Ukraine has claimed “partial success” at a village along the southern front, as Kyiv’s counteroffensive continues to struggle to make significant progress.
In years past, the month of August was often greeted in Russia with a degree of caution, even alarm. Russians spoke in whispered tones of their “August curse” to explain the unusually high number of deadly accidents, terrorist attacks, or outbreaks of war.
A mandatory evacuation has been ordered for the Ukrainian city of Kupyansk and its surrounding areas, as Russia intensified shelling of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region and claimed to have captured Ukrainian positions near the city on Thursday.
One of Ukraine’s greatest tragedies as it pursues a critical offensive that has, so far, failed to meet its own and Western expectations is that it cannot, by itself, decide its destiny.