As the war enters its 808th day, these are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Sunday, May 12, 2024.
Fighting
A missile attack on a restaurant in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, killed three people and wounded eight, Denis Pushilin, the head of the region’s Russian-backed administration, said, adding that there were two strikes by US HIMARS precision rocket launchers.
One woman was killed, 29 people wounded and hundreds of buildings, including a school and a hospital, were damaged after Ukraine attacked Russia’s Belgorod region over the weekend, according to regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
Gladkov said Belgorod city, the region’s administrative centre, faced further risk of Ukrainian attack, with the entire region under air raid alerts on Sunday.
The Russian Ministry of Defence says its air defence forces destroyed two Soviet-era conventional ballistic missiles launched overnight by Ukrainian forces over Belgorod.
Fierce fighting raged overnight on the fringes of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region as Moscow claimed it had captured five villages and was advancing in the Donetsk region. However, Kyiv said it was repulsing the attacks and battling for control of the settlements.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy admitted in his nightly video address that battles were going on around seven border villages in Kharkiv and called the situation in the southern Donetsk region “extremely difficult”.
Kharkiv regional Governor Oleg Synegubov said more than 4,000 people evacuated from areas near the Russian border, as Moscow launched the surprise ground offensive in the region.
Damaged vehicles in Belgorod, Russia, following a recent military attack, which authorities claim was launched by Ukraine [Handout Photo/Reuters]
Politics and diplomacy
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he was giving extra duties to two key government officials overseeing the defence industry and energy sectors, as the Kremlin chief girds the world’s second-largest oil exporter for a longer war in Ukraine.
Incumbent Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, a staunch supporter of Ukraine, and his closest opponent, Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, promise to stand up to Russian threat at home, as the country heads to the polls on Sunday. Voters in the Baltic state are worried that the country could be a target of Russian aggression.
Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Ukrainians with a residence permit and work in Germany could stay even as Ukraine seeks to recruit nationals living abroad to serve in the war against Russia.
