Ukraine, Zelensky in the border zone. And Kiev sinks a Russian cargo ship

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the border area with Russia for the first time since Kiev’s forces withdrew and launched an offensive on Russia’s Kursk. “Another village in the Kursk region is now under Ukrainian control,” Zelensky said during his visit to the Sumy region, after hearing an update from army commander Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who spoke of new Russian prisoners of war who will help build a “barter fund” to be exchanged for captured Ukrainians. Zelensky did not cross the border and therefore did not enter Russian territory, which Moscow reportedly considered a provocation. But tensions in Russia are very high over Kursk and beyond: in another example of the intensification of Ukrainian attacks, emergency authorities in Russia’s Krasnodar region said a Ukrainian strike hit a ferry carrying fuel tanks in the port of Kavkaz, near Crimea, starting a fire and, according to Russian news agencies, the ferry sank. The port is located in the Kerch Strait, which connects the Black Sea with the Sea of ​​Azov. The Kiev Independent, among other things, citing some Telegram monitoring channels, reported a Ukrainian army drone attack on the Russian military base Marinovka in the Volgograd region, which caused a fire.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Kiev of attempting to attack the Kursk nuclear power plant, adding that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been informed. The attempted attack took place “at night,” Putin said at a meeting with the governors of the Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi is expected to visit the plant next week, RIA Novosti reported. In addition, following the case of Rai journalists Stefania Battistini and Simone Traini, Russia has opened criminal cases against three other foreign journalists for illegally crossing the state border in the Kursk region: CNN journalist Nick Peyton Walsh and Ukrainian correspondents Borovik Olesya Nikolaevna and Butsko Diana Vladimirovna. The FSB clarified that “they illegally crossed the Russian border and filmed videos in the Sudzha area.” On the other hand, Moscow continues to claim progress in Donetsk: in its latest communication, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that it had taken control of another Ukrainian village in Donetsk, that of Mezhove, just one day after having announced that it had taken the village of Zhelannye.

Meanwhile, while the US has warned Kiev that Russia could prepare attacks ahead of Ukraine’s Independence Day, which falls on August 24, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected by Zelensky in the Ukrainian capital. He first stopped in Poland, where he met Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Andrzej Duda. “We support dialogue and diplomatic efforts” to restore peace and stability as soon as possible, Modi said, while Tusk stressed that India can bring about an end to the war in Ukraine from Russia, which is New Delhi’s strategy. The meeting between Modi and Zelensky, however, comes after Kiev criticized the Indian prime minister for his visit to Moscow last month, when he met and hugged Putin. Zelensky described the meeting as a “big disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts”, explicitly criticizing the hug.