What did 29 October 2024 show about the war's eastern front?
A retrospective on a day of claimed Russian gains in Donetsk Oblast and a first reported Ukrainian drone strike in Chechnya.
What did the war look like on 29 October 2024? Two developments stood out: a claimed Russian advance in Donetsk Oblast and a drone attack deep inside Russia, in Chechnya.
On that date Russia claimed that it had taken the cities of Selydove and Hirnyk in Donetsk Oblast. Open-source data indicated that Russian forces were advancing at their fastest pace in at least one year, and there were signs of North Korean involvement in the war. The fighting formed part of the long-running eastern front, a theatre of operations that has covered Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war in February 2022.
The same day, a drone strike targeted a Special Forces University in Gudermes, Chechnya. It was described as the first known drone attack in Chechnya by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, vowed to retaliate harshly against Ukraine.
Taken together, the two events showed pressure on the front line in Donetsk Oblast alongside a strike reaching a Russian region far from it. For readers following Ukraine's governance and public life, 29 October 2024 was a day when security questions dominated, with the pace of Russian advances and the reported foreign involvement in the war at the centre of attention.
