Here are the key events on day 1,273 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is how things stand on Wednesday, August 20:
Fighting
- Russian authorities have returned the remains of 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers, Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on Monday, according to The Kyiv Independent news outlet.
- Russia’s state-run TASS news agency confirmed that Russia returned the bodies of 1,000 soldiers, adding that Ukraine returned the bodies of 19 Russian soldiers.
- Separately, TASS reported that about 1,370 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in a single day, citing the Russian Ministry of Defence. Al Jazeera could not verify this claim independently.
- Russian forces dropped 250kg (550 lbs) bombs on the city of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Serhii Horbunov, the head of the Kostiantynivka City Military Administration, wrote on Facebook on Monday. At least two people were injured, and apartments and an education building were damaged, Horbunov said.
- A Russian drone attack on an ambulance injured two emergency workers in the Kupiansk district of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, regional police said in a post on Telegram.
- TASS reports that a Ukrainian drone attack caused a power outage in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, according to the governor of Russian-occupied Zaporizhia, Yevgeny Balitsky.
- The attack did not affect the operation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, TASS later reported.
- Local officials in the front-line city of Kamianka-Dniprovska in Russian-occupied Zaporizhia reported “massive” shelling from Ukrainian forces, causing at least six explosions and damaging a hospital, according to a TASS report that did not mention casualties.
- The brother of Vitaly Milonov, a representative in Russia’s State Duma, the lower house in parliament, died after being injured “as a result of military action” in Ukraine’s Luhansk region, TASS said. The lawmaker’s brother was serving as a volunteer in Russian army intelligence when he was injured, TASS reports.
- Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote in a post on the Telegram messaging app that 52,000 people have been evacuated from Ukraine’s Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions in recent months due to fighting.
Peace talks
- Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “are in the process of setting it up”, Trump said in relation to a proposed bilateral meeting between the two leaders. Trump made the comment in a radio show a day after he met with Zelenskyy and several European leaders at the White House.
- Switzerland would be ready to host Putin for peace talks, despite an existing arrest warrant for his arrest from the International Criminal Court, the country’s foreign minister, Ignazio Cassis, said.
- Trump provided details to Fox News on the nature of potential US involvement in security guarantees for Ukraine, saying that US support would probably be “by air”, whereas European countries “are willing to put people on the ground”.
- White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed US air support was “an option and a possibility”, but, like Trump, did not provide details.
- “The president has definitively stated US boots will not be on the ground in Ukraine, but we can certainly help in the coordination and perhaps provide other means of security guarantees to our European allies,” Leavitt told a news briefing.
- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte discussed security guarantees for Ukraine in a phone call on Tuesday, the Turkish presidency said in a statement.
- European Council President Antonio Costa said that the process to make Ukraine a member of the European Union needs to advance, and Europe has to be part of future peace negotiations alongside Ukraine, Russia and the United States.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that India was profiteering on its purchases of Russian oil. “This… Indian arbitrage – buying cheap Russian oil, reselling it as product has just sprung during the war – which is unacceptable,” Bessent said.
Putin discussed his recent meeting with Trump in Alaska on a call with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Kremlin said.
