As the war enters its 795th day, here are the main developments.
Here is the situation as of Monday April 29, 2024.
Struggle
- Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief, Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskii, said that kyiv’s troops fell back to new positions west of three villages on the Eastern Front, as the situation on the front line deteriorated. Syrskii said the “most difficult” areas were west of Russian-occupied Maryinka and northwest of Avdiivka, the town captured by Russian forces in February.
- Syrskii also said his forces were closely monitoring the increase in the number of Russian troops in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine’s second largest city and just 30 kilometers from the Russian border. “In the most threatening directions, our troops were reinforced with artillery and tank units,” he said.
- The Russian Defense Ministry said its troops captured the village of Novobakhmutivka in the Donetsk region, about 10 kilometers north of Avdiivka.
- Moscow-appointed officials in the Russian-occupied eastern and southern regions of Ukraine said three people were killed in Ukrainian shelling.
- A Russian drone attack hit a hotel in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, causing a fire that was quickly extinguished. No casualties have been reported.
- Russia said its air defenses destroyed 17 Ukrainian drones over its border regions. No damage or casualties were reported.
Politics and diplomacy
- Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin, both Russian journalists, were stopped and detained for “extremism” for allegedly working for a group founded by the Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, died suddenly in an Arctic prison in February. Karelin has dual Russian-Israeli citizenship and worked for the Associated Press news agency, which said it was “very concerned” about his detention. Both men deny the accusations.
Weapons
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made a new appeal to the international community to provide more air defenses. Speaking in his evening video address, Zelenskyy said he spoke on the phone with Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and stressed the need to Patriot anti-missile systems to be sent “as soon as possible”.
- North Korea has criticized the United States for providing long-range missiles to Ukraine, according to a report in the official KCNA newspaper. The United States and others have accused Pyongyang, which is under strict United Nations sanctions over its nuclear weapons program, of supplying weapons to Moscow for use in its war in Ukraine .
