As the clash between Russia and Ukraine enters it’s 806 days, Verity news with source from Al-Jazeera has hilighted development and report from the two countries battle.
Here is the situation on Friday, May 10, 2024.
Fighting:
❖ Two people were killed in Russian shelling of Ukraine’s southern city of Nikopol,
while Ukraine’s air force said air defence systems destroyed 17 out of 20 Russian
attack drones targeting the southern Odesa region. No casualties were reported
from those attacks.
❖ Eight people were injured and dozens of buildings damaged in a Ukrainian air attack
on Russia’s Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
❖ President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s army was facing “a really difficult
situation” against Russian forces on the eastern front, but that the US’s $61billion
military aid package was coming and would turn the tide.
❖ Ukraine’s state energy company Ukrhydroenergo said two hydropower plants were
no longer operating after Russian attacks earlier this week caused “devastating
damage”.
❖ Unnamed intelligence sources in Kyiv told the Reuters and AFP news agencies that a
Ukrainian drone struck a major oil refinery in Russia’s Bashkortostan region on
Thursday from some 1,500km (932 miles) away in the longest-range attack since the
start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
❖ Russia’s emergency services said a building at Gazprom’s Neftekhim Salavat oil
processing, petrochemical and fertiliser complex in Bashkortostan was damaged,
the RIA state news agency reported.
Politics and diplomacy:
❖ Ukrainian President Zelenskyy fired the head of the state guards, the unit that
provides protection to top officials, after the intelligence services said two of its
members were involved in a Russian plot to assassinate him.
❖ Zelenskyy appointed Brigadier General Oleksandr Trepak as the commander of
Ukraine’s special forces replacing Colonel Serhiy Lupanchuk. It is the second time
in six months that the president has changed the head of the unit that operates in
Russia-occupied territories. No reason was given.
❖ Ukraine’s popular former army chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who led Ukraine’s defence in
the first two years of Moscow’s full-scale invasion, was named Kyiv’s ambassador to
the United Kingdom. The previous ambassador was fired in July 2023 after criticising
the president.
❖ Ukraine’s parliament backed a bill to crack down on voted-on draft dodgers. The
legislation includes raising fines for anyone caught trying to avoid the call-up and
allowing authorities to detain draft dodgers for up to three days.
❖ Speaking at Russia’s Victory Day military parade, President Vladimir Putin accused
“arrogant” Western elites of forgetting the decisive role played by the Soviet Union in
defeating Nazi Germany in World War II, and of stoking conflicts across the world.
Putin ordered Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in February 2022.
Moscow currently occupies about 18 percent of the country.
❖ South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said Seoul would maintain strong ties with
Ukraine and a “smooth” relationship with Russia but ruled out direct weapon
shipments to Kyiv.
Weapons:
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said Ukraine’s Western allies would deliver three more High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). The system can launch multiple guided missiles in quick succession.
Source: Al Jazeera
