Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 859

As the war enters its 859th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Wednesday, July 3, 2024.

Fighting

• Russian attacks on the central Ukrainian city of Nikopol killed two women aged 61 and 86, and wounded nine other people, according to regional Governor Serhiy Lysak. The attacks damaged residential housing, educational facilities and a clinic in the city, which lies across the Dnipro River from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia 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 Ukraine’s central Poltava region. The attack comes as Ukraine prepares for the arrival of long-awaited F-16 fighters.
• Ukraine said there had been a strike at the Myrhorod Air Base but claimed Moscow was exaggerating the damage caused. Its Air Force commander, Mykola Oleschuk, said Ukraine’s military had also carried out a “destructive strike” on a Russian ammunition depot in the town of Balaklava in Moscow-occupied Crimea on Monday.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its air defence systems destroyed 11 drones that Ukraine launched at 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 beefed up air defences 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 accelerate an end to the war with Russia. Ukraine, however, said it saw its own approach as the path to peace.
• Zelenskyy said he spoke to Orban about Ukraine’s steps to bring peace in conjunction with international partners, and that he invited the Hungarian prime minister to join Kyiv’s efforts.
• The United States’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with the Ukraine president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, in Washington, DC and held discussions on NATO members’ intention to bring Ukraine closer to the alliance, according to a US official. The talks came as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also pledged to “take steps to build a bridge to NATO membership for Ukraine” 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 boosting defence cooperation, including a stronger NATO presence on the alliance’s eastern border, and the coordination of Ukraine aid.
• Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had made a diplomatic protest to Russia after a Russian civilian aircraft entered its airspace without permission. The Pobeda airline aircraft entered Lithuanian airspace over the Baltic Sea for a minute on Sunday evening, on its way from Moscow’s Vnukovo airport to Kaliningrad airport, the ministry said.
• A spokesman for the Kremlin 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 involved.
• In the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, a court sentenced a 19-year-old man to 12 years in prison for allegedly donating money to Ukraine’s forces, according to Russian state media.

Military aid

• The US will soon announce more than $2.3bn in new security assistance for Ukraine, Defense Secretary Austin said during a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart at the Pentagon. Austin said the latest weapons package would include arms such as antitank weapons and air defence interceptors, and would allow accelerated procurement of national advanced surface-to-air missile systems (NASAMS) and Patriot air defence interceptors.
• The Netherlands said it will supply Ukraine with the first of 24 promised F-16 fighter jets soon, but did not specify how many planes would be sent in the initial delivery and when they would arrive in Kyiv for security reasons.