Ukraine, Zelensky in the border area. And Kiev sinks a Russian cargo ship –

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the border area with Russia for the first time since Kiev’s forces entered and launched an offensive in Russian Kursk. “Another village in the Kursk region is now under Ukrainian control,” Zelensky said during his visit to the Sumy region, after hearing updates from the commander of the army, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who spoke of new Russian prisoners of war who will help build an “exchange fund” to be exchanged for captured Ukrainians. Zelensky did not cross the border and therefore did not enter Russian territory, which Moscow would have considered a provocation. But tensions in Russia are running high over Kursk and beyond: in another example of escalating Ukrainian attacks, emergency officials in Russia’s Krasnodar region said a Ukrainian strike hit a ferry loaded with fuel tanks in the port of Kavkaz near Crimea, sparking a fire, and Russian agencies reported the ferry sank. The port is located on the Kerch Strait, which connects the Black Sea to the Sea of ​​Azov. The Kiev Independent, among other things, citing Telegram monitoring channels, reported a Ukrainian military drone strike on Russia’s Marinovka military base in the Volgograd region that caused a fire.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Kiev of attempting to strike the Kursk nuclear power plant, adding that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had been informed. The attempted attack took place “at night,” Putin said at a meeting with the governors of the Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions. IAEA head Rafael Grossi is expected to visit the plant next week, RIA Novosti reported. In addition, following the case of RAI journalists Stefania Battistini and Simone Traini, Russia has opened criminal proceedings against three other foreign journalists for illegally crossing the state border in the Kursk region: CNN journalist Nick Peyton Walsh and Ukrainian correspondents Borovik Olesya Nikolaevna and Butsko Diana Vladimirovna. The FSB said that “they illegally crossed the Russian border and filmed videos in the Sudzha area.” On the other hand, Moscow continues to claim progress in Donetsk: in its latest communication, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported having taken control of another Ukrainian village in Donetsk, Mezhove, only a day after having announced that it had taken the village of Zhelannye.

Meanwhile, as the US has warned Kiev that Russia may be preparing attacks ahead of Ukraine’s Independence Day, which falls on August 24, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected by Zelensky in the Ukrainian capital. He first stopped in Poland, where he met with Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Andrzej Duda. “We support dialogue and diplomatic efforts” to restore peace and stability as soon as possible, Modi said, while Tusk stressed that India can play a role in ending the war in Ukraine by Russia, which is a strategic partner of New Delhi. The meeting between Modi and Zelensky, however, will come after Kiev criticized the Indian prime minister for his visit to Moscow last month, when he met and hugged Putin. Zelensky had described the meeting as a “huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts” and explicitly criticized that hug.