As the war enters its 716th day, here are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Friday, February 9, 2024.
Struggle
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appointed Oleksandr Syrsky, who has led Ukraine's ground forces since 2019, as the new head of Ukraine's armed forces, after he dismissed General Valerii Zaluzhnyi in the biggest military reshuffle since Russia began its large-scale invasion. Zaluzhnyi admitted that military strategy “must change.”
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Mayor Vitaly Barabash told state media that large numbers of Russian forces were “storming” Avdiivka, which has been under sustained Russian attack since mid-October and is located about 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of the occupied city. for Russia from Donetsk. Dmytro Lykhovyy, a Ukrainian military spokesman, told national television that Russian and Ukrainian forces were fighting “inside the city.”
- Russia and Ukraine exchanged 100 prisoners of war each with the United Arab Emirates acting as an intermediary, both countries said. Zelenskyy said most of those who returned home had been captured during the three-month defense of Mariupol, which fell in May 2022.
- In one of the only independent assessments of the death toll in the brutal battle for Mariupol, Human Rights Watch said at least 8,000 people died from combat or war-related causes, and named Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu among 10 people. with “command responsibility,” he said, should be the focus of potential war crimes investigations.
- Ukraine's air force said 11 of 17 drones launched by Russia targeting four regions of the country were shot down. No victims were reported.
- Russia's Defense Ministry said it destroyed a dozen Ukrainian missiles headed for the border town of Belgorod.
Politics and diplomacy
- The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child urged Russia to “end the forcible transfer or deportation of children from occupied Ukrainian territory” and return those taken to their families. kyiv alleges that some 20,000 children have been taken from Ukraine to Russia without the consent of their families or guardians. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia's children's commissioner over the deportations.
- The Kremlin said Putin spoke by phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping for an hour and that the two leaders rejected the “U.S. policy of interfering in the internal affairs of other states.” Putin and Xi also agreed on the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin added without giving further details. Beijing has not condemned Russia's large-scale invasion and claims neutrality in the conflict.
- Boris Nadezhdin, a presidential hopeful and prominent critic of Ukraine's war, said the electoral commission had blocked his attempt to challenge Putin in the March election and that he would challenge the decision before the country's highest court.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin told right-wing American journalist Tucker Carlson that Western countries needed to understand that it was “impossible” to defeat Russia in Ukraine. He also said that Russia would fight for her interests, but had no interest in expanding its war to other countries such as Poland and Latvia. Putin and Carlson spoke for more than two hours in an interview that was dubbed into English and posted on Carlson's website.
- Putin also told Carlson, who asked few tough questions and mostly just listened, that he thought “a deal could be reached” in the case of jailed Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, detained since March last year accused of espionage. Gershkovich and the Journal rejected the allegations.
- A court in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don jailed a Ukrainian woman for 10 years for espionage, after she was accused of providing information about Russian air defense and military equipment to the Ukrainian armed forces. .
Weapons
- A bill including $61 billion in aid for Ukraine advanced in the U.S. Senate after the failure of a broader bill that included border control measures demanded by right-wing Republicans. It was unclear when the Senate would consider final approval, and the bill was likely to face hostility in the Republican-led House of Representatives.
