As the war enters its 960th day, these are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Saturday, October 12, 2024.
Fighting
- Russia has said that its forces captured the front-line villages of Zhelanne Druge and Ostrivske in eastern Ukraine, the latest in a string of territorial gains. Ostrivske lies on the eastern banks of the Kurakhove reservoir in an area where Russia is concentrating its offensive activity, according to the Ukrainian military.
- Russian strikes overnight on the southern Ukrainian region of Odesa killed four people, including a teenage girl, and wounded 10 more, according to regional governor Oleg Kiper. He said a two-storey building had been destroyed in the attack and that the victims included a 43-year-old woman, a 22-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl. Another woman died in hospital.
- Authorities in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, which the Kremlin claims is part of Russia, said one person had been killed in the Pokrovsk district, where Russian forces are advancing.
- One person was killed and seven wounded in Russian strikes on the eastern region of Kharkiv over the last 24 hours, Ukrainian police said.
- A major oil terminal on the south coast of the Russia-occupied Crimean peninsula that Ukrainian forces struck remains on fire days after the attack in the town of Feodosia, local Russian-installed authorities said.
Politics and diplomacy
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced 1.4 billion euros ($1.53bn) in additional military aid for Ukraine by the end of 2024 saying it was a signal to Russia that the West would not stop supporting Kyiv. The aid will be given jointly with Belgium, Denmark and Norway and includes more air defence, tanks, combat drones and artillery.
- During their meeting in the German capital, Berlin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy voiced hope that the war with Russia will end next year.
- The Ukrainian leader also met Pope Francis at the Vatican, during a whirlwind tour of European capitals, and asked for help in securing the release of Ukrainians held captive by Russia. Zelenskyy said he had invited the Vatican to take part in a conference on the prisoners of war, due to be held in Canada later this month.
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The European Union is expected to impose sanctions on 14 individuals and organisations linked to Iranian transfers of ballistic missiles to Russia, two European diplomats and a high-ranking EU official said. Diplomats had previously said the EU was looking at measures that would curb the operations of national airline Iran Air.
- The US Treasury Department has announced that Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo will visit London from October 13 to 15 for discussions with senior British officials on further sanctioning Russia, and harnessing frozen Russian assets.
Courts
- The Sverdlovsk regional court in the Urals region of Russia has handed down a treason conviction to a woman who worked for a Russian tank factory for selling military information to Ukraine. Viktoria Mukhametova was sentenced to 12 and a half years in a penal colony. Her husband, Danil Mukhametov, is being tried separately on similar charges.
- A military court in Russia has sentenced two men in a region near Moscow to 16 years each for setting fire to operating equipment on the side of railway tracks allegedly on the orders of Ukrainian security services. The Ria Novosti news agency reported that the duo were found guilty of “terrorism”.
- A Russian court in Kursk has ordered the arrest in absentia and extradition of CNN journalist Nick Paton Walsh for reporting from Ukrainian-held territory in Russia’s Kursk region. Moscow has launched several criminal proceedings against Western journalists who had produced reports from Kursk after Ukraine’s surprise August incursion.
- Ukrainian prosecutors said on Friday they would investigate the death of Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna in Russian detention as a war crime. Roshchyna disappeared in August last year after travelling to Russian-held eastern Ukraine on a reporting trip. Reporters Without Borders said Roshchyna had died on September 19, citing a letter to her family from Russia.
