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Poltava strike and the days before it
Summary
A look back at the Russian missile attack on Poltava and the events of the preceding days, from Kharkiv to Mongolia.
What did the three days leading up to 3 September 2024 show about the course of the war? They combined Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities, Ukrainian drone attacks inside Russia and a diplomatic dispute over Vladimir Putin's travel.
On 3 September 2024, Russian missiles struck Poltava. As reported at the time, at least 55 people were killed and more than 328 were injured. Later accounts put the death toll at no fewer than 59, with 16 people missing. Those accounts say two missiles hit a branch of the Military Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technologies and a nearby hospital. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a building in the institute was partially destroyed. It was described as the deadliest attack in Poltava Oblast during the war.
Strikes in the days before
The attack followed another on 1 September 2024, when Russian missiles hit a shopping mall and events complex in Kharkiv and injured at least 47 people. Taken together, the two strikes hit civilian and populated areas in different parts of Ukraine within three days.
On the same day as the Kharkiv strike, Ukraine launched more than a hundred drones against targets in Russia. They included the Konakovo Power Station in Tver Oblast and the Moscow Refinery in Moscow.
A diplomatic dispute
The war also played out in diplomacy. On 2 September 2024, Putin arrived in Mongolia to discuss a China–Russia gas pipeline, which was meant to recoup Russian losses from Western sanctions. Ukraine and the European Union had urged Mongolia to arrest him under his International Criminal Court warrant. Mongolia did not do so.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry responded that Mongolia's refusal meant it shared responsibility for Russia's war crimes. It said it would work with allies to enforce punitive measures on Mongolia.
What the sequence shows
The reports from these days show several fronts at once. Russian missiles hit Kharkiv and then Poltava. Ukraine's drones reached energy and refining sites in Russia. Kyiv pressed partners to act on the International Criminal Court warrant for Putin. The Poltava strike, with its high casualty count and with a hospital among the buildings hit, was the most severe of these events.
