As we enter the 723rd day of the war, these are the most important developments.

Here is the situation as of Thursday, February 15, 2024.

Battle

• Ukraine said so severely damaged The Caesar Kunikov, a Russian warship, landed off occupied Crimea in a drone strike, the latest blow to the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine said the ship, one of Russia’s newest vessels, had a crew of 87 and had been involved in wars in Georgia and Syria, as well as Ukraine. There was no official comment from Russia on the attack.
• Newly appointed head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrskyii visited troops fighting around the flashpoint Avdiivka on the Eastern Front and described the situation as “extremely complex and stressful.” Syrskyii, who was accompanied by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, said Russian forces had “a numerical advantage in personnel.”
• At least three people, including a child, were killed and a dozen injured in a wave of Russian missile attacks on the town of Selydove in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Officials said a hospital and several apartments were damaged.
• At least two people were killed and four injured after a Russian S-300 missile hit an apartment block in a village in the northeastern Kharkiv region, police said.
• A woman was injured after a Ukrainian drone strike in the Russian regions of Belgorod and Voronezh and over the Black Sea. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, air defense systems destroyed nine drones, six of them over the Black Sea.

Politics and diplomacy

• US President Joe Biden and senior officials urged Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to vote on a bill that would provide $61 billion in critical aid to Ukraine, but by Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee in the United States elections in November, is rejected. The Senate supported the The invoicewhich includes aid to Israel and Taiwan, earlier this week.
• NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also called on US lawmakers to pass the law. “This is not charity. “This is an investment in our own security,” said Stoltenberg.

• British Foreign Secretary David Cameron also called on members of the US Congress to “do the right thing” and agree to an aid package for Ukraine.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law allowing authorities to do so confiscate the assets of people convicted of spreading “deliberately false information” about the military.
• A Russian military court sentenced Zhumagul Kurbanova, a woman in her 60s, to 10 years in a penal colony after finding her guilty of setting fire to a military recruiting center in St. Petersburg in August 2023.
• Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania sent diplomatic protests to Moscow after Russian police put leading Baltic politicians, including Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, on a wanted list over the destruction of Soviet-era monuments. The three Baltic states were once part of the Soviet Union, but are now members of the European Union and NATO.

weapons

• Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren told Reuters the Netherlands would join a military coalition with allies including the United Kingdom to provide Ukraine with advanced drone technology and strengthen its strike capabilities.
• Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair said Canada would donate $44 million to Ukraine to help it fight its war with Russia.