Russia-Ukraine war: list of key events, day 938 | Russia-Ukraine war news

As the war enters its 938th day, here are the top developments.

Here is the situation on Friday, September 20, 2024.

Struggle

• At least one person has been killed and 13 wounded after Russia bombed a nursing home in the northeastern city of Sumy, the region's military administration said.
• Russia also attacked energy infrastructure in the northeastern region, causing a temporary disruption in supplies, Ukraine's national power grid operator Ukrenergo said.
• An elderly woman was killed and two other people were wounded in Russian strikes in Ukraine's Zaporizhia region, Governor Ivan Fedorov said. Russian forces had shelled the region 161 times in the past 24 hours, damaging infrastructure facilities and residential buildings, he added.
• The Ukrainian air force said it shot down all 42 Russian drones and one of four missiles used in Thursday's attacks.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine's surprise offensive in Russia's Kursk border region in early August had led to the diversion of some 40,000 Russian troops from eastern Ukraine, reducing their strike potential there. Zelenskyy added that the situation on the eastern front remained “extremely difficult.”
• Russia claimed to have taken control of the village of Georgievka, which lies about 30 kilometers (20 miles) west of the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

Politics and diplomacy

• The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) said Russian airstrikes on Ukraine's electricity generation, transmission and distribution facilities likely violated international humanitarian law.
• European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen is expected to announce 160 million euros ($179 million) in new funding for Ukraine's energy needs when she travels to kyiv on Friday. Most of the money is expected to come from Russian assets frozen in the EU since Moscow's invasion in 2022.
• Daria Kozyreva, an 18-year-old who pasted a 19th-century Ukrainian poem on a statue to protest against Moscow's invasion, has gone on trial in St Petersburg. She is accused of “discrediting the Russian army” and faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
• In Russia's far eastern region of Primorye, authorities jailed a 19-year-old student for nearly two months for “publicly justifying” a banned Ukrainian paramilitary group online.
• Authorities in Russia's Tyumen region have opened a treason case against a local programmer accused of taking orders from an unnamed “foreign organization.”
• Russia also opened a criminal case against Kirill Martynov, the exiled editor-in-chief of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, for creating an “undesirable” group. Moscow branded Novaya Gazeta Europe, which operates from outside Russia, “undesirable” in June last year.
• The White House said Zelensky will meet separately on Sept. 26 with U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. Both will “stress their unwavering commitment to stand by Ukraine until it prevails in this war,” Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
• Separately, Zelensky's office said he would also meet with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. There was no immediate confirmation from Trump's campaign.

Arms

• President Vladimir Putin said Russia was increasing drone production about tenfold to produce nearly 1.4 million drones this year.
• Germany is set to approve an additional military aid of nearly 400 million euros ($450 million) for Ukraine, according to a letter from the Finance Ministry seen by Reuters and AFP news agencies. The funds are on top of the roughly 8 billion euros ($8.9 billion) budgeted for Ukraine this year and would be used to buy weapons and equipment, including ammunition, combat vehicles and drones.
• The European Parliament has adopted a non-binding resolution calling on EU countries to allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons to attack military targets inside Russia.
• Following the vote, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament and a close ally of Putin, warned Western governments of nuclear war if they approved the use of such weapons.