As the war enters its 868th day, these are the main developments.
Here is where the war stands on Friday, July 12, 2024:
Fighting
- The Ukrainian Air Force said it downed five cruise missiles and 11 drones of 19 launched by Russia on Friday. It said Russia’s main target was the town of Starokostiantyniv, a crucial Ukrainian air base.
- Russian forces targetted east and northeast Ukraine on Thursday, killing five people, including a child, days after the United Nations warned attacks against civilians had become systemic, officials said.
- A Ukrainian drone strike outside a multi-storey apartment block in southern Russia’s Belgorod region injured five children, two of them seriously, the regional governor said.
- Ukraine seized a cargo ship near Odesa and detained its captain, alleging that the vessel had illegally exported Ukrainian grain.
Diplomacy
- President Joe Biden reiterated the United States’s support for Ukraine at the end of a NATO summit, saying the US “cannot retreat from the world”.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told allies at the NATO summit they needed to lift all restrictions on Kyiv conducting long-range strikes on targets inside Russia if they wanted Ukraine to win the war.
- Zelenskyy also said Ukraine was “very close” to achieving its goal of NATO membership despite the alliance not offering his country a formal invitation at the summit.
- While introducing Zelenskyy, President Biden mistakenly called him “President Putin” before correcting himself.
- China slammed a communique from the NATO summit, describing it as an “enabler” of Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine, as biased and “sowing discord”.
- Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store announced at the summit that his country will donate 1 billion crowns ($92.69m) to support Ukraine’s air defence.
- The United Nations General Assembly demanded that Russia “urgently withdraw its military and other unauthorized personnel” from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and return complete control to Ukrainian authorities.
- The Kremlin said the US plan to periodically station long-range missiles in Germany would lead to a Cold War-style confrontation between Russia and the West.
Politics
- Russia added opposition figure Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of deceased opposition leader Alexey Navalny, to its list of “terrorists” and “extremists,” two days after it issued an arrest warrant for her.
- A Moscow court upheld a prison sentence against human rights advocate Oleg Orlov, the co-chair of the now-banned group Memorial, which was among the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, for criticising the war in Ukraine.
