Russia-Ukraine War: List of main events, day 819 | Russia-Ukraine war news

As the war enters its 819th day, these are the key developments.

This is the situation on Friday, May 24, 2024.

Fighting

• At least seven people were killed and dozens were injured in a Russian missile attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city and home to around a million people.
• Nearly 11,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the Kharkiv region since Russian forces began a cross-border ground offensive there on May 10, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
• Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, said a woman was killed after a destroyed Ukrainian drone crashed into her home. The Russian Defense Ministry said 35 Ukrainian rockets and three drones were shot down in the Belgorod region, which lies across the border from Kharkiv.
• The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces had recaptured the small village of Andriivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. The Ukrainian General Staff later said that its troops were repelling three Russian attacks in the Andriivka area and nearby Novyi. Andriivka was liberated by Ukrainian soldiers in an offensive last September.
• Sergei Aksyonov, head of the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula, said two people were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack near Simferopol, the peninsula’s main administrative center. Ukraine has not commented on the alleged attack. Russia invaded and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
• Russia said it had shot down a Ukrainian drone in central Tatarstan, hundreds of kilometers from the two countries’ border.

Politics and diplomacy

• Russia has arrested Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin, deputy chief of Russia’s General Staff and a senior defense official on charges of corruption and “abuse of power”, in a widening crackdown on corruption in military contracts. The two are in custody awaiting trial.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Belarus, Moscow’s closest ally, for talks with President Alexander Lukashenko that are expected to focus on military and security exercises involving tactical nuclear weapons.
• Putin signed a decree allowing the confiscation of assets inside Russia belonging to the United States, its citizens and companies, to be used as compensation for Western sanctions against Moscow.
• Russia jailed 36-year-old bartender Vladimir Malina for 25 years for joining a unit of Russians fighting for Ukraine and carrying out sabotage of railway equipment.

• Russia sentenced 20-year-old student Vladimir Belkovich from the Siberian region of Irkutsk to 13 years in prison for treason after he agreed to publish leaflets on behalf of a pro-Ukraine partisan group.
• Thirteen Ukrainian children have returned home from Russia and Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine with Qatar’s cooperation, officials in Kiev said. Ukraine claims that around 20,000 Ukrainian children were sent to Russia without the consent of their families or guardians.
• OVD-Info, a leading Russian human rights group and protest monitoring network, said it had received a notice from YouTube threatening to block access in Russia to one of its video channels featuring news about the war in Ukraine.

Weapons

• Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba again asked the country’s Western allies to send seven Patriot air defense systems. “They are needed now, not tomorrow,” he said.
• The US is preparing a new $275 million military aid package for Ukraine that will include High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), as well as high-demand 155mm and 105mm artillery shells, systems Javelin and AT-4 anti-tank systems, anti-tank mines, tactical vehicle systems and small arms.
• The Russian blockade has prevented many of Ukraine’s relatively new long-range glide bombs from reaching their intended targets, Reuters reported, citing three people familiar with the challenges.