Here is the situation on Thursday, September 5, 2024.
Fighting
- At least seven people, including three children, were killed in a Russian missile and drone attack on Ukraine’s western city of Lviv on the border with Poland. Four of the dead were from the same family. The prosecutor’s office said at least 40 people were injured and schools, medical facilities and other city centre buildings damaged.
- Poland scrambled fighter jets to ensure its security as Lviv came under attack.
- At least five people were hurt when the debris from a shot-down Russian missile fell on the central city of Kryvyi Rih damaging a hotel, Ukrainian emergency services said.
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Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down seven out of 13 missiles and 22 out of 29 drones that Russia deployed in an attack on energy facilities and critical infrastructure in nine Ukrainian regions.
- At least one person was killed and three injured when Russian forces shelled a residential area of the eastern Ukrainian town of Kostiantynivka, which lies northeast of Pokrovsk, a strategically important town that Russia is trying to capture.
- Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces had taken control of the settlements of Prechystivka and Karlivka, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Pokrovsk.
- Belgorod Regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said three people were killed and two injured after Ukraine shelled a village in the Russian border region.
- Russia’s Defence Ministry acknowledged it attacked a military educational institute and hospital in Poltava. Ukraine said at least 51 people were killed and 271 injured in the attack on Tuesday. Russia claimed it was targeting soldiers, foreign instructors and drone operators.
Politics and diplomacy
- President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had ordered a major reshuffle of the government because Ukraine needed “new energy“. A total of six ministers submitted their resignations, and parliament accepted four of them. Among those offering their resignation was Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, but parliament did not formally sanction it.
- German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reiterated Germany’s political and military backing for Ukraine. “Germany’s support for Ukraine will not cease. We have made provisions, struck [defence] deals and secured the funding in good time so that Ukraine can continue to fully rely on us in the future,” Scholz said.
- The Swiss government said it would offer Ukrainian refugees protection until at least 2026 because the situation there was not expected to change in the foreseeable future.
- The Kremlin said Russia was adjusting its nuclear doctrine because the United States was “provoking tension” and with its allies stoking “the hot war in Ukraine” and ignoring what it said were Moscow’s legitimate security interests. Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
- Belarus’s state-owned All-National TV network said a suspected Japanese spy had been detained. The channel said the alleged agent was caught filming military infrastructure and had tried to uncover details on Chinese investment into Belarus, as well as the situation on the border between Belarus and Ukraine. There was no official statement by Minsk on the arrest.
