Ukraine Daily

Wednesday, March 23

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Russia’s war against Ukraine

More than 1,200 residents evacuated from Mariupol on March 22. According to Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, 15 buses evacuated people from the besieged seaport of Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia.

Ukrainian military repels 7 Russian assaults, destroys six planes and five UAVs. According to the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, Russian forces also lost seven tanks, five drones (two destroyed, three captured), six artillery pieces. Advances in Luhansk and Donetsk were stopped, preventing the Russian military from gaining a foothold.

Russian forces steal buses driving to rescue people from Mariupol. A convoy of 11 empty buses — driving towards Mariupol to rescue Ukrainians from besieged city — has been seized by Russian forces, the Ukrainian government reports. The Russians have taken the buses, along with the original bus drivers and several emergency services workers, to an undisclosed location.

Satellite imagery shows Russia removing military aircraft from a key airport. Russia has withdrawn most of its helicopters from a strategic Chornobayivka airport in southern Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast, according to satellite images provided by space imaging company Planet Labs. According to the New York Times, Ukrainian forces attacked the Kherson airport, inflicting considerable damage to Russian equipment. Russian ground troops appear to still control the airport.

President’s Office launches humanitarian aid website. Ukraine set up an official portal help.gov.ua for those who want to provide humanitarian or financial assistance to affected people, businesses or the government amid Russia’s war against Ukraine. The website helps to find out how to send and whom to address humanitarian aid. The portal also provides contacts of foreign and Ukrainian humanitarian hubs.

Ukrainian journalist released from Russian captivity. Viktoria Roshchina, a journalist for Hromadske, has been in captivity in the occupied city of Berdiansk since March 15. She was released on March 22. As a condition for her release, she was forced to record a video in which she said that the Russian forces had saved her life.

Russians attack oil refinery that they own. A Russian aircraft has fired upon an oil refinery in Lysychasnk, Luhansk Oblast, which is owned by Russian oil company Rosneft. According to Luhasnk Oblast Governor Serhiy Haidai, firefighters are currently fighting a blaze at the site.

Read the war diary of Kyiv Independent’s reporter Igor Kossov. Here is his account of spending a day with a small group of volunteers helping people get out of some of the most dangerous areas outside Kyiv.

Peskov: Russia to use nuclear weapons if country’s existence is threatened. Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that there’s no other reason Russia could use nuclear weapons, Russian media RIA Novosti reported.

Zelensky to join NATO summit on March 24. President Volodymyr Zelensky will give a virtual address to the NATO summit participants, according to his spokesman Sergii Nykyforov. Zelensky will speak about the need to stop Russia’s war crimes against civilians by closing the sky above Ukraine or supplying the country with air defenses.

Russia prosecutes journalist for social media posts about Russian attack on Mariupol. The Investigative Committee of Russia opened a case against Russian journalist Alexander Nevzorov for publishing information about the Russian shelling of a maternity hospital in Mariupol. Russia accuses Nevzorov of spreading “false information about the Russian Armed Forces.”

Farmak’s warehouse outside Kyiv burns down. Farmak, one of Ukraine’s biggest pharmaceutical companies, suffered nearly Hr 1.5 billion in losses when its warehouse in Makariv, a town 60 kilometers west from Kyiv, burned down during the hostilities there, according to Farmak’s supervisory board member Peter Chernyshov.

Ukrainian photojournalist Maks Levin goes missing outside Kyiv. According to his friend, photographer Markiian Lyseiko, Levin has been unable to be reached since March 13, when he traveled to the area north of Kyiv to take photographs of the hostilities there.

The human cost of Russia’s war

Two children killed following Russian attack on Rubizhne. According to Luhansk Oblast Governor Serhiy Gaidai, Russians struck an apartment building in Luhansk Oblast Rubizhne at around 8 p.m. local time on March 22. The shell exploded on the fifth floor, killing three people, including two children.

Prosecutor General: Russian invader kills man, rapes wife in Kyiv Oblast. In a village in the Brovarskyi district of Kyiv Oblast, a Russian soldier murdered a man and then, along with another soldier, repeatedly raped his wife, according to Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova. One of the men was identified and is now wanted.

One dead in shelling of Kyiv’s Obolon district. Russian shelling occurred at about 1 p.m. on March 22 in a residential district in northern Kyiv. The attack damaged two buildings and a vehicle, killed one and injured three others, according to the local authorities.

Russian military casualties have surpassed that of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces released the information claiming that as of March 22 the Russian military sustained 15,300 casualties. Over the ten years of the USSR’s war in Afghanistan, the reported number was 15,051.

International response

UN chief calls on Russia to end ‘unwinnable’ war. UN chief Antonio Guterres said on March 22 that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “is going nowhere fast.” Speaking at UN headquarters in New York, he decried the conflict as “absurd” and “unwinnable.” “Even if Mariupol falls, Ukraine cannot be conquered city by city, street by street, house by house,” Guterres added.

Greek foreign minister wants to travel with humanitarian aid mission to Mariupol. Nikos Dendias said he wanted to lead the mission to the besieged seaport city in southeastern Ukraine, which is home to a sizeable ethnic Greek community. He said at a news conference in Athens that he sent notes to both the Ukrainian and Russian sides about this.

€576,000 raised to support Ukrainian zoos. European Association of Zoos and Aquaria has already transferred some funds to zoos in Ukraine that have been suffering since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to the organization’s statement.

Italy wants Ukraine to join the European Union. In his response to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to the Italian parliament on March 22, Prime Minister Mario Draghi said that “Italy wants Ukraine to join European Union,” Italian media outlet Ansa reports.

Want to get the news faster? Follow our website: kyivindependent.com.

Today’s Ukraine Daily was brought to you by Oleg Sukhov, Igor Kossov, Daria Shulzhenko, Dylan Carter, Olena Goncharova, Oleksiy Sorokin, Olga Rudenko, Toma Istomina and Brad LaFoy.

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