As the war enters its 970th day, these are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Tuesday, October 22, 2024:
Fighting
- Ukraine’s air defences destroyed 42 of 60 drones launched by Russia during an overnight strike, the Ukrainian Air Force said, over parts of central, southern and eastern Ukraine.
- Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its air defence units destroyed a total of 18 Ukrainian drones. Eleven drones were downed in the southern Bryansk region, three over Belgorod, which served as a base for Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, and the rest over the regions of Kursk, Tula and Oryol, the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.
- Three civilians, including a child, were killed in a residential area in eastern Ukraine’s Sumy region following a drone attack by Russia, according to the regional governor.
- Overnight drone attacks by Ukraine caused an explosion and a fire at an ethanol manufacturing plant and damaged two other alcohol-producing enterprises in Russia, the authorities said.
- One explosion shook the Bio-Khim biochemical plant in Russia’s Tambov region, sparking a short-lived fire, Tambov Governor Maxim Yegorov said on Telegram. Meanwhile, the governor of the Tula region, which borders Moscow to its north, said Ukrainian drones damaged two distilleries, in the town of Yefremov and the village of Luzhkovskyi. There were no reports of casualties.
- Another Ukrainian drone attack damaged a boiler house and a non-residential building in Russia’s Bryansk, which borders Ukraine, its governor said.
- Russian attacks killed three people in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia and three in the Donetsk region, according to the regional governors there.
Diplomacy
- President Vladimir Putin will meet world leaders as Russia hosts a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies in the city of Kazan.
- The alliance that initially included Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa is expanding rapidly. Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia joined in January. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have applied for membership.
- Putin is expected to meet United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday on the sidelines of the BRICS meeting, according to the Kremlin. The UN has not yet confirmed the meeting.
- Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticised Guterres for what it said was his acceptance of an invitation from Putin. “The UN Secretary General declined Ukraine’s invitation to the first Global Peace Summit in Switzerland. He did, however, accept the invitation to Kazan from war criminal Putin. This is a wrong choice that does not advance the cause of peace. It only damages the UN’s reputation,” the ministry wrote in a post on social media platform X.
- South Korea will gradually take countermeasures in line with the level of military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, including supplying weapons to Ukraine, Deputy National Security Adviser Kim Tae-hyo said.
- Seoul summoned the Russian ambassador to criticise Pyongyang’s decision to send hundreds of soldiers to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said as it called for their immediate withdrawal.
- China called for de-escalation following South Korea’s statement that North Korea has sent troops to Russia for deployment in Ukraine, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said.
- Turkey offered to act as an intermediary to end the war and endeavoured to maintain good ties with Russia and Ukraine. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said he discussed safe navigation for shipping in the Black Sea with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Weapons and funds
- The United Kingdom will give Ukraine 2.26 billion pounds ($2.94bn) as part of a much larger planned loan from the Group of Seven (G7) nations from frozen Russian assets to help buy weapons and rebuild damaged infrastructure, Defence Secretary John Healey said.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the United States was preparing an aid package worth $800m to finance the production of Ukrainian drones. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also announced an additional $400m in new arms for Ukraine during a visit to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in a show of solidarity two weeks before the US presidential election.
- Dozens of US representatives from the Democratic and Republican parties have urged the administration of US President Joe Biden to toughen sanctions on Russian oil shipments and questioned why the world’s largest oilfield services company, SLB, was still operating in Russia.
