation, the Ukrainian president's office said in a statement.

According to analysts, Narendra Modi's trip to Kiev is directly linked to the negative fallout from his visit to Moscow on July 8-9, during which a Russian strike on a children's hospital in Kiev left two people dead and embarrassed the Indian leader.

The holding of a NATO summit on July 9-10 complicated Narendra Modi's visit, with the United States expressing concern about ties between Moscow and New Delhi, while stressing that India was in a position to encourage Vladimir Putin to end the war.

Indian diplomats are now in regular talks with their Ukrainian counterparts, with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar calling Dmytro Kuleba to discuss strengthening bilateral ties.

Zelensky calls for allowing use of long-range weapons to “stop advance” Russian in the East

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on his Western allies on Monday to allow kyiv to strike Russia with the long-range weapons delivered, in order to"stop the advance" of the Russian army in eastern Ukraine.

"Ukraine can stop the advance of the Russian army on the front only by one decision that we expect from our partners: the decision on long-range capabilities scope”, Zelensky told Ukrainian ambassadors in kyiv.

Ukrainian army achieves goals in Russia's Kursk region

The Ukrainian army is achieving its goals in Russia's Kursk border region, where it launched an offensive of unprecedented scale nearly two weeks ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday.

“We are achieving our goals,”, Zelensky said of the cross-border operation that was launched on August 6 in surprise from Moscow. This operation, he said on Sunday, aims to "create a buffer zone" between Russia and Ukraine.

"A week or two" to evacuate Pokrovsk in the face of the Russian advance

Civilians in Pokrovsk, a strategic logistics hub in eastern Ukraine, have just one to two weeks to evacuate the city in the face of advancing Russian troops, a Ukrainian official said Monday.

The Pokrovsk front remains the scene of the most intense fighting in eastern Ukraine, with a record number of clashes reported last week, as the Ukrainian military continues its surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region. The steady advance of Russian forces in the Pokrovsk region over the past several months has brought them to within just over ten kilometers of the city's outskirts last week, local authorities said.

The head of the Pokrovsk military administration, Serhiy Dobriak, on Monday again urged civilians to leave as soon as possible. They have “a week or two, no more,” he told Radio Liberty's Ukrainian service in response to a question about the expected time frame for the evacuations given the speed at which Russian troops are advancing. Authorities have the capacity to evacuate at least 1,000 people per day, Serhiy Dobriak added, but only 500-600 residents are currently leaving the city daily.

About 53,000 people, including nearly 4,000 children, remain in Pokrovsk and its immediate surroundings, regional governor Vadim Filashkin said on Telegram, adding that forced evacuations of families with children were beginning in the Pokrovsk region.

Moscow says Ukraine destroyed 3rd bridge in Kursk region

Russia said Monday that Ukraine struck and damaged a third bridge across the Seim River in Russia's Kursk region, where Moscow's troops have been clashing with Kyiv's forces for nearly two weeks.

“On August 18, as a result of targeted rocket and artillery shelling of residential buildings and civilian infrastructure in the village of Karyj, a third bridge across the Seim River was damaged,”, a representative of the Investigative Committee said russian.

The video was posted on the Telegram channel of Russian state TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov. Russian forces have been fighting Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region since August 6, when thousands of troops crossed Russia's western border.

On Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Ukraine destroyed a bridge over the Seim River in the village of Glushkovo. Later on Sunday, the commander of the Ukrainian air force claimed responsibility for destroying a second bridge, limiting the ability to supply Russian troops opposing the Ukrainian advance.

According to military analysts, a total of three bridges in the area of ​​the Ukrainian incursion are being used to deliver supplies to Russian troops.

The Russian military says it has captured a town in eastern Ukraine

The Russian army claimed Monday the capture of the town of Zalizne, very close to that of Toretsk located in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk (east) and the target of a Russian offensive for several weeks.

"The units of the Center grouping (…) liberated one of the largest localities in the Dzerzhinsk agglomeration ( Toretsk in Ukrainian), that of Artiomovo (Zalizne in Ukrainian)", indicated the Russian Ministry of Defense, in its daily report.

Ukraine says it has repelled a Russian air attack, particularly on kyiv

Ukrainian air defense units repelled a Russian air attack last night, notably on Kiev, and destroyed all of the 11 drones launched by Moscow on Ukrainian territory, the Ukrainian territory announced on Monday. #39;Air Force of Ukraine.

The drones were destroyed while flying over the regions of Mykolaiv, Cherkasy, Vinnytsia, kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Sumy and Donetsk, the army added in the messaging Telegram.

Reuters journalists heard explosions resembling air defense actions on the outskirts of kyiv in the early hours of Monday. There were no immediate reports of damage linked to the attacks or falling debris from intercepted drones