August 7, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

The Russian Foreign Ministry has condemned the replacement of the "motherland" symbol on a famous Soviet-era statue in Kyiv.

On Sunday, the Ukrainian government replaced the Soviet hammer and sickle symbol with a trident -- the Ukrainian coat of arms -- on the shield of the monument that dominates the capital's skyline.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded on Telegram: "In Kiev, a trident was installed on the monument 'Motherland.'

The monument, a 102-meter tall (335 feet tall) statue that towers over the surrounding area, is made of steel. Its construction began in 1979. It depicted a woman holding a sword and a shield emblazoned with the Soviet hammer and sickle symbol.

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) says it has detained a Russian informant "who was preparing a Russian airstrike in the Mykolaiv region during the visit of the President of Ukraine."

The alleged informant "on the eve of the recent trip of the President of Ukraine to Mykolaiv region, was gathering intelligence about the planned visit," the SBU said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was in the region at the end of July.

The SBU said in a statement that the alleged conspirator "tried to establish the time and list of locations of the approximate route of the Head of State in the territory of the region."

However, SBU agents had obtained information about the "subversive activities of the suspect" and adopted additional security measures.

In monitoring the communications of the woman, the SBU had established that she also had the task of identifying the location of electronic warfare systems and warehouses with ammunition of the armed forces.

According to the investigation, the perpetrator was a resident of Ochakov, southern Ukraine, and a former saleswoman in a military store on the territory of one of the military units of the region.

She allegedly traveled around the territory of the district and filmed the locations of Ukrainian objects.

The woman has not been named.

Russian forces have used nearly 500,000 munitions in the last week alone on the Eastern front, according to Ukraine's deputy defense minister, who described the situation as "extremely difficult and tense."

Hannah Maliar said on YouTube there had been "endless assaults" by the Russians, with more than 9,000 instances of shelling, compared to about 8,000 the previous week.

Russian forced executed several attacks in Donetsk and Luhansk fronts, describing the eastern front lines as the epicenter of hostilities. 

Maliar said the Kupyansk direction in the Kharkiv region was "probably the hottest" in fighting and that Russian forces were trying to regain positions they lost last autumn.

But she said repeated Russian efforts to break through Ukrainian defenses did not succeed.

Failed Russian efforts: There had also been intensive clashes in the forested areas to the east of Lyman and Russians had "desperately" tried to surround Avdiivka but failed, according to Maliar.

She said Russian forces risk losing their soldiers to "street fights" in those areas and don't risk going there because they cannot advance.

Difficulties in the south: Ukraine's armed forced on the main offensive directions of Melitopol and Berdiansk in the south faced quite difficult positions last week. Maliar said Russian forces were "mining positions" in what could be plans for an advance.

Positions attacked: The commander of Ukrainian forces in the south, Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, said late Sunday that Russian forces had attacked Ukrainian positions 21 times and carried out 608 shellings over the past day.

He said that Ukrainian artillery had carried out 1,344 firing missions in the same period and destroyed 21 units of enemy military equipment.

Air defense systems donated to Ukraine by the United States and Germany have achieved "significant results," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday.

His address came hours after a wave of Russian missiles hit Ukraine early Sunday, targeting an important air base in the west of the country. 

Western allies have donated a range of air defense systems to Ukraine, including US-made Patriot batteries. Patriot interceptor missiles can hit high- and medium-altitude aircraft, cruise missiles and some ballistic missiles, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Russian shelling killed a 59-year-old woman and wounded at least three others in Ukraine's southern Kherson city, a military official said Monday.

In a Telegram post, Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration, said a 93-year-old woman was among those hospitalized following the shelling of residential areas.

Russia's targeting of residential areas comes after the United Nations warned in a statement last week about the impact of a "new wave of attacks" on civilians in Ukraine.

Russian air defenses shot down a drone southwest of Moscow, a regional governor said Monday.

In a Telegram post, Kaluga Gov. Vladislav Shapsha said the incident happened around 2:30 a.m. local time in the region's Ferzikovsky district.

No injuries or damage were reported, he said.

The was no immediate comment from Ukraine over the reported attack.

Some context: A string of aerial drone strikes have peppered Russian cities, including Moscow, throughout the summer.

Though recent strikes on the Russian capital did not reportedly cause any injuries or fatalities, they have unsettled residents and created a sense that the scope of the conflict is drifting across the border. On Sunday, an attempted Ukrainian drone attack briefly halted traffic at an airport in Moscow, according to the city's mayor.

Ukrainian strikes inside Russia and Moscow-controlled territory are an increasingly common feature of the war, and Kyiv has effectively served notice that the attacks will continue, with President Volodymyr Zelensky declaring the conflict is "returning to Russia."

Here's what we know about some of the recent attacks:

Delegations from various countries and organizations attending the Ukraine peace summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, agreed to continue working together toward "achieving lasting peace in the region," Saudi state news reported Sunday, but no specific developments were revealed.

In statements Sunday, the head of Ukraine's presidential office called the talks "productive" and "extremely honest and open," while Russia's deputy foreign minister dismissed the talks as "doomed" to prevent meaningful developments.

Some context: The lack of any concrete resolutions announced after the talks does not come as a surprise, as officials had tempered expectations.

The meetings — which did not include representatives from Russia — were seen mostly as a means for laying out future frameworks. They were also viewed as a venue to potentially win support for Kyiv's peace proposals from beyond its core Western backers like the United States and United Kingdom: The meetings included representatives from developing countries and from world powers that have sought to project varying degrees of neutrality in the conflict, like China and India.

Ukraine and Russia remain publicly committed to prerequisites for direct negotiations that the other side finds unacceptable.

Ukraine's military has confirmed that it struck road bridges linking Crimea and Russian-occupied parts of southern Ukraine on Sunday.

The strikes "hit two key routes of communication" for Russia, the Chonhar bridge linking the Kherson region to Crimea and a smaller bridge to the peninsula from the Ukrainian town of Henichesk, the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Telegram.

Russian-backed authorities and Russian state media had earlier reported that Kyiv was responsible for strikes on the bridges. The Russian-appointed head of occupied areas in the Kherson region accused Ukraine of using British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles in the attack.