As the war enters its 889th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Friday, August 2, 2024.

Fighting

• A mother and her daughter were killed by Russian shelling that hit the town of Nikopol in Ukraine’s eastern Dnipropetrovsk region. Local governor Serhiy Lysak said private houses, a fire station, a college, a school and buses were damaged. Nikopol sits on the right bank of the Dnipro River
• Two people were injured by debris as Ukraine repelled a Russian drone attack on the region outside Kyiv. One of those hurt was Ilya Ponomaryov, a former Russian lawmaker who has lived in Ukraine for years and is a critic of the Kremlin. He wrote on Facebook that a drone exploded outside his front door, inflicting shrapnel wounds and causing a fire.

Politics and diplomacy

• Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and a number of prominent Russian opposition politicians and activists who were jailed for criticising the war in Ukraine were among 26 people freed in the biggest prisoner swap between Russia and the West since the Cold War. Russia got back Vadim Krasikov, a Russian jailed in Germany for the assassination of a former Chechen rebel commander in 2019.
• Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, awarded two Ukrainian athletes – rower Anastasiia Kozhenkova and diver Oleksii Sereda – with the Grand Vermeil Medal, the French capital’s highest distinction, in a show of solidarity.

Weapons

• The Kremlin said that Russian forces would shoot down US-built F-16 fighter jets sent to Ukraine, and claimed the aircraft would have no significant impact on the course of the war. The first planes arrived in Ukraine this week.