Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,281

On Thursday, August 28, 2018, the situation is as follows:

Fighting

• At least one person died, four were hurt, and several buildings in the city’s central Kyiv have been damaged, according to early on Thursday, according to officials in Kiev, the country’s capital.
• According to The Associated Press (AP) news agency, Russian troops have entered the villages of Novoheorhiivka and Zaporizke in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, a major Ukrainian industrial hub close to the Donetsk region, citing a local commander.
• More than 100 000 households were without power as a result of strikes across Ukraine on Wednesday, according to Kyiv officials, who claimed three people were killed.
• In what it called a “deliberate policy of destroying Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure on the eve of the heating season,” the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy claimed that Russian attacks were being launched against energy and gas transport infrastructure facilities in six regions.
• More than 100,000 homes in the Poltava, Sumy, and Chernihiv regions were without electricity as a result of Russian attacks, according to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
• Local authorities said an 81-year-old woman died in an overnight attack on the regional capital and a farm was seriously damaged by heavy shelling in the southern Kherson region of Ukraine, killing two employees.
• According to Mykhailo Fedorov, the head of Ukraine’s digitalisation ministry, “the data we have is priceless for any country,” the country is considering how to share battlefield data with its allies.
• After Poland claimed it might no longer be able to pay for the 30, 000 Starlink internet systems it had backed, Fedorov added that he was confident in finding a solution to allow it to continue funding them. The largest donor of SpaceX’s satellite internet devices to Ukraine is Poland, which it uses as a crucial communication tool that is resistant to Russian hacking and jamming.

Peace talks

• President Zelenskyy called for “pressure” to be put on Russia to “force them to take real steps” toward peace after receiving “very haughty and negative signals from Moscow regarding the negotiations” on ending the conflict with Russia.
• Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, had a number of priorities, including making an unprecedented trip to China and getting ready for an economic forum in the Russian Far East, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who refrained from calling for quick peace talks.
• Additionally, Peskov rebuffed the idea of sending Ukrainian peacekeepers from Europe, saying, “We view such discussions negatively. Russia sees in particular this “exact movement of NATO military infrastructure” into Ukraine as one of the “root causes” of the conflict, he claimed.

diplomacy and politics

• Russia’s withdrawal from the Council of Europe’s treaty on the prevention of torture has drawn criticism from Ukraine, who claims the move was a covert admission of guilt by Moscow. Russian officials have long accused Russia of torturing and torturing Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war.
• Olha Stefanishyna, a former top cabinet minister, will be Ukraine’s next ambassador to the US, according to Zelenskyy’s decree. According to Zellenskyy, “Ukraine’s long-term security depends on our relations with America,” and she cited US military assistance as top diplomatic priorities.
• Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, and Rustem Umerov, the head of security council, were in Saudi Arabia ahead of meetings with US administration officials in New York.

Regional security

• In response to growing concerns about Russian aggression, Germany has begun a campaign to encourage more people to join its voluntary military service.
• German weapons company Rheinmetall opened its biggest munitions factory in Europe on Wednesday, according to NATO’s Mark Rutte, who praised the move as strengthening Western defenses. At the ceremony’s opening address, Rutte stated, “This is absolutely crucial for our own security as well as to keep supporting Ukraine in its fight today and to deter any aggression in the future.”
• According to the Romanian industry ministry, the country’s industry ministry has signed a framework agreement with Rheinmetall to construct a 535 million euro ($626.3 million) factory for munitions ignition powder.
• According to a report that the cabinet approved, Germany approved a record 12.8 billion euros ($14.9) of weapons exports last year. According to the report, 64 percent of the total was approved for Ukraine, or 8.15 billion ($9.49 billion) worth of defense products.
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Polish prime minister Donald Tusk criticized what they called “hybrid attacks” and “lies” by Russians as they supported the country’s pro-European government.
• Only three NATO members are currently achieving a new, higher 3.5% target set by alliance leaders in June, according to data released on Thursday. All NATO members will now have accomplished the long-standing goal of putting 2 percent of their GDP into defense this year.
• Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, formally inaugurated Turkiye’s integrated air defense system known as the “Steel Dome,” which he characterized as a turning point for the nation and its defense sector.

Economy

• According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, high interest rates imposed to lower inflation have stifled borrowing, leading to a slowing of 1.5 percent, far below the earlier 2.5 percent forecast. Despite numerous rounds of Western sanctions following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia’s war economy increased steadily to 4.1 percent in 2023 and 4.3 percent in 2024, which is much faster than that of the G7 countries. However, it is sapping sharply this year.
• In an effort to lower fuel prices, which have soared since Ukrainian attacks on refineries, Russian authorities announced an extension of the ban on gasoline exports until October 31.
• According to the AP news agency, Ukrainian drones have recently attacked refineries and other oil infrastructure in some areas of Russia, leaving drivers waiting in long lines and officials rationing or completely halting sales. Russian media reports that consumers are experiencing fuel shortages in a number of regions in the Far East and the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014?
• According to Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto in a post on X on Wednesday, crude oil shipments from Russia to Hungary could resume on Thursday in test mode at lower volumes. Following Ukraine’s most recent attack on Russian energy infrastructure, Hungary and Slovakia announced on Friday that oil supplies via the Druzhba pipeline could be suspended for at least five days.
• As a result of the US President Donald Trump’s effort to punish New Delhi for purchasing Russian oil in the midst of the Ukraine war, 50% of US tariffs were implemented on a number of Indian products on Wednesday.
• Yulia Svyrydenko, the country’s prime minister, announced that Ukraine has begun a tender for the right to mine a lithium deposit site in the Kirovohrad region. In order to maintain Washington’s support in its conflict with Russia, the US and Kyiv are expected to hold the first project in a joint investment fund signed in April.