Here is how things stand on Friday, August 29:
Fighting
- Russian missiles and drones ripped through apartment blocks in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Thursday, killing at least 23 people, including four children, authorities said, in an attack the United States warned undermines peace efforts.
- Ukraine’s air force said Moscow fired at least 629 drones and missiles, making it the second-largest overnight barrage of the entire war, according to Kyiv’s data.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that aside from residential buildings, the deadly Russian attack also hit the Embassy of Azerbaijan, the European Union delegation, the British Council, and a Turkish enterprise in the capital city.
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Ukraine’s military struck a small missile-carrying Russian warship in the Sea of Azov, causing damage, Ukrainian military intelligence said. The ship had the potential to launch missiles in the Temryuk Bay area of the Azov Sea, Ukraine said.
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A fire broke out at a unit of the Afipsky oil refinery in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region following a Ukrainian drone attack, local authorities said. The extent of damage was not immediately clear at the refinery, which, together with the Krasnodar refinery, processed an estimated 7.2 million metric tonnes of crude oil in 2024.
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Ukraine’s national power grid operator said Russia’s overnight attack on Thursday damaged energy facilities in several regions, prompting local power cuts. The attack on critical infrastructure in central Ukraine’s Vinnytsia region cut power to 60,000 consumers, regional official Natalia Zabolotna said.
Politics and diplomacy
- President Zelenskyy denounced the Russian attack on Kyiv, noting that it was Moscow’s answer to diplomatic efforts to end the war.
- US President Donald Trump said he “was not happy” about the Russian attack and planned to talk more about the subject later, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
- The Kremlin said the attack targeted Ukrainian military sites, and insisted it was still interested in diplomacy to end the conflict, but that its strikes would “continue”.
- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the attack and urged for a ceasefire.
- The EU and British government have summoned Russia’s ambassadors after the overnight attack on Kyiv damaged buildings of the EU’s mission and the British Council.
- British Prime Minister Keir Starmer accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of “sabotaging hopes of peace”, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said “Russia showed its true face” with the latest strikes.
- French President Emmanuel Macron slammed Russian “terror and barbarism”, saying on X: “This is Russia’s idea of peace.”
- EU chief Ursula von der Leyen spoke with both Zelenskyy and Trump following the attacks, insisting afterwards that “Putin must come to the negotiating table”.
- NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on X that “we need to ensure Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself & secure a lasting peace”.
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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Russia’s attack demonstrates that it is not interested in negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine.
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Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Kyiv had summoned Hungary’s ambassador over what he called the Budapest government’s “discrimination” against ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine.
- Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his country was issuing an entry ban against the Ukrainian military commander, Robert Brovdi, who carried out “an attack on Hungary’s sovereignty, endangering our energy security”. Brovdi is an ethnic Hungarian who commands Ukraine’s drone forces.
Peace talks
- Zelenskyy told a group of European leaders that it was important to produce a clear definition of security guarantees for Ukraine as part of any plan to secure a peace settlement with Russia.
- Zelenskyy also said he had discussed security guarantees for Ukraine with Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
- Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter hosted Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko in Bern for a courtesy visit, the Swiss government said in a statement. The talks focused on the peace process and the reconstruction of Ukraine, it said.
Military aid
- The US Department of State has approved a potential sale of air-launched cruise missiles and related equipment to Ukraine for an estimated $825m, the Pentagon said. The 3,350 Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) missiles have a range of “several hundred” kilometres, according to a manufacturer.
Regional security
- Russia or its proxies have flown surveillance drones over routes that the US and its allies use to transport military supplies through eastern Germany, according to a New York Times report. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed the report, describing it as “another newspaper fake”.
Economy
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Russian oil supplies through the Druzhba pipeline to Slovakia have resumed after an outage caused last week by a Ukrainian attack in Russia, Slovak Economy Minister Denisa Sakova said.
