Latvia has resumed publishing monthly lists of locally registered companies trading goods with Russia or Belarus after a nearly three-year pause, public broadcaster LSM reported on 20 August 2026.

Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs has pledged to sever its remaining economic ties with Russia and Belarus, but substantial trade remains legal because EU sanctions are not a full embargo. The monthly register makes that commerce visible by identifying the companies involved.

The Central Statistical Bureau, Latvia's national statistics agency, published the names of 171 companies for July. A subsequent analysis by Latvian news agency LETA found that more than two-thirds operated in logistics, food and agriculture, or medicine.

The disclosure is, in effect, a form of naming and shaming. Yet the statistics bureau stopped publishing a similar list in autumn 2023 because names without transaction details could not support objective conclusions. The register is not a sanctions blacklist, and inclusion does not indicate a sanctions violation.

Under an amendment adopted on 18 June 2026, Latvia’s tax authority must send the data to the statistics bureau each month. The change also lifted tax-confidentiality rules that had kept company names private, LSM reported.

The explanatory note accompanying the law said disclosure was intended to support Ukraine. The amendment's authors argued that Latvian companies should not contribute to Russian and Belarusian state revenues while Russia’s invasion continues, according to LSM.

Latvia seeks to cut its remaining trade

The Prime Minister said in June that Latvia must sever its remaining economic ties with Russia and Belarus. However, he indicated that pharmaceutical exporters would likely be exempted on national-security grounds.

Latvia’s exports to Russia and Belarus each fell only about 7% in 2025, while imports from Russia plunged by more than two-thirds, according to official data cited by Euromaidan Press.

EU sanctions do not prohibit all trade

The EU renewed its economic sanctions on Russia through July 2027, preserving restrictions on trade, finance, and energy, as well as on goods and technology with both civilian and military uses, Euromaidan Press reported in June.

The Council of the EU says its trade restrictions exclude health, pharmaceutical, food, and agricultural products to avoid harming Russian civilians. Those exclusions allow EU companies to continue lawful trade with Russia even while other parts of its economy remain under sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.

Russian strikes in southern Odesa Oblast overnight into 20 August left 13,000 utility customers without power, Odesa Oblast head Oleh Kiper reported. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said drones attacked a checkpoint on Ukraine’s border with Moldova.

Russia has intensified attacks on southern Ukraine’s Danube region, where ports and transport routes lie close to Moldova and Romania. The spillover from the attacks has forced these neighboring countries to close airspace, scramble aircraft, and shoot drones down.

The Odesa Oblast Military Administration said Russian strikes disrupted power in several communities, and repair crews began restoration work. It did not identify damaged electrical equipment or say whether the grid had been shut down as a precaution. Two truck trailers carrying food caught fire at another location, but firefighters extinguished both blazes, the State Emergency Service said. No casualties were reported.

Zelenskyy did not identify which crossing was attacked or describe the damage. The Izmail District State Administration later reported that Russia attacked the Reni community with Shahed-136 drones. It recorded a hit on an unspecified site near the Reni–Giurgiulești international checkpoint.

People and freight cross between Ukraine and Moldova through checkpoints such as Reni–Giurgiulești. The district administration did not describe the damage or say whether the checkpoint remained open.

Russian attacks keep reaching Moldova

At 03:16 on 20 August, surveillance systems operated by Moldova’s National Army detected an unauthorized flight, public broadcaster Moldova1 reported.

The object was preliminarily identified as a Shahed-136/Geran-2, a long-range explosive drone used by Russia. It crossed from Ukraine near Kotlovyna in southwestern Odesa Oblast and flew toward Etulia in Moldova’s autonomous Gagauzia region. It returned to Ukrainian airspace at 03:22.

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Blast marks Moldova’s third airspace breach in nine days

Similar incidents occurred earlier in August. An unidentified aerial object exploded in a Moldovan field 12 kilometers from Ukraine on 9 August. On 17 August, Moldova closed part of its airspace for 15 minutes after Ukraine’s Air Force warned that a Russian Banderol, a jet-powered missile-drone, had crossed from Odesa Oblast. The object later exploded near Talmaza.

