As the war enters its 831st day, these are the key developments.
This is the situation on Wednesday, June 5, 2024.
Fighting
- At least eight people were injured, including a one-month-old baby, after a Russian missile attack on the city of Dnipro, in central Ukraine.
- Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, said the United States’ decision to allow Kiev to use Western weapons to attack inside Russia was a “vital decision” that would weaken Russia in its border areas and allow Ukraine to better defend its territory. its territory in the northeast region of Kharkiv.
- Ukraine held a day of remembrance for the hundreds of children killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska urged the country’s allies to provide more weapons to the military to defend themselves against Russian attacks and prevent such attacks. deaths. The United Nations says more than 600 children have been confirmed dead in the war, but the real number is considerably higher.
Politics and diplomacy
- A senior US Treasury Department official said the US and its Group of Seven (G7) partners were making progress in finding ways to provide more urgently needed funds to Ukraine through profits made from the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets. The White House said the issue will be discussed at the G7 summit in Italy on June 13-14.
- French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said it will hold talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris on Friday and “discuss the situation on the ground” in Ukraine. Zelenskyy will also speak at the French National Assembly.
- A Russian military court in the northern region of Karelia, on the border with Finland, sentenced a man to 14 years in prison for state treason, saying he set fire to railway infrastructure on Ukrainian orders, according to the Interfax news agency. The man was not named.
- A Russian court extended the pre-trial detention of Alsosu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist in Prague for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, for two months, in a measure that her husband considered unfair. The decision was handed down on Friday. Kurmasheva has been in custody in the Tatarstan region since October 18.
- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the planned peace conference for Ukraine, due to take place in Switzerland on June 15-16, was “absurd.” Switzerland said that more than 80 delegations confirmed their presence. Russia, which insists talks must begin on the basis of occupying about 18% of Ukraine, was not invited. China has said it will not attend.
Weapons
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said any French military instructor training soldiers in Ukraine would be an “absolutely legitimate target” for Russian attacks. France does not officially have military personnel helping or training Ukrainian forces in Ukraine at this time, but Kiev said last week that it was “in negotiations” with Paris on the issue.
- Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency said the former director of Ukrspetsexport, Ukraine’s state defense company, faces trial after arranging to buy plane parts at a seven-fold inflated price while he was responsible for arms imports in 2016. The Cabinet National Anti-Corruption Agency (NABU) did not name the man.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
