As the war enters its 969th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Monday, October 21, 2024:

Fighting

• Russia has launched several waves of drones at Kyiv for the second night in a row, damaging residential buildings and injuring at least one civilian, Ukrainian officials said. Reports said a series of explosions were heard across the city overnight.
• Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app that about 10 drones attacking the city in several waves and from different directions were destroyed.
• At least 12 people were injured overnight in Ukraine’s Kharkiv after Russia launched guided air bombs against the region, Ukraine’s national police said on Telegram. It added that several residential buildings were damaged.

• Russia’s air defence units destroyed 18 Ukrainian drones overnight, the Russian Ministry of Defence said. Eleven of the drones were downed over the Rostov region, while the others were destroyed over the Bryansk, Kursk and Oryol regions.
• Russian forces are fighting street-to-street battles with Ukrainian troops in the outskirts of the eastern Ukrainian town of Selydove, as Moscow’s forces push to gain control over the whole of the Donbas region, according to several reports.
• Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has been forced to move many warships from the naval base of Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, due to attacks by Ukraine, said Dmitry Rogozin, a Russian-installed official.
• Ukraine struck a manufacturer of military explosives deep inside Russian territory as well as storage infrastructure at a military airfield in the Lipetsk region, Kyiv’s General Staff said.

Politics and diplomacy

• Six Russian soldiers who fled the fighting in Ukraine have found refuge in France and hope to receive asylum, in a landmark case of Russian defectors being welcomed in a European Union country as a group. The defectors, who had reached France via Kazakhstan, said they hoped their actions would encourage other Russian men to defy Moscow authorities and flee the war.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said recent statements by the United States administration that Washington is ready for nuclear talks without preconditions with Russia, China and North Korea are a “deception”. Lavrov told the news outlet Argumenty i Fakty that the US statement means the Americans “reserve the right to declare us an enemy in their doctrinal documents”.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told the visiting president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, that relations between the two states amounted to a “strategic partnership” and thanked him for mediation efforts in exchanging prisoners of war with Ukraine.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was seeking a strong reaction from countries who have acknowledged that North Korea is becoming more involved in Russia’s war against Ukraine. This follows reports that North Korea is deploying troops to Russia to fight in its war with Ukraine.
• Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has thanked Putin for helping his country secure sufficient natural gas for the winter. This comes amid reports that Serbia is facing pressure to align with Western powers and impose sanctions on Russia over its operation in Ukraine.
• A group of Russian navy ships has arrived in war-torn Myanmar to join maritime exercises with the military government’s navy, Myanmar state media said. Moscow is a close ally of the Myanmar military government, which in turn supports Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, calling it “justified”.