As we enter the 804th day of the war, these are the most important developments.
Here is the situation as of Wednesday, May 8, 2024.
Battle
- One person was killed and four injured by Russian artillery fire in the eastern border region of Sumy, which has come under increasing airstrikes in recent weeks. Ukrainian police said Moscow’s forces had fired into the territory 224 times in the past 24 hours.
- Five people were injured after Ukraine hit an oil storage facility in the Russian-occupied city of Luhansk, sparking a major fire.
Politics and diplomacy
- The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said it had uncovered a Russian plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other senior officials. The SBU said Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) had set up a network of agents to carry out the plan and that two colonels of Ukraine’s State Guard, which provides protection to top officials, were arrested on suspicion of treason.
- Vladimir Putin was sworn in for a fifth term as Russian president in a Kremlin ceremony that was boycotted by the United States, the United Kingdom and several European Union countries. In a speech on the occasion, Putin said the country would emerge victorious and stronger from a “difficult” period.
- Several dozen demonstrators gathered outside the Peace Palace in The Hague to protest Putin’s inauguration and demanded that he be put on trial. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Putin and Russian children’s commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for war crimes related to the abduction of Ukrainian children in March 2023.
- Chinese President Xi Jinping left France after a two-day trip in which he made no major concessions on foreign policy, despite President Emmanuel Macron urging him to use his influence with Russia to help end the war in Ukraine.
- Zelensky said the island nation of Cape Verde was the first African country to agree to take part in next month’s “peace summit” in Switzerland. Bern has invited 160 delegations to the event, which is scheduled to take place from June 15th to 16th.
- Russia banned the US-based non-profit organization Freedom House, calling it an “undesirable” organization in Russia. In its 2024 report “Freedom in the World,” Freedom House rated Russia as “not free” and noted that restrictions on political rights and civil liberties have been tightened since Moscow began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
weapons
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Ukrainian prosecutors told Reuters they had examined debris from 21 of about 50 North Korean ballistic missiles fired by Russia between late December and late February as they worked to assess the threat posed by Moscow’s cooperation with Pyongyang. Prosecutors said the evidence so far suggests a high failure rate.
- During a visit to the US, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said he was open to talks about sending a Patriot missile system to Ukraine. Romania signed a $4 billion contract to procure Patriots in 2017, with the first shipment delivered in 2020.
- The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said Russia and Ukraine accused each other of using banned toxins on the battlefield at meetings in The Hague. The OPCW said the allegations were “not sufficiently substantiated” but that the situation remained “volatile and extremely worrying regarding the possible re-emergence of the use of toxic chemicals as weapons.”