These are the key developments as the war enters its 906th day.

Here is the situation on Monday, August 19, 2024.

Battle

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy explained for the first time the aim of the Ukrainian invasion of Russia’s Kursk region on August 6, saying the operation was necessary to create a buffer zone.
• Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said the air force destroyed a second strategically important bridge over the Seym River in the Kursk region. He released an aerial video of an explosion that destroyed the bridge. The bridge was apparently located near the village of Zvannoye, about 15 kilometers north of the Ukrainian border.
• Vasily Golubev, governor of the southern Russian region of Rostov, said falling debris from a Ukrainian drone attack sparked a major fire at an oil depot in the city of Proletarsk. No injuries were reported. Ukraine confirmed the attack.
• The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces had taken control of the village of Svyrydonivka, about 15 kilometers from the important city of Pokrovsk in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk.
• The military administration in Kyiv said Russia had carried out its third ballistic missile attack on the Ukrainian capital this month, but initial data indicate the weapons were shot down on approach. The Air Force’s Oleshchuk also said eight Russian combat drones and five of eight missiles fired over the country, including Kyiv, had been destroyed.
• Zelensky said Russia fired more than 40 missiles, 750 guided bombs and 200 attack drones at Ukrainian villages and towns last week.
• The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said security at the Russian-occupied Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia had deteriorated following a drone attack on an access road on Saturday.
• Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed that Kyiv had deployed more than 120,000 troops on the border with Belarus and told the state news agency that he had moved a third of all Belarusian soldiers to the border. Andriy Demchenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian border guard service, told Ukrainian media outlet Ukrainska Pravda that the situation on the Belarusian border had not changed.

Politics and Diplomacy

• North Korea condemned Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region on August 6 as a “terrorist act” and said it would always stand by Russia, state media said.
• According to Russian news agencies, Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku for a two-day state visit. Putin will hold talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev on bilateral relations and “international and regional problems,” the Kremlin said.