Here is how things stand on Monday, August 4:
Fighting
- A Russian attack killed three people in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhia region on Sunday, Governor Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram.
- A Ukrainian drone attack sparked a major fire at an oil depot in Sochi in southern Russia, the governor of Russia’s Krasnodar region, Veniamin Kondratiev, said on Sunday. The fire was extinguished hours later after 120 firefighters were deployed, officials said. Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, briefly halted flights at Sochi’s airport during the fire.
- Ukraine’s military says it used drones to target several sites inside Russia, including refineries, an airfield and an electronics plant.
- The governor of the Voronezh region in southern Russia said four people were injured in a Ukrainian drone attack that caused several fires,
- A Russian attack injured seven people and destroyed dozens of houses and apartments in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said on Telegram early on Sunday.
- The Ukrainian air force said on Sunday that Russia launched 76 drones and seven missiles against Ukraine. It said 60 drones and one missile were intercepted, but 16 drones and six missiles hit eight different locations across Ukraine.
- The Russian Ministry of Defence said its air defence units destroyed 93 Ukrainian drones overnight, including one over the Krasnodar region and 60 over the waters of the Black Sea. It did not specify how many drones were fired in total.
Politics and Diplomacy
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine and Russia have agreed to exchange 1,200 prisoners following negotiations in Istanbul, adding that “work on the lists [of prisoners to be released] is ongoing”. There was no immediate comment from Russia.
- Zelenskyy announced he had appointed Anatolii Kryvonozhko as Commander of Ukraine’s air force, a role Kryvonozhko has been serving in as Acting Commander for nearly a year.
- Zelenskyy also said that Ukraine has prepared three new sanctions packages, including sanctions against the captains of Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers.
- China and Russia began joint naval drills in the Sea of Japan in waters near the Russian port of Vladivostok, China’s Ministry of National Defence said in a statement on Sunday. The drills will last for three days.
- Speaking to a crowd of one million young Catholics on the outskirts of Rome, Pope Leo said: “We are with the young people of Gaza; we are with the young people of Ukraine.”