WAR IN UKRAINE: August 17, 2023

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 540

  • A container ship - reportedly laden with grain - has reached Romanian waters in the Black Sea after departing from Ukraine's southern port of Odesa Wednesday. The Hong Kong-flagged Joseph Schulte is the first vessel to use a temporary Black Sea shipping corridor established following the breakdown of a UN-brokered grain deal last month, according to Ukrainian authorities. Data from MarineTraffic on Thursday showed the vessel traveling south toward the Turkish port of Ambarli. It is carrying more than 30,000 metric tons of cargo, including food products, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said Wednesday - CNN

  • Ukraine does not expect US-made F-16 fighter jets to arrive this year, a Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson said. Kyiv has been pleading for the advanced jets for more than a year, arguing they will bolster its air defenses.

  • Russia's drone attack on Odesa Oblast overnight on Aug. 16 marked the seventh time Russia has targeted Ukrainian ports since Moscow pulled out of the Black Sea Grain initiative, President Volodymyr Zelensky said during his evening address. "Last night, Russian terrorists again targeted... Our infrastructure, which is involved in ensuring not ours, but the common - global - food security," Zelensky said. "In just one month since Russia's attempt to undermine the Black Sea Grain Initiative, this was the seventh massive Russian attack today. The port of Reni, the port of Izmail, Pivdennyi port, the port of Odesa, the port of Chornomorsk, Mykolaiv - every Russian attack on them is a blow to global food prices, a blow to social and political stability in Africa and Asia." Russian forces launched Shahed kamikaze drones to target grain infrastructure of the Danube ports, damaging warehouses, granaries, and other grain infrastructure on Aug. 16. Resulting fires were quickly extinguished and no causalities were reported, Governor Oleh Kiper said. The collaborative effort known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative has facilitated an agreement between Russia and Ukraine, mediated by the United Nations and Turkey. Since August 2022, it has enabled the export of at least 32.9 million metric tonnes of food from Ukraine - Kyiv Independent

  • Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry and top officials in Kyiv have slammed comments by a top NATO official speculating that ceding territory to Russia in exchange for NATO membership could be a way to end the war between the two countries. "We have always assumed that the alliance, like Ukraine, does not trade territories," Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko wrote on Facebook on August 15, adding that such suggestions "play into the hands of Russia." Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, in an appearance on Ukrainian television, called the comments by Stian Jenssen, chief of staff to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, "a strange move." "It is absolutely unclear why this was done," Danilov said. During an August 15 panel discussion in Arendal, Norway, Jenssen made the comments, saying it could be "a possible solution" to settling the conflict. He also noted that Russia was "struggling enormously militarily," that it seemed "unrealistic that [it] can take new territories,”and repeated NATO's position that any decisions on negotiations with Russia were up to Kyiv. NATO's press service in a comment to RFE/RL on August 16 called the statement about territorial concessions "a mistake." - RFE/RL

  • A Russian journalists believes she was poisoned in Germany. Yelena Kostyuchenko believes she was poisoned last year in Germany, where she fled following her critical reporting in Ukraine while covering Russia's full-scale invasion. Kostyuchenko told Current Time that she experienced disorientation, stomach pains, swelling, and other symptoms - RFE/RL

Michael BociurkiwComment