These are the most important developments on the 901st day of the war.

Here is the situation on Wednesday, August 14, 2024.

Kursk invasion

• The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrskii, said that Kiev troops had taken control of 74 settlements in Russia’s Kursk region and were continuing to advance, gaining control of a 40-square-kilometer area in the last 24 hours.
• In Russia, Major General Apti Alaudinov, the commander of the special forces, said Ukrainian troops had been stopped. The Defense Ministry said Russian troops had repelled attacks in villages about 26-28 kilometers from the border. The governor of the Kursk region, Alexei Smirnov, called on residents to show patience and strength of character, warning that “the crisis is not yet over.”
• US President Joe Biden said Ukraine’s military invasion of Russia had “created a real dilemma” for Russian President Vladimir Putin. In his first substantive comments since Kyiv’s surprise attack on August 6, Biden said he had been briefed on developments every four to five hours. Officials stressed that the US had no role in planning or preparing the attack.
• Lithuanian Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas said Russia was moving troops from its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad to Kursk.
• Russia convened an informal meeting of the UN Security Council and criticized Ukraine’s allies for failing to condemn Kyiv’s incursion. “We will not recognize the aggressor as a victim,” said senior Slovenian diplomat Klemen Ponikvar, one of several members who accused Russia of hypocrisy, double standards and wasting the council’s time. Moscow began its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and currently occupies about a fifth of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory.

Fighting in Ukraine

• At least one person was killed and two injured in Russian shelling of Ukraine’s Sumy region, bordering Kursk. The Sumy regional military administration said it had registered 45 Russian attacks on Tuesday, including targeted bombings, drone explosions and artillery fire.
• The Ukrainian General Staff said it had restricted the freedom of movement of civilians within a 20-kilometer-wide border zone near Sumy due to an “increasing intensity of hostilities” and the activation of Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups in the region.
• Two people were killed and 30 injured when a bus was hit by Ukrainian artillery shelling in the Russian-occupied town of Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine, the TASS news agency reported, citing Russian-appointed local officials.
• The Ukrainian military said Russian forces had stepped up their attacks on the Pokrovsk front in eastern Ukraine. The General Staff said there had been 52 battles in the region in the past 24 hours, more than a third of all fighting along the 1,000km front line.
• Russia fired 38 combat drones and two Iskander-M ballistic missiles at Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said. Thirty of the drones were destroyed over eight Ukrainian regions, it said. What happened to the weapons that were not destroyed is unclear.

Politics and Diplomacy

• Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to the Ukrainian president, said Ukraine plans to hold a follow-up conference this month to the June peace summit in Switzerland. The meeting will be held online and will focus on energy security, he said.