Timeline: day 163 of Ukraine’s defense against russia’s aggression

Today is August 5. russia's military attack on Ukraine has been going on for 163 days. We're reporting on the current news. The article will be updated.

What about today?

Key points

Since the beginning of the full-scale war, Ukrainian defenders have shot down more than 180 enemy cruise missiles. A such number of cruise missiles has not been shot down by any air defense of any country in the world.

In a day, armed forces in the country's south destroyed three enemy warehouses with ammunition: Prydniprovsk, Kherson, and Tokarivka. Ukrainian fighters also managed to eliminate:

• • 39 occupants

• four S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems

• Imbir radar station
• Voloshka 82-caliber automatic mortar 
• Nine units of armored and automotive equipment.

"Shackled by our actions, without the possibility of advancing by land, the enemy intensified artillery and air attacks. Sixteen airstrikes were carried out by enemy attack aircraft along the contact line on our positions and recently liberated settlements. No losses," the summary says.

Ukraine's General Staff reports that the russian occupiers intend to capture Soledar and Bakhmut.

• The enemy's assault near Bakhmut has failed, and fighting continues in the Avdiivka direction.
• There were shooting battles in the Kramatorsk direction.
• In the south, the russians are trying to fend off the Ukrainian forces and launch UAVs for surveillance.

Ukraine is likely seizing a strategic initiative, ISW says. The russians are increasingly transferring personnel and equipment from the East to the Kherson region and the west of the Zaporizhzhia region. This is a response to Ukrainian counteroffensive operations, analysts believe. "Russian forces, in this case, appear to be responding to the Ukrainian counteroffensive threat in Kherson Oblast rather than deliberately choosing objectives on which to concentrate their efforts," the ISW report says.

In the Kherson region, the occupying "authorities" could not find volunteers to form election commissions to hold a pseudo-referendum. Therefore, they created a commission of seven people in Kherson instead of 15, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports. In the previous elections, 10,000 commissions were active in the Kherson region, while the russian occupiers plan to form only 1,500.

The Ukrainian office of Amnesty International stated that it did not participate in preparing the report on the Ukrainian army. The office notes that since the beginning of the full-scale war, they have been advocating the investigation of russia's war crimes committed in Ukraine. For now, we can say that the infamous Amnesty International report has become a gift to putin's propaganda.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the EU of artificially delaying the country's €8 billion in aid. The delay in providing macro-financial assistance to Ukraine is "a crime or a mistake," he said in a traditional video message. Eight billion euros for Ukraine have been blocked. "I don't want to name which European country is slowing it down. I want to believe that it is still a mistake and will be corrected," the president said.

russia began a new stage of special information operations against Ukraine. Its purpose is to sow panic among the population. Fakes are widely distributed in the information space of Ukraine. Using, in particular, the terrorist attack in Olenivka, the enemy finds reasons for constant informational terror and intimidation. He has the task of destabilizing and demoralizing Ukrainian society.

The Coordinating Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War calls for informational hygiene. Ukraine is doing everything possible for the return of prisoners, their exchange, as well as the search for persons who have disappeared under exceptional circumstances.

Who's coming to Ukraine?

On financial and information aid, weapons and politicians

The government of Albania has provided Ukraine with a €1 million grant. Ukraine's Minister of Finance Serhii Marchenko said the funds would be used to finance priority expenditures of the state budget.

Canadian instructors are going to Britain to train soldiers of the Ukrainian forces. Up to 225 military instructors will train recruits from Ukraine in patrolling tactics, first aid, and weapons handling, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand said.

NATO is working with defense companies to increase arms supplies to Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with Reuters. "We are providing a lot of support, but we need to do even more and be prepared for the long haul. Therefore, we're also now in close contact and working closely with the defense industry to produce more and to deliver more of different types of ammunition, weapons and capabilities," he said.

Japan has announced another aid package to Ukraine, which will include drones and vans, the country's Ministry of Defense reported. Previously, Japan had already handed us body armor, helmets, protective masks, chemical protection suits, drones, and more.

All nations should agree to a truce for at least five years. It will help "to fight the crisis," says Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He clarified that this especially applies to hostilities between russia and Ukraine. The Mexican president stated that it would be possible to ask the USA, Russia, and China to accept his proposal and submit it to the UN. "No government in the world can and should not act irresponsibly," he said.

Life considering hostilities

In the Ukrainian school program on foreign literature, the works of russian writers whose work and life were closely connected with Ukraine will remain. The creative work of Volodymyr Korolenko, Mykhailo Bulgakov, Anatoly Kuznetsov, Ilya Ilf, and Yevhen Petrov will continue to be taught in Ukrainian schools. Instead of other russian writers, Ukraine should include more European, American, and Asian representatives of literary genres in the program.