As the war enters its 804th day, here are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Wednesday, May 8, 2024.
Struggle
- One person was killed and four wounded by Russian artillery fire in the eastern border region of Sumy, which has been the target of increasing aerial bombardment in recent weeks. Ukrainian police said Moscow forces had fired into the territory 224 times over the previous 24 hours.
- Five people were injured after Ukraine hit an oil storage depot in the Russian-occupied city of Luhansk, causing a large fire.
Politics and diplomacy
- The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said it uncovered a Russian plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top officials. The SBU said Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) had created a network of agents to carry out the plan and that two colonels of the Ukrainian State Guard, which provides protection for senior officials, had been arrested on suspicion of treason.
- Vladimir Putin was sworn in for a fifth term as Russian president in a Kremlin ceremony boycotted by the United States, the United Kingdom and several European Union countries. In a speech to mark the occasion, Putin said the country would emerge victorious and stronger from a “difficult” period.
- Several dozen protesters gathered outside the Peace Palace in The Hague to protest Putin's inauguration and demand that he be put on trial. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Putin and Russian Children's Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova on war crimes charges related to the kidnapping of Ukrainian children in March 2023.
- Chinese President Xi Jinping left France after a two-day trip during which he offered no major foreign policy concessions, even as President Emmanuel Macron urged him to use his influence over Russia to help end the war in Ukraine.
- Zelenskyy said the island state of Cape Verde had become the first African country to agree to attend next month's “peace summit” in Switzerland. Bern invited 160 delegations to the event scheduled for June 15 and 16.
- Russia banned the US-based nonprofit organization Freedom House, calling it an “undesirable” organization in Russia. In its Freedom in the World 2024 report, Freedom House assessed Russia as “not free,” noting that restrictions on political rights and civil liberties had tightened since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Weapons
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Ukrainian state prosecutors told Reuters news agency they had examined the remains of 21 of about 50 North Korean ballistic missiles launched by Russia between late December and late February, as they work to assess the threat of Moscow's cooperation with Pyongyang. Prosecutors said evidence so far suggested a high failure rate.
- During a visit to the United States, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said he was open to talks about sending a Patriot missile system to Ukraine. Romania signed a $4 billion deal to acquire the 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 “insufficiently substantiated” but the situation remained “volatile and extremely worrying regarding the possible resurgence of the use of toxic chemicals as weapons.”
