As the war enters its 866th day, these are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Wednesday, July 10, 2024:
Fighting
- Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces took control of Yasnobrodivka settlement in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, but Kyiv acknowledged no such loss and identified the village as one of several where its forces were defending positions.
- A United Nations rights mission said there was a “high likelihood” that Kyiv’s main children’s hospital took a direct hit from a Russian missile during a series of air strikes on Ukrainian cities on Monday. The air attacks killed 44 people across the country, including four children and two people at the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in the capital.
- A senior NATO official told reporters in Washington, DC, that Russia lacks the munitions and troops to start a major offensive in Ukraine and needs to secure significant ammunition supplies from other countries beyond what it already has. “What we see today are still very high Russian losses. Russia is attempting to take ground. We’ve seen Ukrainian defences improve significantly,” the official said.
Politics and diplomacy
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged political leaders in the United States not to wait for the outcome of November’s presidential election to take action to repel Russia’s offensive against his country. “It is time to step out of the shadows, to make strong decisions … to act and not to wait for November or any other month,” he said speaking at the Ronald Reagan Institute in Washington, DC, on the eve of a NATO summit.
- US President Joe Biden, meanwhile, welcomed NATO leaders to Washington, DC, by pledging to forcefully defend Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. Russian President Vladimir Putin “wants nothing less, nothing less, than Ukraine’s total subjugation … and to wipe Ukraine off the map”, he said in his welcome address. “Ukraine can and will stop Putin.”
- NATO is also expected to announce details of Ukraine’s pathway to membership in the alliance during the summit. NATO, which is built around the foundational agreement that an attack on one member is an attack on all, has maintained it will not bring Ukraine into the fold until after the conflict with Russia ends.
- In New York, meanwhile, members of the UN Security Council condemned Russia over the missile strike that destroyed part of Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital. Moscow’s envoy denied responsibility for the hospital attack, saying it was hit by a Ukrainian air defence rocket.
- In the Russian capital, Moscow, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Putin that “war cannot solve problems” and urged “peace through dialogue”. The Indian leader added that the death of innocent children was painful and terrifying, delivering an implicit rebuke to Putin at a summit intended to underscore the deepening partnership between their two countries.
- Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra also said that Russia had pledged to begin discharging Indian nationals who had been “misled” into joining its military. New Delhi has been seeking the release of its nationals whose families say they were lured to Russia by the promise of “support jobs” in the army and were later forced into active combat in Ukraine.
Weapons
- Biden and the leaders of Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Romania issued a joint statement announcing the delivery of four additional Patriot air defence systems and an additional SAMP-T system to protect Ukrainian cities, civilians and soldiers. They said in the coming months, the US and its allies intend to provide Ukraine with dozens of tactical air defence systems, including NASAMS, HAWKs, IRIS T-SLM, IRIS T-SLS and Gepard systems.
- NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg meanwhile urged the West to keep sending weapons and ammunition to Ukraine whatever the costs, saying the outcome of the war with Russia “will shape global security for decades to come”.
- Zelenskyy, in a social media post, made it clear that air defence remains his country’s key request, saying in a post on X: “We are fighting for more air defense systems for Ukraine, and I’m confident we will succeed. We are also striving to secure more aircraft, including F-16s. Additionally, we are pushing for enhanced security guarantees for Ukraine, including weapons, financial aid, and political support.”
