Here is the situation on Wednesday, August 21, 2024.

Fighting

A 14-year-old boy died from his injuries in hospital after a Russian munition struck a kiosk at a children’s playground in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhia region, regional Governor Ivan Fedorov said. Three other children and an 18-year-old girl were also hurt in the attack on Malokaterynivka village.
Russia struck energy infrastructure in the northeastern Sumy region, leaving more than 18,500 people without power in a wave of missile and drone attacks across nine regions of Ukraine which also triggered a huge fire at an industrial facility in the west. Ukraine’s air force commander said Ukrainian forces shot down three ballistic missiles and 25 of the 26 drones used in the attack.
Ukraine’s top military commander Oleksandr Syrskii said his forces had pushed 28-35km (17-22 miles) into Russia, capturing 1,263sq km (488sq miles) of territory, including 93 settlements, since launching their incursion into the Kursk region on August 6.
Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov announced the formation of new military groupings in Kursk and two other border regions as Moscow tries to push back the Ukrainians without using soldiers fighting on the front line deep inside Ukraine.
Ukraine’s military said its forces came under pressure on the Toretsk and Pokrovsk fronts where Russia is concentrating its main attack in eastern Ukraine. It said Ukrainian forces had repelled 49 Russian attacks on Tuesday and that 13 more were continuing.
Russia said its forces had taken control of the Ukrainian town of New York which was home to just under 10,000 people before the war. The Ukrainian military said Russian forces attacked Ukrainian positions around New York, in the Toretsk area of the Donetsk region, but did not elaborate on the outcome.

Politics and diplomacy

Ukrainian lawmakers passed a law to ban the activities of groups tied to the Russian Orthodox Church or any other religious group supporting Russia’s invasion. The measure is widely seen as targeting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which Kyiv accuses of complicity in Moscow’s war. The UOC maintains it is independent and the Russian Orthodox Church condemned the vote.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov inspected Chechen troops and volunteers readying to fight Ukraine, the Kremlin said, in Putin’s first trip to the North Caucasus region since 2011.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it detained a scientist in Moscow on suspicion of treason, accusing him of carrying out cyber attacks on critical infrastructure on behalf of the Ukrainian security services. The FSB did not name the suspect.
Russia said it summoned senior United States diplomat Stephanie Holmes to protest over what it called the “provocative actions” of journalists from US media outlets reporting from Russia’s Kursk region. The Foreign Ministry said the reporters had crossed the border illegally and that Russia intended to prosecute them. Moscow appeared to be referring to reporting by The Washington Post and CNN from Sudzha, a Russian border town currently under Kyiv’s control. It has already opened a criminal investigation against several Italian journalists for a TV report from there.
The Pentagon said US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Ukrainian counterpart Rustem Umerov discussed battlefield dynamics and ongoing Ukrainian operations. It did not go into specifics.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang arrived in Moscow for talks with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Chinese state media reported.

Weapons

The Czech Republic will use part of the interest generated from Russian central bank assets frozen in the European Union to buy large-calibre ammunition for Ukraine, the Czech Defence Ministry said on Tuesday.