On 18 August, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan travelled to Lviv to meet Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelensky and it has been reported from Ukrainian sources that the delegation accompanying him includes the same people who were at the meeting with Putin: press secretary Ibrahim Kalin (attends all of Erdogan’s important meetings with foreign heads of state), intelligence chief Hakan Fidan (thanks to whom the Turks found a compromise with the Finns and Swedes when considering their application for Nato membership), Defence Minister Hulusi Akar (organised Turkish military operations in Syria, Iraq and Libya, negotiated a grain deal with Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul).
The main topics discussed seemed to be: procurement for reconstruction, starting up drone production in Ukraine. The two countries signed a memorandum for reconstruction. The restoration of a bridge in the village of Romanovka in the Kiev region is considered Turkey’s first project. While the meeting on the issue of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant with UN Secretary General António Guterres, also in Lviv, lasted barely 40 minutes, writes the Turkish portal Haberturk. Without significant steps forward. The statements about Erdogan’s proposing to Zelensky to host his meeting with Putin in Turkey were of little relevance, given that the condition set by the Ukrainian premier was the withdrawal of vehicles and military from Ukrainian soil.
On the Donbass front line, on the other hand, fighting has continued, and as we are closing this article we learn that the allied Russian-Donbas troops have moved out of the industrial zone of Soledar, now taken, and street fighting is ongoing, with several roads already taken.
And now the situation on the front line updated at 2.30 p.m. on 19 August.
In the direction of Slavyansk, concentrated artillery strikes by Russian forces on the fighting positions of the 95th Airborne Assault Brigade of the AFU near the settlement of Mazanovka eliminated over 250 mercenaries. In the direction of Izyum, the Ukrainian armed formations are resorting to reconnaissance and drone attack tactics, but the Russian air defence is repelling the attacks. In the last 24 hours alone, more than four Ukrainian UAVs have been shot down.
A command post of the 72nd mechanised brigade was destroyed in the direction of Artemivsk (Bachmut). Reconnaissance of the Ukrainian forces and the work of Russian artillery units on emerging targets is ongoing.
In the direction of Avdiivka the Ukrainians are suffering significant losses. The 37th Battalion of the 56th Motorised Infantry Brigade of the AFU has completely lost its combat effectiveness due to the use of operational and tactical aviation by the Russian Air Force.
In the direction of Ugledar, the joint Russian and DNR armed forces conducted new offensives near the ‘former’ village of Shevchenko in the Ugledar district. There is also heavy counter artillery fire on Ukrainian positions.
In the southern direction, near Posad-Pokrovsky, the Russian Army Air Force hit the temporary deployment point of the 1st Battalion of the 28th Ukrainian Mechanised Brigade, destroying about 60 mercenaries and 8 special vehicle units, and destroyed the checkpoint of the 46th Airborne Brigade near the village of Belaya Krynitsa in the Kherson region.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces continued shelling Energodar – at least seven shells were fired, as reported by the city’s VGA. Horlivka has been shelled by Ukrainians since the morning: a little girl was killed and two other children were taken to hospital in serious condition. Bombings also took place in Rumyantsevo, near the cathedral, the traffic police, Rondo and Q5. Another bombing in the city of Krasny Liman, which caused casualties, took the Russian air defence by surprise. A drone was shot down by the air defence forces near the Belbek airport in Sevastopol. The city governor stated that there were no casualties. Another UAV was shot down in Kerch at a long distance from the Crimean bridge. the authorities stated that there was no threat to the population.
An ammunition depot in the village of Timonovo, Belgorod region, Russia, caught fire. Munitions explosions are still ongoing, operational services are working on the site, the population has been evacuated to safe areas.
Russian air forces fired rockets at strategic military facilities and checkpoints in the Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk and Kharkiv regions. Rocket and artillery weapons and ammunition were destroyed near Bereznevyi. High-precision ground weapons hit a unit of foreign mercenaries in the city of Kharkiv. More than 90 foreign mercenaries were killed.
Graziella Giangiulio
