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Here is the situation on Saturday, March 23, 2024.
Fighting
- At least five people were killed and more than one million were left without power after Russia launched a wave of drone and missile strikes on Ukraine, targeting the country’s energy infrastructure.
- Eight of the Russian missiles hit Dnipro Hydroelectric Station, Ukraine’s largest hydroelectric power plant, causing “significant damage” to the facility, the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general said.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had hit Ukraine with 90 missiles and 60 Iranian-made drones in a “war with people’s everyday lives”, and repeated his urgent appeal for Kyiv’s allies to supply air defence systems.
- The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, Lieutenant General Oleksandr Pavliuk, warned Russia was building a group of more than 100,000 soldiers ahead of a possible major summer offensive.
Politics and diplomacy
- The Kremlin said for the first time that Russia regards itself to be “in a state of war” with Ukraine. When it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it said it was a “special military operation”.
- Russia’s FSB security service said it arrested seven Moscow residents linked to a pro-Ukraine militia accused of raiding Russia’s border regions, according to state news agencies.
- Li Hui, China’s special envoy for Ukraine, said there remained a “significant gap” between Moscow and Kyiv on peace talks to end the war, although both agreed negotiations were the best way to resolve the crisis.
- The European Commission said it would impose “prohibitive tariffs” on cheap imports of grain from Russia and Belarus. The move is also designed to limit Russia’s ability to fund its war in Ukraine and sell grain stolen from Ukraine, the commission said.
