August 17, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence has hinted the start of a long-awaited and touted counteroffensive to retake territory lost to Russia could be starting soon, its spokesperson said in a televised address on Wednesday.

“In the near future, there will be very acute events on the entire front,” said Andrii Yusov, a spokesperson for the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

“This is not about binding to any dates, however, we have to consider [the] factor of the Independence Day of Ukraine,” Yusov added, referencing the country’s independence day on Aug. 24. 

Ukrainian officials have been announcing a Ukrainian counteroffensive to retake occupied territory — specifically in the south — for weeks, but so far they’ve limited their actions to striking Russian supply lines, air bases and ammunition depots, with very small gains at the front. 

Here are the latest developments:

Targets struck across Ukraine

Four people were injured overnight after Russian forces struck the port city of Odesa with anti-ship missiles strategic bombers, a local Ukrainian military official said.

Further north, Russian fighter jets flying in Belarusian airspace launched missiles targeting Zhytomyr, a major transportation hub, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, was also targeted.

More questions in Crimea

For the second week in a row, the peninsula on the Black Sea was rocked by a mysterious blast at a Russian military installation. Explosions at a key Crimean air base last week killed one, injured nine and destroyed several Russian warplanes. Then, on Tuesday, a Russian ammunition depot in the region went up in smoke, wounding two people.

The Kremlin said the first incident was caused by the accidental detonation of ammunition — though satellite imagery appeared to show that a deliberate attack had taken place — while the Tuesday blast was the result of a fire.

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for either incident, but silence could be intentional. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this month that Kyiv will not end the war against Russia until it retakes the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The battle for Donbas

Fierce fighting still rages across the key eastern Ukrainian region as Russia continues its advance. The Kremlin's forces are shelling targets in Donbas up to 800 times a day, according to one Ukrainian official.

Russia is trying to push Ukraine's troops out of Donetsk, one of the two regions that make up Donbas. The other region is Luhansk, which is effectively under Russian control.

Meanwhile, Russian forces reportedly tried to advance again from north of the key city of Sloviansk, but their offensive was unsuccessful and they withdrew, the Ukrainian military said.

China’s People’s Liberation Army will send troops to Russia to participate in the “East-2022” drills, also known as Vostok-2022, the Chinese Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday. 

“China’s participation in the exercise is aimed at deepening practical and friendly cooperation with the armies of the participating countries, enhancing the level of strategic cooperation among the participating parties, and strengthening the ability to respond to various security threats,” the defense ministry said, adding that “it is unrelated to the current international and regional situation.”

The exercises will include participation from India, Belarus, Tajikistan, Mongolia and other countries, according to China's defense ministry, and they are due to take place in late August. 

Some background: In July, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held "candid" talks for more than five hours, and Blinken raised concerns over Beijing's "alignment" with Moscow. Blinken said he said he did not think China was behaving in a neutral way as it had supported Russia in the United Nations and “amplified Russian propaganda.”

Shortly before Russia began invading Ukraine on Feb. 24, Beijing and Moscow announced a “no limits” partnership, although US officials say they have not seen China evade tough US-led sanctions on Russia or provide it with military equipment.

Putin says Russia can train foreign fighters: Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia is ready to supply military equipment to allied countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Moscow is open to training foreign fighters, Putin said during the “Army-2022” opening ceremony.

“We highly value the fact that our country has many allies, partners, like-minded people on different continents,” Putin said.

Putin also stressed the advantages of training foreign soldiers in Russia and said Russia invites allies to do joint military exercises.

“We also see great prospects in the training of foreign servicemen and their advanced training. Thousands of military professionals from around the world are proud alumnus of the military universities and academies of our country,” Putin said.

Russia will continue to work in this area, he said.

CNN's Uliana Pavlova contributed reporting to this post.

A record number of vehicles drove across the Crimean Bridge, Russian road state agency reported on Tuesday, just days after explosions rocked the Saki Air Base in Crimea’s western coast.

"During the day on August 15, 38,297 cars drove across the bridge in both directions," the statement read.

The number was recorded hours before another set of explosions at military installations in the Crimean peninsula.

Although Russia’s state road agency said the traffic record was recorded "in both directions," videos posted on social media and geolocated by CNN showed long lines and traffic jams in roads leading toward the Crimean Bridge, heading toward Russia, in the days after last week’s explosions.

Local officials have downplayed the size of the lines saying they were the result of stricter controls on the bridge for security reasons and not because of an increase in outward traffic.

"From the point of view that they are fleeing Crimea, this is a complete lie, there is no doubt about it," the head of the Russian-controlled Crimean administration, Sergei Aksyonov, told Russian state TV on Tuesday.

