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Here is how things stand on Friday, August 15:

Fighting

• Ukrainian drones struck two Russian cities in attacks that injured at least 16 people, local authorities said.
• Thirteen people were wounded, two seriously, when a drone struck an apartment building in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, and three civilians were wounded in the city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine.
• The Ukrainian military said its drones hit a Russian refinery in the Volgograd region overnight, causing huge fires.
• Russia’s Defence Ministry said Russian forces captured the settlements of Shcherbynivka and Andriivka-Klevtsove in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
• Ukrainian troops have stabilised an area of eastern Ukraine where Russian forces had made a sudden push this week to pierce Ukrainian defences, the Donetsk region’s Governor Vadym Filashkin said.
• Ukraine said small groups of Russian infantry had thrust some 10 kilometres (six miles) towards its main defensive line near the town of Dobropillia, raising fears of a wider breakthrough on the front line that would further threaten key Ukrainian cities.
• The Russian advance, coming as United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are due to meet in Alaska on Friday, appears aimed at pressuring Kyiv to give up land in return for peace with Russia, observers said.

Alaska summit

• Trump said he believes Putin is ready to end his war in Ukraine, speaking on the eve of Friday’s summit between the two leaders in the city of Anchorage, but a peace deal would likely require at least a second meeting involving Ukraine’s leader, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
• Trump and Putin will meet face-to-face on Friday before holding a joint news conference, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.
• Putin said the US was making “sincere efforts” to halt the war in Ukraine and suggested Moscow and Washington could agree on a nuclear arms deal as part of a wider effort to strengthen peace.
• Putin said “in order to create long-term conditions for peace between our countries, and in Europe, and in the world as a whole”, there could be agreements reached “in the area of control over strategic offensive weapons”.
• The Kremlin warned it would be a big mistake to predict the outcome of the upcoming summit, the state-run Interfax news agency reported. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were no plans to sign any documents following the summit.
• The talks in Alaska between Trump and Putin present a viable chance to make progress on ending the war in Ukraine, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office said in a statement.

Military aid

• Zelenskyy said he had a detailed discussion on possible security guarantees for Ukraine during a “productive meeting” with the United Kingdom’s Starmer.
• Zelenskyy said Kyiv had so far secured $1.5bn from its European allies to buy US weapons as part of a mechanism – the NATO Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List initiative – that he said “truly strengthens our defence”.
• French President Emmanuel Macron said Trump expressed a willingness to European leaders on Wednesday that the US and other allies should be part of giving Ukraine security guarantees to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
• The US Agency for International Development (USAID) did not monitor the uses of 5,175 Starlink terminals sent to Ukraine, with nearly half of the operational units ending up in areas fully or partly held by Moscow, according to a report by the agency’s internal watchdog.

Prisoners of war

• The United Arab Emirates has successfully mediated a new exchange of captives between Russia and Ukraine. Some 84 captives were released from each side, bringing the total number exchanged through UAE mediation to 4,349.
• Ukraine brought home 84 prisoners of war that included 51 civilians, Ukrainian officials said, at least one of whom had been held for more than a decade.

Regional developments

• Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during an official visit to Pyongyang, the Russian parliament said. Volodin, a close ally of Putin, conveyed greetings from the Russian leader and thanked Kim for North Korea’s support of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine.

Economy

• Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko ordered a review of all licences to mine strategic minerals in the country, as part of a broader effort to help the war-ravaged economy and secure new investments under a minerals deal with the US.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets across Serbia, smashing windows of the governing party’s headquarters in the northern city of Novi Sad, where the country’s antigovernment revolt started more than nine months ago.

The protesters came out in force for a third night on Thursday, following major clashes earlier in the week that saw dozens detained or injured, demanding that President Aleksandar Vucic call an early election.

In Novi Sad, where a train station canopy collapsed last year, killing 16 people and creating public anger over alleged corruption in infrastructure projects, protesters attacked the offices of the governing Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), carrying away furniture and documents, and splashing paint on the entrance.

“He is finished,” they shouted, with reference to the president as they demolished the offices. The police and Vucic’s supporters, who have guarded the office in Serbia’s second-largest city for months, were nowhere to be seen.

In Belgrade, the Serbian capital, hundreds of protesters and SNS supporters threw flares and firecrackers at each other on one of the city’s main boulevards. Police fired tear gas at least two locations to disperse the protesters and keep the opposing camps apart.

Similar protests were held in towns across the country.

Vucic told pro-government Informer television that “the state will win” as he announced a crackdown on antigovernment protesters, accusing them of inciting violence and of being “enemies of their own country”.

“I think it is clear they did not want peace and Gandhian protests. There will be more arrests,” he said during the broadcast.

He reiterated earlier claims that the protests have been organised from abroad, offering no evidence.

The previous night, there were gatherings at some 90 locations in the country, according to Interior Minister Ivica Dacic the following day.

Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said that 47 people were arrested in Wednesday’s clashes, with about 80 civilians and 27 police officers left injured.

The EU’s Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos said on X that the reports of violence were “deeply concerning”.

“Advancing on the EU path requires citizens can express their views freely and journalists can report without intimidation or attacks,” Kos said on X.