As we enter the 797th day of the war, these are the most important developments.
Here is the situation as of Wednesday, May 1, 2024.
Battle
- At least three people were killed and three injured after a Russian missile hit the Ukrainian port city of Odessa early Wednesday.
- At least one man was killed and nine injured in the northeastern city of Kharkiv after Russia hit a railway line with a guided bomb and damaged surrounding residential buildings in the latest attack on Ukraine’s second-largest city. The Ukrainian railway company said the 24-year-old victim was one of its employees.
- According to the regional governor there, a woman was killed and three people were injured in a Ukrainian shelling along the border in Russia’s Kursk region.
- Moscow said Ukraine attacked Crimea, which Russia invaded and annexed from Ukraine in 2014, with army tactical missile systems (ATACMS). According to the Russian Defense Ministry, six of the missiles as well as ten drones and two guided bombs were shot down. It did not say where the weapons were fired or whether there was any damage. Ukraine did not comment.
- The Ukrainian Border Guard spokesman told Ukrinform news agency that about 30 Ukrainian men have died trying to illegally cross Ukraine’s borders to escape hostilities since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Under Ukrainian law, men between the ages of 18 and 60 are not allowed to leave the country because they may be mobilized to fight.
- Ukrainian soldiers discovered Lidya Stepanovna, a 97-year-old Ukrainian woman who said she had walked 10 km (6 miles) under fire to escape Ocheretyne in Donetsk, now occupied by Russia, and reach Kiev-controlled areas. Stepanovna is now in a shelter for evacuees.
Politics and diplomacy
- Andrzej Szejna, Poland’s deputy foreign minister, said Poland would not “protect” Ukrainian men on its territory who had dodged the draft. According to UN figures, tens of thousands of Ukrainian men of military age live in the country.
- Human rights group OVD-Info said Stanislav Netesov, a man who walked to a Moscow police station after being attacked at a bus stop, was instead accused of “discrediting” the Russian army because his hair was dyed blue and yellow were the Ukrainian flag. Netesov, whose hair is dyed blue, yellow and green, also received a notice for a enlistment center, according to OVD-Info.
weapons
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine needed “a significant acceleration” of arms deliveries from its partners, particularly the United States, so that its troops could confront advancing Russian forces along several sectors of the front line. Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskii said the Russians intended to capture the town of Chasiv Yar to mark May 9 commemorating the Soviet victory in World War II.
- Norway said it would increase its aid to Ukraine by 7 billion Norwegian crowns ($633 million) this year. About 6 billion crowns ($540 million) will go to air defense and ammunition. “It’s a matter of life and death for the people of Ukraine,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said at a news conference.
- US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington has encouraged countries with Patriot missile systems to donate them to Ukraine. Austin did not name the countries, but Spain, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden are among the European nations that have patriots.