KYIV -- President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on August 4 welcomed the arrival of the long-awaited F-16 fighter jets he has said are crucial to the defense of his country against invading Russian forces.
"Now this is really a reality, a reality in our skies, F-16s in Ukraine," Zelenskiy said during ceremonies marking Air Force of Armed Forces Day in Ukraine, standing on the tarmac in front of the sophisticated warplanes marked with Ukrainian symbols.
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"We have held hundreds of meetings and negotiations to strengthen the capabilities of our aviation, to strengthen the capabilities of our air defense, our defense forces," he said.
"We often heard in response, 'This is impossible.' But still we made our ambition possible."
Zelenskiy thanked Kyiv's partners -- specifically the Netherlands and the United States -- for their help in providing the F-16s to Ukraine.
He did not specify how many F-16s were currently in Ukraine but said the air force "has already begun to use them for our country."
"I cannot yet say in detail what tasks will be performed or have already been performed by our first F-16 aircraft.... So far, there are a number of pilots in Ukraine who have already been trained. But this is not enough," Zelenskiy added.
The event was held at an undisclosed location, for security reasons.
Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukrainian authorities have been asking the West to provide modern F-16 fighter jets. In 2023, several countries, with the consent of the United States, agreed to transfer such aircraft to Kyiv.
On July 31, Bloomberg reported that the first F-16s had arrived, with other reports putting the number at six, provided by the Netherlands.
Zelenskiy also instructed diplomats to organize a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council, at which he plans to discuss the possibility of organizing alliance countries bordering Ukraine into a coalition to help shoot down Russian missiles, although he acknowledged it would be a "difficult" proposition for some allies.
Meanwhile, Russia claimed that its forces seized the eastern Ukrainian village of Novoselivka Persha, as Ukrainian authorities ordered the evacuation of civilians from areas of heavy Russian shelling in the Donetsk region.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Moscow had "liberated the settlement," the latest in a string of villages in the eastern region that the Kremlin has claimed in recent weeks. Some of the villages consist of just a few streets.
Donetsk is one of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine that Russia claimed to have annexed in 2022, just months into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In a Telegram post, regional Governor Vadym Filashkin said Russian forces continued to "destroy the cities and villages of these communities with aerial bombs every day, forcing the decision to evacuate children with their parents or other legal representatives" from several villages in the area.
"In total, we have to evacuate 744 children and their families from four communities to safer regions of Ukraine," he said.
"Another high-profile day in the Donetsk region is another example of Russian atrocities," he added.
Elsewhere, the Ukrainian armed forces downed five drones as Russia launched a wave of missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles at several Ukrainian regions in the early hours of August 4.
Ukrainian Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk wrote on Facebook that five Iranian-made Shahed-type drones had been intercepted in the Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, and Zaporizhzhya regions.
The drones were launched from an air base in Russia's Krasnodar region.
Russia also fired two S-300 antiaircraft guided missiles and two Kh-59 guided missiles, the Ukrainians said.
Separately, the governor of Russia's western Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said an elderly woman had died in Ukrainian drone attacks on the city of Shebekino.
Ukrainian drones also targeted the villages of Saltykovo and Petrovka, according to Gladkov, who said a bus and a car were damaged but nobody was hurt.
RFE/RL is not able to independently verify combat reports inside Russia.
In Ukraine, Kherson Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on August 4 that 15 people, including a child, were injured in Russian shelling a day earlier.
Despite strong evidence to the contrary, Russia maintains it does not target civilians in its war against Ukraine.
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission has reported that at least 11,284 Ukrainian civilians have been killed by hostile actions since Russia invaded in February 2022, emphasizing that the real figure is likely to be much higher.
In Russia, the authorities have started sending out text messages to encourage people to enlist with the Defense Ministry and "immediately" receive 800,000 rubles ($9,400) after signing a contract.
Russian media first reported on the ministry's plan to launch an SMS campaign to recruit soldiers in June.
In addition to the sign-up fee, regional governors have the authority to pay soldiers from their regions extra cash to maintain competition for recruitment. Reports say the extra payments range from 1.12 million rubles ($13,200) in the Komi region to 1.7 million rubles ($20,000) in the Leningrad region.
Russia is trying to encourage enlistment to bolster its numbers in its war against Ukraine without formally declaring a mobilization, which could cause discontent.
In December, ahead of the presidential election in March, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised that there would be no new mobilization announcements since there were already "half a million" soldiers on the front lines.
On the diplomatic front, Ukraine said Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba will visit three African countries in the coming days as Kyiv looks to bolster support on that continent.
Kuleba is scheduled to visit Malawi, Zambia, and Mauritius on August 4-8, the Foreign Ministry said.