list of key events, day 809

Here is the situation on Monday 13 May 2024.

Battler

• Ukrainian military chief Oleksandr Syrskii said his forces were facing a “difficult situation” in the northeastern Kharkiv region, where thousands more people have abandoned their homes as Russian forces advanced.
• The Ukrainian General Staff said fighting was raging around Vovchansk, a city about 4 km (2.5 miles) from the border and 45 km (28 miles) from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city and the capital of Kharkiv region. The Ukrainian military said Russia had deployed “significant forces for its attack on the city” but “not taking into account its own losses”, with at least 100 soldiers reported dead.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “defensive battles” were taking place along large stretches of the border near Kharkiv and that fighting was “no less fierce” in some areas of the Donetsk region further east. Zelenskyy said there had been 30 armed clashes in the past 24 hours in the Pokrovsk sector, northwest of the Russian-held town of Avdiivka, and there was also fighting in sectors including Lyman, Kupiansk and Kramatorsk.
• Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office said at least four civilians have been killed in the Kharkiv region since Russia began its ground offensive on Friday. Following the fighting, around 6,000 people were evacuated.
• At least 13 people have been confirmed dead and 20 injured after an apartment building collapsed in the Russian border town of Belgorod. Russia said the building was hit by fragments of a Soviet-era missile launched from Ukraine and shot down by the air defense.

Politics and diplomacy

• The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin planned to remove Sergei Shoigu as defense minister as part of a cabinet reshuffle and replace him with Andrei Belousov, a former deputy prime minister specializing in economics.
• Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda appeared on track to secure a second term in office after Sunday’s elections, following a campaign dominated by security concerns about Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
• Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba have begun a tour of Serbia – the first by a high-level Ukrainian delegation since Russia launched its full-scale invasion.