Ukraine war day 979: These are the key developments as the war enters its 979th day.

Fighting

• According to local authorities, a Russian guided bomb killed a kid and injured at least 29 others when it struck a high-rise apartment complex in Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine.
• According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, Russian forces have seized the community of Kruhliakivka, which is located in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine, close to the important town of Kupiansk. Although the Ukrainian military has denied that Kruhliakivka fell into Russian hands, officials reported that battle is raging in nine settlements, with nine engagements currently going on and 15 Russian attacks repulsed.
• Russia’s 19th strike on Kyiv this month has damaged a kindergarten, set numerous apartments on fire, and injured nine people. Russia deployed 62 drones overnight, according to Ukraine’s air force, but its air defenses destroyed them. Of them, 25 were missing and 33 were over Kyiv and nearby areas.

North Korean troops in Ukraine

• At a UN Security Council meeting, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, asked why its allies cannot support Moscow in its fight against Ukraine if Western nations have the right to support Kyiv. He also said that Russia’s military engagements with North Korea do not contravene international law.
• In response, Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s UN representative, stated that “receiving assistance from the fully-sanctioned North Korea is a brazen violation of the UN Charter” and that no nations aiding Ukraine are “under Security Council sanctions.”
• North Korea denied the forces’ deployment to Russia during the conference, but said that any such action would be legal under international law and that “Pyongyang and Moscow keep regular contact with each other on mutual security and development of the circumstances.
• Ukraine war day 979: Robert Wood, the deputy US ambassador to the UN, forewarned Kim Jong Un that if his troops invade Ukraine, they will “return in body bags.”
• According to South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, there is a “high chance” that North Korea may ask Russia for intercontinental ballistic missile technology and tactical nuclear weapons in return for sending soldiers to Ukraine.
• According to a presidential official, South Korea is thinking of sending a group of military observers to Ukraine to watch and evaluate any North Korean force deployment.
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Sanctions

• As part of fresh measures against Russia to combat sanctions evasion, the US has placed penalties on almost 400 organizations and people from over a dozen nations.
• The operation, which was the largest coordinated effort to date against third-country evasion, included sanctions on entities in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Thailand, Malaysia, Switzerland, and other countries, as well as dozens of Chinese, Indian, Hong Kong, and Russian companies.
• In an effort to stop the evasion of current sanctions against Russia, the Swiss government has announced that it has authorized additional penalties against Belarus, aligning it with actions the European Union took in late June.
• According to the Finnish Enforcement Authority, it is carrying out a court order in Finland to confiscate $4.25 billion in Russian assets in Finland. At the request of Ukrainian state company Naftogaz, which is requesting restitution for Moscow’s theft of its property after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, Russia called Finland’s ambassador to Moscow to protest the decision.

International relations

• The Ramstein group, which plans military assistance for Ukraine, is scheduled to meet again in the upcoming weeks, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
• After a pro-Russian party won Georgia’s elections last weekend, Zelenskyy said the West should acknowledge that Russia has “won” in Georgia and is headed to do the same in Moldova, which will hold a run-off presidential election on Sunday after a pro-European incumbent failed to receive more than 50% of the vote.
• Zelenskyy described the delay as “not funny,” claiming that Ukraine has barely gotten 10% of a $61 billion US military aid package that Congress approved in April. The Ukrainian president made a strong implication in the same remark that he had asked for long-range US Tomahawk munitions.
• Ukraine war day 979: In comments that have angered people at home, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Russian television that he intends to travel to Moscow for the anniversary of World War II next year and that he disapproves of the EU’s strategy in the war in Ukraine.
• According to the Belarusian Defense Ministry, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a post-Soviet military bloc led by Russia, intends to conduct drills in Belarus in September 2025.
• Rachel Reeves, Britain’s finance minister, has pledged that the country will continue to provide Ukraine with three billion British pounds ($3.88 billion) in aid each year for “as long as it takes.”
• After refuting claims that Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports had interrupted vital food supplies for other nations, Russia has accused Britain of utilizing a Black Sea grain corridor to transport weapons to Ukraine.

Source: Aljazeera