Ukraine war situation update: 17

1,475 political violence events

5% increase compared to last week

93 incidents of violence targeting civilians

15% increase compared to last week

At least 39 fatalities from civilian targeting

26% increase compared to last week

Key trends

In the Donetsk region, Russian forces continued to advance east of Pokrovsk and north of Velyka Novosilka, where they seized a village. Russian forces also made significant advances in the offensive on Kostiantynivka, capturing a village east of the town.
Russian forces captured two settlements north of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region and consolidated their gains at the international border in the Sumy region.
ACLED records at least 24 Russian long-range missile and drone strikes, including in Kyiv city and the Kyiv region, as well as the western regions of Ivano-Frankivsk and Zhytomyr.
Russian shelling, missiles, aerial bombs, and drones killed at least 34 civilians in the Sumy, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Odesa, Chernihiv, Kyiv, and Zaporizhia regions. Ukrainian shelling and drone strikes reportedly killed four civilians in the Russian-occupied parts of the Kherson, Zaporizhia, and Kharkiv regions.

Key events

17 May | Sumy – A Russian Lancet drone kills nine civilians travelling on a bus in Bilopillia
20 May | Sumy – A Russian missile kills six Ukrainian soldiers at a Ukrainian training camp in the Shostkynska community
23 May | Odesa – Russian strikes on residential and port infrastructure in Odesa kill three civilians, including one port worker

Spotlight: Pro-Russian Yanukovych ex-aide killed in Spain

On 21 May, unidentified armed individuals shot dead Andriy Portnov, an ex-deputy chief of staff in charge of overseeing judicial affairs for pro-Russian former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The incident took place outside the American School in a suburb of Madrid. During his time working under Yanukovych, Portnov was involved in the adoption of controversial laws enabling repression of the 2014 Euromaidan protesters, as well as interventions against judicial independence.¹ Despite this, Portnov successfully fought Ukrainian journalists who labelled him a pro-Russian politician in court.² After leaving the country illegally in 2022, he reportedly briefly returned to Ukraine to meet with top law enforcement officials for unknown reasons.³

Attacks on Ukrainian officials who collaborated with Russia have been frequent since the start of Ukraine’s full-scale invasion by Russia. This includes the assassinations of ex-member of Parliament (MP) Ilya Kyva in Moscow and ex-MP Oleksyi Kovalov in the Kherson region, the killing of ex-MP Oleksyi Zhuravko during a strike in occupied Kherson city, and the wounding of ex-MP Oleh Tsariov in occupied Crimea. Other notable so-called “collaborators,” such as the oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, were instead used during prisoner exchanges⁴ as valuable assets for recovering Ukrainian prisoners of war.

However, at the time of writing, Ukraine has not been implicated in Portnov’s killing, and Ukrainian authorities are cooperating with Spanish investigators.⁵ While the motives and perpetrators of the shooting are unknown, some theories suggest debt issues⁶ or a false flag operation by Russian agents to mimic Ukraine’s action.⁷ It is not the first time that Spain has been the site of a high-profile killing associated with the Ukraine war. In February 2024, two unidentified individuals, likely contracted locally by Russia,⁸ killed an ex-helicopter pilot in Villajoyosa who had defected from the Russian military.