Russia-Ukraine War: List of main events, day 817 | Russia-Ukraine war news

As the war enters its 817th day, these are the key developments.

This is the situation on Wednesday, May 22, 2024.

Fighting

• Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelenskyy said his country’s troops were achieving “tangible” results against Russian forces in the northeast region of Kharkiv, but the situation on the eastern front, near the cities of Pokrovsk, Kramatorsk and Kurakhove, was “ extremely hard”.
• A Russian official said Moscow’s forces controlled “about 40%” of Vovchansk, a city near the border with Russia and at the epicenter of the fighting.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) said more than 14,000 people have been displaced from the Kharkiv region since Russia launched a ground offensive there on May 10. The WHO said around 189,000 people were still living within 25 km (15 miles) of the Russian border and facing “significant risks” as a result of the fighting.
• The Ukrainian military said it destroyed the Russian navy’s Tsiklon, a cruise missile carrier, in Sevastopol, in Russian-occupied Crimea, on the night of May 19.
• Ukrainian Deputy Justice Minister Olena Vysotska said more than 3,000 prisoners have applied to join the army since the law was changed to allow certain convicts to serve in the military.
• Moscow has begun nuclear weapons drills near Ukraine, in exercises the Defense Ministry said were to test the “readiness” of its “non-strategic nuclear weapons… to ensure the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Russian state.”

Politics and diplomacy

• The European Union has formally adopted a plan to use windfall profits from Russian central bank assets frozen in the EU for the defense of Ukraine, the Belgian government said. Under the terms of the deal, 90 percent of the proceeds will go to an EU-run fund for military aid to Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, with the rest provided to Kiev in other forms of support.

• A court in Moscow ruled that investigators acted lawfully when they refused to investigate two alleged attempts on the life of Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza in 2015 and 2017. Kara-Murza, who has dual citizenship of Russia and the United Kingdom , is serving time. He received a 25-year prison sentence for treason due to his criticism of the war in Ukraine. A media investigation into the 2015 and 2017 incidents suggested he had been poisoned by the Russian FSB intelligence service.
• Russian General Ivan Popov, who was fired last July after criticizing army leaders and raising concerns about the high casualty rate in Ukraine, has been arrested on suspicion of “large-scale fraud”. State news agencies said the 49-year-old was remanded in custody for two months by a military court.

Weapons

• Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged the country’s allies to consider shooting down Russian missiles over Ukrainian territory to better protect their cities from Russian airstrikes. Kuleba, who spoke alongside German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, said Ukraine’s Western supporters should not see such a move as “escalation”.
• Baerbock, on his eighth visit to Kiev since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, acknowledged that the situation at the front had “deteriorated dramatically” and that Ukraine needed air defense as an “absolute priority.” amid continued Russian drones. , rocket and missile attacks.