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What Kyiv was saying before 5 November 2024
Summary
A look back at two reports from the final days of October 2024 that framed Ukraine's position as 5 November 2024 arrived.
What was Ukraine telling its partners as 5 November 2024 approached? Two reports from 31 October 2024, days before that date, give a picture of a country under direct fire and pressing for a stronger response from abroad.
On 31 October 2024, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy strongly condemned the United States and European nations for what he described as a "zero response" to the deployment of North Korean soldiers against Ukraine. The criticism was aimed at the foreign powers most closely tied to Kyiv's war effort, and it concerned a new foreign presence in the conflict.
The same day, a Russian glide bomb struck a residential building in Kharkiv. According to Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, three people were killed and 35 others injured.
The wider backdrop
The war had begun as a full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022, escalating a conflict that dated back to 2014. Allied support had been substantial. As of 30 June 2025, Ukraine had received approximately €64.6 billion in military aid from the United States and about €84.7 billion from other international allies, mostly through drawdowns of existing stockpiles. That figure comes from a later tally, not from what was known in early November 2024.
Taken together, the two reports from 31 October 2024 show the pressures Kyiv faced in those days: civilian casualties from Russian strikes on its cities, and a demand that Western governments answer the arrival of North Korean troops.
