Zelensky appoints new head of Ukrainian Air Force after year-long vacancy

Work is ongoing between Ukraine and Russia as the warring parties prepare to each exchange 1,200 Prisoners of War (POWs), President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Aug. 3.

Key anti-corruption agencies restored after controversial vote, as well as Trump shortens deadline for Russia peace deal.

The unidentified civilians "armed with bats and metal pipes, damaged a vehicle and inflicted bodily injuries on a soldier" as the officer was attending to enlistment activities, officials allege. In response to the incident, a serviceman fired a non-lethal weapon at the civilians, allegedly in self-defense.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Aug. 3 announced the appointment of Lieutenant General Anatoliy Kryvonozhko, who has been serving as the Air Force's acting head since the end of last August.

Russia has been attacking a key bridge in Kherson Oblast since late on Aug. 2, local officials reported.

A Russian missile strike hit the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv overnight on Aug. 3, injuring seven and damaging homes and civilian infrastructure, according to Ukrainian officials.

Oleksii Kuznetsov, a member of parliament who belongs to Zelensky's Servant of the People party, allegedly accepted kickbacks for inflating military contracts. He has been dismissed from his parliamentary faction pending the outcome of the case.

The number includes 920 casualties Russian forces suffered just over the past day.

A drone strike resulted in a major fire early on Aug. 3 at an oil depot in Russia’s resort city of Sochi, setting ablaze a 2,000-cubic-meter fuel tank, local authorities said.

Republican senators left Washington for their August recess without passing a major Russia sanctions bill, effectively handing Donald Trump full authority to decide whether to follow through on his threat to penalize Moscow.

The Zaporizhzhia plant, the largest nuclear facility in Europe and one of the ten largest globally, has been under Russian occupation since March 2022.

Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR) conducted a joint operation with local partisans to blow up a minibus in occupied Melitopol, killing all five soldiers of the Russian-backed Akhmat unit on board.

Russian forces are "looking for vulnerabilities in our defense, and conducting active combat operations in several directions simultaneously," Commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi reported.

Kyiv has submitted an updated version of the Ukraine Plan for the European Commission's consideration, following the EU's decision to cut the next tranche of the Ukraine Facility due to incomplete reforms.