These are the key events on day 1,185 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is where things stand on Saturday, May 24:
Fighting
- At least eight people were injured after Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, came under a combined drone and missile attack, according to Mayor Vitaly Klitschko, and witnesses reported a series of explosions and waves of Russian drones flying over the city.
- Anti-aircraft units were activated across the Ukrainian capital following the attack at dawn. Timur Tkachenko, head of the capital’s military administration, said two fires had broken out in the city’s Sviatoshynskyi district. Drone fragments also hit the ground in four districts.
- At least two people were killed in Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa after Russia struck port infrastructure with missiles, according to authorities.
- Three people were killed in shelling incidents in different parts of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the focal point of the war’s front line, authorities said.
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Russia has accused Ukraine of launching a massive wave of drone attacks, numbering up to 800, against non-military targets in Moscow and other regions in the last three days and said it would respond, but said it was still committed to holding peace talks with Kyiv.
- Ukraine’s military said that it had hit a battery-manufacturing facility in Russia’s Lipetsk region, which it said supplied Russian missile and bomb manufacturers. It added that the batteries were used in aerial bombs, cruise missiles and the Iskander-M ballistic missile.
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A Russian military helicopter has crashed near the village of Naryshkino in Russia’s Oryol region, killing the crew, the state news agency TASS reported, citing the Moscow military district headquarters. The preliminary cause of the crash was a technical malfunction.
Politics and diplomacy
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has announced that Moscow will be ready to hand Ukraine a draft document outlining conditions for a long-term peace accord once a prisoner exchange, now under way, is completed.
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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told reporters that Kyiv was waiting for Russia’s proposals on the form of talks, a ceasefire and a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
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Sybiha, quoted by Ukrainian media, said Kyiv would be in favour of expanding such a meeting to include United States President Donald Trump.
- Lavrov has cast doubt on the Vatican as a potential place for peace talks with Ukraine. Italy had said Pope Leo XIV was ready to host the peace talks after Trump suggested the Vatican as a location. Italy, the pope and the US had voiced hope the city-state could host the talks.
- Russia and Ukraine have each released 390 prisoners of war and said they would free more in the coming days, an initiative agreed in talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Turkiye last week.
- Putin has declared in televised remarks that Russia needs to strengthen its position in the global arms market by increasing exports of weapons.
- German Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to back Western efforts towards a Ukraine truce in his first phone call with China’s leader since Merz took office this month.
Economy
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US credit rating agency Fitch has affirmed Ukraine’s long-term foreign currency sovereign credit rating at “Restricted Default”, as the war-torn nation continues to navigate diplomatic tensions and a significant erosion of its finances amid its grinding war with Russia.
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The International Monetary Fund has started a new review of its $15.5bn programme to Ukraine this week, even as the country failed to reach a deal with GDP-linked debt holders last month.
