Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 189

Here is the situation as it stands on Wednesday, August 31.

Fighting

• Ukrainian troops have attacked Russian positions along the entire front, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

• The United Kingdom, an ally of Ukraine, said Ukrainian formations in the south had pushed Russian front-line forces back some distance in places, exploiting relatively thin Russian defences.

• Ukrainian forces are shelling ferries used by Russia to supply its forces on the west bank of the Dnieper River, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said.

• Russia’s defence ministry said Ukrainian forces lost more than 1,200 military personnel as well as 139 tanks, armoured vehicles and trucks, after trying to go on the offensive in three different directions in the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions.

Nuclear plant

• An International Atomic Energy Agency convoy has set off from Kyiv towards the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.

• Russia’s defence ministry said the radiation level at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant remains normal.

• Ukraine accused Russia of deliberately shelling a corridor the IAEA officials would need to use to reach the plant in an effort to get them to travel via Russian-annexed Crimea instead. There was no immediate response from Moscow.

Diplomacy, economy

• Russia halted gas supplies via a major pipeline to Europe, intensifying an economic battle between Moscow and Brussels and raising the prospect of recession and energy rationing in some of the region’s richest countries.

• France’s energy minister said Gazprom was using an excuse to switch off gas deliveries to its French contractor but added that France had anticipated the loss of supply.

• The US government has assessed that Russia is preparing to stage sham referendums in parts of Ukraine under its control to claim that Ukrainian people want to join Russia, the state department said.

• European Union foreign ministers are likely to agree to suspend a visa agreement with Russia and make its citizens wait longer and pay more for visas, diplomats said, while the bloc remained split over an outright EU travel ban.

• The Czech Republic, which holds the rotating EU presidency, faces stiff resistance from some member states over barring Russians from travelling within the bloc. Germany and France, as well as Hungary, Luxembourg and Austria, have raised objections.

• A ship carrying wheat from Ukraine to the drought-stricken Horn of Africa has docked in Djibouti, the UN said.

• Ukraine will ask the UN’s cultural watchdog to add the historic port city of Odesa to its World Heritage List of protected sites as Moscow’s forces approach the city, officials say.