Here are the main developments as the war enters its 868th day.
The state of war on Friday, July 12, 2024 is as follows:
fighting
- The Ukrainian air force said it shot down five of the 19 cruise missiles and 11 drones fired by Russia on Friday. It said Russia's main target was the city of Starokostiantyniv, which is home to an important Ukrainian air force base.
- Russian forces targeted eastern and northeastern Ukraine on Thursday, killing five people including a child, officials said, days after the United Nations warned that attacks against civilians had become systematic.
- Five children were injured, two of them seriously, in a Ukrainian drone strike outside a high-rise apartment in the Belgorod region of southern Russia, the regional governor said.
- Ukraine seized a cargo ship near Odessa and detained its captain. It is alleged that the ship was illegally exporting Ukrainian grain.
Diplomacy
- President Joe Biden reiterated the United States' support for Ukraine at the end of the NATO summit, saying the US “cannot retreat from the world”.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told allies at a NATO summit that if they want Ukraine to win the war they must lift all restrictions on Kiev carrying out long-range strikes on targets inside Russia.
- Zelensky also said Ukraine is “very close” to achieving its goal of NATO membership, even though the alliance has not extended a formal invitation to his country to the summit.
- President Biden mistakenly referred to Zelensky as “President Putin” when introducing him but later corrected his mistake.
- China criticised the NATO summit communiqué, calling it biased, promoting Russia's war effort in Ukraine and 'soothing'.
- Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre announced at the summit that his country would donate 1 billion crowns ($92.69 million) for Ukraine's air defence.
- The United Nations General Assembly demanded that Russia “immediately withdraw its military and other unauthorized personnel” from Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and return full control to Ukrainian authorities.
- The Kremlin said US plans to periodically deploy long-range missiles in Germany would trigger a Cold War-type confrontation between Russia and the West.
Politics
- Russia added opposition leader Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, to a list of “terrorists” and “extremists”, two days after issuing an arrest warrant for her.
- A Moscow court upheld a prison sentence for human rights advocate Oleg Orlov, co-chairman of the now-banned group Memorial, which was one of the Nobel Peace Prize winners in 2022, for criticising the war in Ukraine.