Romania activates defenses

On 20 August, Romania’s Defense Ministry said its radars detected targets near Ukraine at 02:23 and scrambled two Spanish F-18s and a Romanian helicopter. A drone entered Romanian airspace east of Galați at 03:21 and crashed near Grindu at 03:24. Its impact started a fire that went out on its own. Romania reported no casualties or material damage.

Four days earlier, a Spanish F-18 shot down a drone that entered Romania from Moldova. NATO said it appeared to be Russian.

Russia has recently intensified attacks on Ukraine’s Danube ports and struck the Mayaky bridge connecting southern Ukraine with Moldova and Romania. Such attacks can disrupt Ukraine’s transport links and force neighboring militaries to react within minutes.

Russia's overnight missile-and-drone barrage on Kyiv and its surrounding region on 5 August destroyed the warehouses and production sites of several of Ukraine's largest retail and logistics companies, killed 17 people and wounded 44 more, and laid bare the country's dwindling ability to intercept ballistic missiles, according to Ukrainian officials.

Russia's main target on 5 August: Ukraine's warehouses

Russia has spent this year pushing its air war toward the ballistic missiles that Ukrainian defenses struggle most to stop, launching more of them than Ukraine can shoot down while its Patriot interceptor stocks run dry, and pairing them with drone waves that keep reaching homes, transit and the warehouses that feed the country.

Three Russian ballistic missiles destroyed the largest distribution center operated by Rozetka, Ukraine’s biggest online retailer, near Kyiv overnight on 5 August. Rozetka co-founder Iryna Chechotkina said the warehouse had processed more than 100,000 online orders each day and was beyond repair.

By dawn, the attack had torn through the civilian logistics network moving parcels, groceries, household goods and construction materials across the capital and its suburbs. At least 17 people were killed and 44 injured in the broader barrage, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In its 5 August 2026 strikes, Russia destroyed a sorting center owned by Nova Poshta, Ukraine’s largest private parcel carrier, as well as major facilities operated by Epicentr, the country’s largest home-improvement retailer. Sites belonging to Novus and Fozzy Group, two major Ukrainian grocery retailers, were also damaged.

Nova Poshta said cluster munitions—bombs that scatter smaller explosives across a wide area—destroyed its Kyiv sorting center. Three people were killed and eight injured. Two of those killed were drivers for a partner carrier, while the third worked for a contractor.

Epicentr lost two major warehouse complexes and much of its ceramic-tile production. One employee was killed, and three were hospitalized at the company’s complex in Kalynivka. Its logistics center on Kyiv’s Viskozna Street burned completely, while another Russian missile destroyed the factory's kilns.

During a separate overnight attack on 3-4 August, a Russian drone destroyed a Biosphere warehouse storing household and personal-care products in Dnipro, although all employees reached shelter and no one was injured.

The Kyiv attack extended beyond commercial facilities. Russia's attack killed eight people waiting for a delayed train at Kvitneva station, a commuter stop near Brovary, east of Kyiv. Missiles also hit homes and offices, damaged an ambulance and caused an ammonia leak at a non-residential site.

An earlier Euromaidan Press report detailed the destruction across Kyiv and the surrounding region.

Why Ukraine intercepted none of the missiles

Russia launched 24 ballistic missiles and four Zircon and Oniks anti-ship missiles, high-speed weapons designed primarily to strike naval targets but also used against Ukrainian cities.

Ukraine intercepted none of the 28, the Ukrainian Air Force said. Air defenses shot down or electronically disabled 98 of the 115 accompanying drones.

Missiles and 17 drones struck 26 locations, while debris fell at another six.

Zelenskyy said ballistic-missile interceptors could have saved those killed. Ukraine’s stocks of Patriot missiles, its only reliable defense against Russian ballistic weapons, are critically depleted. 

A global interceptor shortage means manufacturers cannot produce advanced air-defense missiles fast enough to meet demand.

Russia exploited the same gap on 1 August 2026, when it fired 27 ballistic missiles at Kyiv and Ukraine intercepted only one.

Moscow may point to recent Ukrainian strikes on Wildberries logistics centers to frame its attacks as retaliation. Ukrainian officials say the Russian retailer transports military goods, including drone components and navigation equipment. The Kremlin denies that Wildberries carries military cargo.

Ukraine’s acting Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha rejected any comparison between the attacks. "Russian attacks cannot be justified by anything, including any actions by Ukraine," he said.