29/8/2024–|Last update: 8/29/202406:03 PM (Makkah Time)
Russia announced on Thursday that it had taken control of two additional villages in the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk In eastern Ukraine, while its forces continue to advance deep into the country.
Meanwhile, Kyiv said it shot down two missiles and 60 drones over nine regions in a Russian attack last night, after Moscow intensified its assault on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure earlier this week.
This comes as the Russian Foreign Minister said: Sergey LavrovNegotiations with Ukraine have become “meaningless” following the latter’s attack on Russia’s Kursk.
This came in a press conference held by Lavrov today with Senegalese Foreign Minister Yassine Fall, following their meeting in Moscow.
Asked about the possibility of resuming negotiations between Moscow and Kiev, Lavrov referred to Ukraine’s attack on the Kursk region in early August.
He added that the Russian President Vladimir Putin He recently put forward a new proposal for negotiations with Ukraine, after Kiev and the West rejected previous proposals.
He added: “No one should have doubted our readiness for negotiations, but after Kiev’s adventure in Kursk, negotiations became meaningless,” he said.
Lavrov said that the West is now sending more advanced weapons to Ukraine, adding that he takes “this issue seriously.”
On August 6, Ukrainian forces launched a large-scale operation on the Kursk border, resulting in ongoing violent clashes with the Russian army.
Ukrainian Chief of the General Staff Oleksandr Syrsky announced on Tuesday that his country’s forces had taken control of an area of 1,294 square kilometers and 100 residential units in the Russian Kursk region.
Field developments
On the other hand, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Moscow took control of the village of Mykolaivka, located about 15 kilometers from the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, and the village of Stelmakhivka in the neighboring Luhansk region.
Over the past few months, Russian forces have made advances towards Pokrovsk, a logistics hub that was once home to about 60,000 people.
Ukrainian forces, which suffer from a shortage of military personnel and equipment, are facing difficulties in repelling the attacks of the Russian army.
Meanwhile, Russian shelling of the southern Ukrainian city of Nikopol killed one person and injured five others, regional authorities said.
“A shopping center, several high-rise buildings, residential buildings, cars and a gas pipeline were damaged,” Dnipropetrovsk region governor Sergei Lysak wrote on social media.
nuclear danger
Separately, a Ukrainian mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency said today that the Russian drone and missile attack on Monday forced Ukraine to disconnect a number of nuclear power units from the grid, which poses a risk to the nuclear energy sector.
The mission added in a note that “the Russian Federation continues to deliberately target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in an effort to disrupt the operation of the country’s nuclear power plants, which supply Ukraine with the majority of its electricity.”
She continued: “Russian attacks pose a significant threat to the stability of operations at nuclear power plants in Ukraine and the safety of millions of people.”
Russia on Monday launched its “largest” air attack on Ukraine with more than 200 missiles and drones, killing seven people and including bombing energy facilities across the country.
It is noteworthy that Since February 24, 2022, Russia has been launching a military attack on its neighbor Ukraine. The condition for its termination is that Kiev abandons joining Western military entities, in an implicit reference to NATO, which Kiev considers “interference” in its internal affairs.
