What did 24 October 2024 reveal about the war?

What did the war in Ukraine look like on 24 October 2024? The reports from that day and the one before it show pressure on the eastern front, a widening circle of outside actors and a large financial commitment from Ukraine's partners.

The front at Selydove

On 24 October 2024, the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that Russian forces had made significant advances in the strategic city of Selydove, and predicted it could be captured within a few days. A day earlier, the Russian Defence Ministry had claimed the capture of the villages of Mykolaivka and Serebrianka in Donetsk Oblast. The same day, DeepState, a Ukrainian military news page, reported heavy fighting around Selydove.

DeepState draws on DeepStateMap.Live, an open-source interactive map of military operations created on 24 February 2022 by the volunteer-led organisation Deep State UA and updated regularly to reflect the frontline. That a Ukrainian military assessment and an open-source mapping project were both describing the same area shows how closely the Selydove sector was being watched.

New foreign involvement

On 23 October 2024, the US State Department said it had confirmed evidence that North Korean troops were in Russia and preparing to travel to the battlefield in Ukraine. South Korea said Pyongyang had promised to send up to 10,000 troops. Taken together, these statements indicated that the war was drawing in a new state actor on Russia's side.

Money from the other side

The same day, the US Defense Department finalised a US$20 billion loan to Ukraine for military and economic support. It formed part of a collective US$50 billion loan among G7 members. The figures show Ukraine's partners committing financing at scale even as the eastern front came under strain.

Effects beyond the battlefield

The war's reach extended well past Ukraine's borders. In Germany, a Munich court charged a Russian man with stabbing two Ukrainian soldiers at a shopping centre in Murnau am Staffelsee, Bavaria, in April. Separately, the Ifo Institute reported a 13% fall in Germany's birth rate between 2021 and 2023, and up to 17.5% in eastern Germany. It attributed the decline to several factors, among them the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russo-Ukrainian war and high inflation.

At the 16th BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a bilateral meeting with China's President Xi Jinping on 23 October 2024. It was the first such meeting between the two countries in five years and came after the 2020 border skirmishes between Indian and Chinese troops.

What the day showed

The picture on 24 October 2024 was uneven: Ukrainian forces reporting Russian gains around Selydove, Russia's partner network apparently widening with North Korea, and Ukraine's backers securing a large financial package. Each strand was reported separately, but together they described a war being shaped as much by outside actors and money as by the line of contact itself.