However, last month Aksyonov acknowledged the hit on the tourism industry in Crimea, saying that a 40% decline was expected over the summer. The Russian Tourism Association made a similar prediction in June.  

Starting September 1, Finland will only allow Russian citizens to schedule 500 visa application appointments per day, authorities in the Nordic nation said.

The move is designed to punish Moscow for its decision to continue to wage war in Ukraine. The Finnish government had already slashed the number of appointments per day for Russian nationals to 1,000. But with no end to the fighting in sight, Helsinki decided to act again.

Of the 500 appointments per day, Finnish authorities will only allow 100 to be used for tourist visas, according to Jussi Tanner, the director general for consular services at Finland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Finland has long been a popular travel destination for Russians. In 2013, prior to Russia invading and subsequently annexing Crimea from Ukraine, Russians accounted for 75% of 13 million crossings over Finland’s eastern border, according to Tanner.

The number of Russian visa applications rejected has risen tenfold since 2019 and was now at around 15%, Tanner said.

Around 425 visas are now expected to be issued per day.

Sanna Marin, the Finnish Prime Minister, said that, while she recognizes the issue is not "black and white" and there are many Russians who do not support the invasion, many people in Europe are frustrated when they see "Russians traveling like nothing has happened."

Finland’s decision follows European leaders on Monday exchanging arguments over a potential Schengen or European Union visa ban for Russian citizens, with the leaders of Germany, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark agreeing to further discuss the matter. 

Western nations are not doing enough to punish Russian oligarchs with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to prominent Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny.

Navalny, who is serving a prison sentence that Putin's critics say is politically motivated, wants Western governments to sanction thousands of people his organization, the Anti-Corruption Foundation, accuses of wrongdoing.

According to Navalny, only 46 out of the 200 Russian oligarchs from the Forbes list have been sanctioned by the West. Others, despite their close ties to Putin, were spared.

The jailed Kremlin critic also proposed imposing a 20-year travel ban to the UK, the US and the EU for Russian officials and oligarchs who publicly support the war in Ukraine.

Specific cases: Navalny decried the fact that Alexei Miller, the head of Russia's state-run energy giant Gazprom and purportedly a friend of Putin's, is not on the European sanctions list.

Navalny also questioned why the US had not sanctioned Roman Abramovich, the former owner of Chelsea football club. Navalny claims Abramovich supplies metal to the Russian defense ministry. 

Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK government in March and forced to sell the club, despite repeatedly denying that his business activities merited any punishment.

At least four people were injured in a Russian attack on the southern city of Odesa overnight, Ukrainian officials said.

In a Telegram post, Serhii Bratchuk, spokesman for the Odesa military administration, said a recreational center and several buildings had been destroyed and a fire was now raging in a 600-square-meter area.

Russia fired on the city with Kh-22 anti-ship missiles from Tu-22M3 strategic bombers Bratchuk wrote. Russia has previously used anti-ship missiles against targets on land. 

Rescue operations were ongoing, Bratchuk added.

This post has been updated with additional information.

Russia flew Su-34 fighter jets in Belarussian airspace to launch missiles on the Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr, a major transportation hub that links to the capital Kyiv, the Ukrainian Air Force said.

The strike on the northern city Tuesday damaged an airfield and surrounding infrastructure, officials said, adding that Russia had also used Kh-59 tactical land-attack missiles.

Elsewhere in the northern and eastern regions of the country, fighting raged as Russian forces focused on taking territories still under Ukrainian control. Ukrainian officials reported shelling in multiple cities including Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

The city of Kharkiv, the country's second largest, was also targeted.

The General Staff added that Russian forces had also been trying to take control of the Donetsk town of Bakhmut but Ukrainian forces continue to hold it, despite air and missile strikes, and intense shelling.

Before the war broke out, Igor Kurayan, a 55-year-old from the southern Ukrainian port city of Kherson, shared frequent gardening updates on social media. His feeds were full of palms, pomegranate trees, marigolds, bamboo and avocados, grown at his home and small business near the Black Sea. He called it his "fairytale garden."

On Feb. 25, a day after Russia invaded Ukraine, Kurayan posted a selfie on Instagram with a rifle, announcing he had volunteered to fight in the Territorial Defense Forces, reserve units of Ukraine's military.

Soon after, Kherson fell to Russian troops and in early April, after weeks living under and protesting against their occupation, Kurayan was abducted. He was watering plants in his shoe store when he said Russian soldiers dragged him outside and threw him into a van.

Soon after Kurayan's kidnapping, his Facebook and Instagram pages, and a new TikTok account registered under his name, began posting messages entirely out of character for the man known to family and friends as a proud Ukrainian, a passionate activist and avid gardener.

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