🔴 Live: Ukraine says it recaptured frontline village in Donetsk region

11:30am: Romania ‘strongly condemns’ Russian Danube attacks

NATO-member Romania has said it “strongly condemns” the repeated Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Danube infrastructure following the latest drone strikes in the southern Odesa region.

“I strongly condemn the continued RU attacks on innocent people, civilian infrastructure, including grain silos in (Ukraine’s) ports of Reni & Ismail,” Foreign Minister Luminita Odobescu posted on social media, shortly after Russian attacks targeted Ukrainian ports close to the border with Romania.  

“By these flagrant violations of int’l law RU continues to jeopardize (global) food security & the safety of navigation in the Black Sea,” she added.

9:40am: Container ship leaves Odesa port blockaded by Russia

Ukraine says a container ship has left the Black Sea port of Odesa, using what it has described as a new temporary corridor for merchant ships to and from its ports, which are blockaded by Russia.

Kyiv last week announced a “humanitarian corridor” in the Black Sea to release cargo ships that have been trapped in its ports since the start of Russia’s invasion.

Moscow has not indicated whether it would respect the shipping corridor, and shipping and insurance sources have expressed concerns about safety.

Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov identified the container ship as the Hong-Kong-flagged “Joseph Schulte”, saying it had been in the port since February 23, 2022, the day before the invasion.

9:10am: Warehouses, grain silos damaged in Russian attacks on Danube port 

Russian air strikes on southern Ukraine overnight damaged grain silos and warehouses at one of the Danube river ports, a key facility for grains shipments, the governor of the Odesa region has said.

“Russian terrorists attacked Odesa region twice last night with attack drones,” Governor Oleh Kiper said on the Telegram messaging app. “The main target is port and grain infrastructure in the south of the region.”

The presidential office said in a separate statement that there were no casualties.

Photos released by the governor show the destroyed metal walls of the storage facilities and piles of scattered grain and sunflowers.

7:55am: UK says Russia aiming for self-sufficiency in drone production

Russia is likely aiming for self-sufficiency in Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (OWA-UAVs) in the coming months, the British military has said in its daily intelligence briefing on the war in Ukraine.

Russia has almost certainly started to deploy domestically produced one way attack OWA-UAVs based on Iranian Shahed designs, the defence ministry said in its briefing.

“Indigenous manufacturing will likely allow Russia to establish a more reliable supply of OWA-UAVs,” it said, adding, “the performance of these weapons has been variable and Ukraine has proved effective in neutralising the majority of incoming OWA-UAVs.”

7:40am: Ukraine claims recapture of village in Donetsk region

Ukraine’s forces have entrenched themselves on the outskirts of Urozhaine after recapturing the settlement in the Donetsk region from Russian forces, Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar has said in a social media post.

“Urozhaine liberated,” Maliar said on the Telegram messaging app. “Our defenders are entrenched on the outskirts.”

The claim could not be immediately verified and there was no comment from Russia.

In recent days, fierce battles have been taken place in and around Urozhaine and Staromaiorske, around 60 miles southwest of Russian-held Donetsk.

6:35am: Russia says it shot down three drones southwest of Moscow

Russia‘s defence ministry says it shot down three Ukrainian drones southwest of Moscow, in the latest aerial attacks near the capital.

Ukraine launched the attack at 5am local time (02:00 GMT) using “three unmanned aerial vehicles on objects in the Kaluga region”, the ministry said on Telegram.

“All UAVs were detected and destroyed in a timely manner by Russian air defence systems,” the ministry added.

Kaluga’s governor said the drones were shot down in the south of the region, a few hundred kilometres southwest of Moscow, adding that there were “no consequences for people and infrastructure”.

The air attack is at least the fifth this month over the Kaluga region that Russia says it has thwarted.

5:50am: US asks Iran to stop selling drones to Russia

The US is pushing Iran to stop selling armed drones to Russia as part of discussions on a broader “unwritten understanding” between Washington and Tehran, the Financial Times has reported citing people briefed on the matter.

The Biden administration has raised the issue with Iranian officials at indirect talks in Qatar and Oman this year, the paper said, citing people briefed on the matter.

“The discussions have been taking place alongside negotiations on a prisoner exchange deal that led to Tehran transferring four Iranian-US citizens from prison to house arrest last week,” the British daily added.

2:55am: Ukraine says Russian drones threatened Danube port

Ukraine‘s air force said a large group of Russian army drones entered the mouth of the Danube river overnight and headed towards the Izmail river port near the border with Romania.

The governor of southern Odesa region, Oleh Kiper, asked residents of Izmail district to take shelter at around 1:30am local time (22:30 GMT) and cancelled the air raid alert one hour later.

Ukraine’s Danube ports accounted for around a quarter of grain exports before Russia pulled out of a UN-backed deal to provide safe passage for the export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea. They have since become the main route out, with grain sent on barges to Romania’s Black Sea port of Constanta for shipment onwards.

A Russian attack on the Izmail port sent global food prices spiralling in early August.

Key developments from Tuesday, August 15:

Three people were killed in western Ukraine‘s Volyn after overnight air strikes, the region’s governor said, adding that the strikes targeted an industrial area in the city of Lutsk. 

The attacks came a day after President Volodymyr Zelensky announced he had visited Ukrainian troops clawing back territory from Russian forces along the country’s eastern front line.

Also on Tuesday, Russia’s central bank made a large interest rate hike of 3.5 percent, a move designed to fight inflation and strengthen the ruble after the country’s currency reached its lowest value since early in the war with Ukraine. 

Read yesterday’s live blog to see how the day’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)