Here is the situation on Sunday, August 27, 2023.

Fighting

• A Ukrainian commander fighting in the south said he believes Ukrainian forces have broken through the most difficult Russian defensive line and will now be able to advance more quickly. “We don’t stop here,” said the commander, who led some of the troops into the village of Robotyne and uses the nom de guerre “Kombat”. “Next we have (the town of) Berdiansk, and then more. I made it clear to my fighters at once: our goal is not Robotyne, our goal is [the Sea of] Azov.”
• The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington, DC-based think tank, said that Ukrainian forces were pushing forward in the Zaporizhia region after taking Robotyne earlier this week. The ISW also cited pro-Kremlin military bloggers expressing concern over a lack of Russian reinforcements and troop locations in the area.
• Three Ukrainian pilots were killed after two L-39 trainer aircraft collided in midair in central Ukraine, the country’s air force said in a statement. Among the dead was Andrii Pilshchykov, one of the country’s most well-known fighter pilots.
• Two people were killed and a third wounded when Russian shelling hit a cafe in the village of Podoly in the eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv, according to local governor Oleh Syniehubov.
• Russia said air defences brought down a drone over Moscow in an attack that forced authorities to briefly shut down all three major airports serving the capital.
• Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, accused Ukraine of using “cluster munitions” in an attack on the town of Urazovo, about 10km (6 miles) from the border, that injured six people.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered fighters from the mercenary Wagner group to sign an oath of allegiance to the Russian state. The introduction of a mandatory oath for all private military contractors is seen as a clear move to bring such groups under tighter state control.
• German magazine Der Spiegel published a lengthy and detailed investigation into the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines in the weeks following Russia’s full-scale invasion, saying that “a striking number of clues point to Ukraine”.

Diplomacy