As the war enters its 859th day, here are the top developments.
Here is the situation on Wednesday, July 3, 2024.
Struggle
- Russian strikes on the Ukrainian city of Nikopol killed two women aged 61 and 86 and wounded nine others, according to regional governor Serhiy Lysak. The attacks damaged homes, schools and a clinic in the city, which lies across the Dnieper River from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear plant.
- Russia said it destroyed five Ukrainian SU-27 fighter jets with Iskander-M missiles and damaged two more at the Myrhorod air base in central Ukraine's Poltava region. The attack comes as Ukraine prepares for the arrival of the long-awaited F-16 fighter jets.
- Ukraine claimed there had been an attack on the Myrhorod airbase, but said Moscow was exaggerating the damage caused. Its air force commander, Mykola Oleschuk, said the Ukrainian military had also carried out a “destructive attack” on a Russian ammunition depot in the town of Balaklava in Moscow-occupied Crimea on Monday.
- Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defense systems destroyed 11 drones that Ukraine launched toward Russian territory and the occupied Crimean peninsula in the early hours of Tuesday.
- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said his country will not allow any clashes on its border with Ukraine after its military reinforced air defenses in the area due to increased Ukrainian drone activity there.
Politics and diplomacy
- Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban made his first trip to kyiv in more than a decade and urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to consider a ceasefire to speed up the end of the war with Russia. Ukraine, however, said it saw its own approach as the path to peace.
- Zelenskyy said he discussed with Orban Ukraine's steps to achieve peace together with international partners, and invited the Hungarian prime minister to join kyiv's efforts.
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Ukrainian President Andriy Yermak's chief of staff in Washington, DC, and held talks on NATO members' intention to bring Ukraine closer to the alliance, according to a US official. The talks came as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also pledged to “take steps to build a bridge to Ukraine's NATO membership” during the alliance's summit in the US capital next week.
- The governments of Germany and Poland presented a joint action plan in which they agreed to discuss strengthening defence cooperation, including a greater NATO presence on the alliance's eastern border, and coordinating aid to Ukraine.
- The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry has lodged a diplomatic protest with Russia after a Russian civilian plane entered its airspace without permission. The Pobeda airline plane entered Lithuanian airspace over the Baltic Sea for one minute on Sunday afternoon, while en route from Moscow's Vnukovo Airport to Kaliningrad Airport, the ministry said.
- A Kremlin spokesman said Russia could not comment on former US President Donald Trump's idea for ending the war in Ukraine because Moscow did not know what the plan entailed.
- In the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, a court has sentenced a 19-year-old man to 12 years in prison for allegedly donating money to Ukrainian forces, according to Russian state media.
Military aid
- Defense Secretary Austin said during a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart at the Pentagon that the United States will soon announce more than $2.3 billion in security assistance for Ukraine. Austin said the latest arms package would include weapons such as anti-tank weapons and air defense interceptors, and would allow for the accelerated acquisition of National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) and Patriot air defense interceptors.
- The Netherlands said it would soon supply Ukraine with the first of 24 promised F-16 fighter jets, but did not specify how many would be sent in the initial delivery or when they would arrive in kyiv for security reasons.
