Between the evening of August 5 and this morning, the Russian army massively attacked several regions of the Ukrainian territory in several waves with air- and sea-launched missiles and Iranian drones, the Kyiv Air Force said on Telegram. Flak intercepted and destroyed 13 Kalibr cruise missiles, 17 Kh-101/X-555 cruise missiles and 27 Shahed drones. “In the two waves the Russians used 14 sea-launched Kalibr and three air-launched Kh-47 Kinzhal ballistic missiles, later drones, Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea and cruise missiles fired from the Caspian Sea.”
Explosions were reported overnight in the Kiev, Khmelnytskyi and Cherkasy regions of Ukraine. The local media reported it, adding that anti-aircraft alarms were triggered in the early hours of today also in the oblasts of Odessa, Vinnytsia and Kharkiv. Pro-Russian authorities say a fire broke out in the building of the Donetsk University of Economics and Business after a shelling raid by Ukrainian forces on the city. “Emergencies Ministry units have located a serious fire in the Voroshilovsky district of Donetsk,” read a Telegram statement quoted by the Russian news agency Tass. According to preliminary information, the roof and ceiling of the building would have caught fire for a total of about 3,000 square meters affected by the flames. 19 vehicles and 91 firefighters intervened to put out the fire.
Kharkiv transfusion center hit: two dead and four injured
Two men were killed and four others were injured in last night’s guided aerial bomb attack on a blood transfusion center in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. “The Russians hit a non-residential building in the village of Kruglyakivka in the Kupyansk district with a guided aerial bomb, and a huge fire broke out,” said the head of the regional military administration Oleg Syniehubov, quoted by UNIAN. Yesterday evening, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky himself gave the news of the attack. Settlements in Bohodukhiv, Kharkiv, Chuhuiv, Izyum and Kupyansk districts have been bombed in the last 24 hours.
Russian ports in the Black Sea are a “war risk zone”. The notice, issued by the Ukrainian maritime authorities, certifies that a new front has permanently opened up in the conflict. The demonstration is the second attack in two days against a Russian vessel, this time a tanker, with the notorious sea drones of Kiev, south of the Kerch Strait, near the Crimean bridge. The tanker Sig, one of the largest in the Russian merchant fleet, was attacked on Friday night. A hole appeared in the vessel in the engine room area but did not sink, Russian maritime authorities said, while a video that started circulating on the net apparently showed the naval drone used for the assault.
Moscow, commenting on the attacks on the warship and the tanker, denied or in any case minimized the damages, but at the same time denounced a “terrorist” act against a “civilian ship”, promising a “response”. Yet the alert in the Black Sea remains high. The Defense Ministry also said it had “intercepted and rejected a US Air Force MQ-9A Reaper reconnaissance drone, which was approaching the border”. The hostilities in the Black Sea are worrying the UN secretary general Antonio Guterres, who when questioned by the Russian agency Tass invited the parties “to refrain from any rhetoric or action that could further intensify the conflict”. An appeal not at all appreciated by Kiev. For presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak Guterres plays “devil’s advocate”, because he did not comment on the “inadmissibility of the escalation when Russia attacked the Ukrainian ports of Odessa and on the Danube”.
However, the fears of the UN would also be shared by the sponsors of Kiev, the United States in the lead. According to the Financial Times, “Joe Biden wants pump prices to remain stable ahead of the elections” and therefore any attack on Russian oil infrastructure risks creating negative repercussions on the energy market. As for the conflict on the ground, Kiev denounced missile attacks on the region of the capital and on the city of Zaporizhizhia where – according to President Volodymyr Zelensky – “the Ukrainian aeronautical company Motor Sich was hit”. Russia claimed the Novoselivske settlement in the Kupiansk area as a result of mounting pressure on the Eastern Front. According to the Ukrainian military, the goal of the Russians is to attract defender resources to this area, to hinder the counter-offensive in the south. Meanwhile, tensions remain high in the Baltic. After the diplomatic clash between Warsaw and Minsk over the alleged trespassing of two helicopters, Lithuania has announced that it will close two of its six border crossings with Belarus due to the presence of Wagner mercenaries on its territory. Yevgeny Prigozhin’s men are also alarming Poland, so much so that the two NATO allies are considering completely closing the border to Russia’s allied country.