Russia claimed to have taken control of a settlement, while Ukraine claimed to be resisting Russian military attacks, according to the latest briefings of the two sides on Tuesday.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a briefing that its forces had taken control of a settlement in the Donetsk region on Tuesday. Over the past day, Russian air defense systems shot down 49 drones launched by the Ukrainian military. Additionally, Russian forces targeted 142 Ukrainian personnel and equipment assembly points.
On the same day, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that as of Tuesday afternoon, Ukrainian forces had engaged in 88 fights with Russian forces. The front-line situation remains tense, with Ukrainian forces taking measures to resist Russian attacks. In the Kursk region, Ukrainian forces repelled 29 Russian offensives.
Over the past day, the Ukrainian military successfully repelled 30 Russian attacks in Kurakhove. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that starting from 23:00 Monday, the Russian military launched 31 drones towards Ukraine.
Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova said on Tuesday that the military forces of Russia and Ukraine are in negotiations regarding a large-scale exchange of detained individuals, but a final agreement has not been reached yet.
According to Moskalkova, based on a previously released list, Russia is prepared to release 1,500 individuals and has provided the list to Ukraine. They are awaiting Ukraine to transfer an equivalent number of Russian individuals.
Russia, Ukraine update battle reports
Chinese airlines have recorded over 700 million passenger trips so far this year, marking a record high in the history of China's civil aviation development, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
As of Sunday, the country's airlines reported a total of 700.48 million passenger trips since the start of the year, CAAC data showed. The total number of the air passenger trips for 2023 was 620 million, according to CAAC figures.
The daily average number of passenger trips has exceeded 2 million, which is 18.1 percent higher than that in the same period last year and 10.7 percent higher than that in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The robust recovery of the aviation market in 2024 has been largely driven by domestic routes, which logged about 640 million passenger trips, representing a 13-percent increase year on year and a 14-percent increase compared to the same period in 2019, according to the CAAC.
"This year, domestic trunk airports have steadily expanded their backbone network, while feeder airports have also further expanded their basic network as part of their efforts to improve services that rely on local tourism resources. Some regions, such as Xinjiang, Yunnan and Inner Mongolia, have connected themselves to both trunk lines and feeder lines to forge new business forms integrating civil aviation and tourism, leading to the vigorous development of the domestic market," said Zhong Shan, chief economist of the Institute of Air Transport at China Academy of Civil Aviation Science and Technology.
International routes also showed remarkable growth with more than 60 million passenger trips, reflecting a year-on-year surge of over 130 percent and reaching around 88 percent of the pre-pandemic level in 2019, as global travel restrictions eased and demand rebounded, the CAAC noted.
Monthly data have remained at over 90 percent of pre-pandemic levels for five consecutive months since July this year, the administration added.
What worth noting is that air passenger transport reached new heights during travel rushes such as the Spring Festival and summer vacation season, with the daily average number of passenger trips reaching 2.1 million and 2.29 million, respectively.
The single-day peak passenger volume is at 2.45 million this year, an increase of 9.8 percent compared to the highest daily figure last year, according to the CAAC.
China's air passenger transport hits record high in 2024
