Ukraine

Three employees of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have been imprisoned in eastern Ukraine.

The chief of the UN human rights mission in Ukraine has accused Russia of failing to allow access to prisoners of war (POWs) and said that it has evidence of ill-treatment and torture of Ukrainian prisoners that may constitute war crimes.

Nearly 5,800 people have been killed in the conflict in Ukraine and the situation of prisoners of war in Russian-held areas is “worrying”, the head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in the country said on Friday. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres have called for the establishment of a demilitarized zone around the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.

As the war in Ukraine “continues to rage,” the UN political and peacebuilding chief updated the Security Council, saying on Wednesday that 5,718 people have been killed, including 372 children.

A new draft media law voted on in the Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday (30 August) could see the country take a step towards fulfilling conditions set out by Brussels for EU accession. 

The European Union’s defense ministers appeared divided on a plan to hold a major training mission for Ukrainian forces as they arrived for an informal meeting in Prague on Tuesday. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, co-hosting the meeting together with the Czech presidency of the bloc, proposed the training operation last week.

Speaking from Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine, where shelling has intensified in the last week, the UN's top aid official in the country issued an urgent appeal on Friday for guarantees from Russia and affiliated forces, to allow humanitarians to deliver “absolutely necessary” relief items across the contact line. 

The $3billion package—announced on the country's independence day—includes more than 300,000 artillery and mortar rounds.

The United States on Tuesday (23 August) urged its citizens to leave Ukraine, saying it believed Russia was preparing to target civilian and government infrastructure in the next few days as the war reaches the six-month mark.