Because the conflict enters its 752nd day, these are the primary developments.
Right here is the scenario on Saturday, March 16, 2024.
Combating
- Ukraine’s President Volodymr Zelenskyy has condemned a Russian missile assault on the Black Sea port metropolis of Odesa by which no less than 21 individuals had been killed and 75 wounded.
- Zelenskyy stated Russia would obtain a “fair response” from Ukrainian forces for what he known as a “vile” strike on a metropolis that has been attacked by Russian drones or missiles virtually on daily basis this month.
- Ukrainian authorities have begun mass evacuations of communities within the northern Sumy area, near the Russian border, after prolonged durations of intense shelling of the world, native officers stated.
- Ukrainian drones struck two oil refineries belonging to Russian state-owned oil large Rosneft in Samara area, Governor Dmitry Azarov stated on Telegram.
- There have been no casualties however the Volga river area’s Syzran refinery was on fireplace, he stated, whereas an assault on the Novokuibyshevsk refinery was thwarted.
- Russia’s President Vladimir Putin promised to punish Ukraine for what he stated was election day shelling that struck civilian targets on Russian territory. Russians are voting in elections that finish on Sunday, with Putin broadly anticipated to win a fifth time period.
Politics and diplomacy
- Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations, stated elections within the Russian-occupied areas of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Crimea, which Russia invaded and annexed in 2014, had been “illegitimate”.
- “Holding elections in another UN member state’s territory without its consent is in manifest disregard for the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity. Such elections have no validity under international law,” Kyslytsya stated in a joint assertion with European Union nations, the US, the UK and different nations.
- A UN fee of inquiry on Ukraine stated it had gathered extra proof that Russia has systematically tortured Ukrainian prisoners of conflict, by way of rape threats and the usage of electrical shocks on genitals. Some Ukrainian prisoners had been so hungry in Russian detention centres that they resorted to consuming cleaning soap, worms and leftover pet food, the report stated.
- The Group of Seven (G7) nations warned Iran in opposition to offering ballistic missiles to Russia to make use of in its conflict in opposition to Ukraine and stated it could “respond swiftly” with new sanctions, together with probably banning Iran Air from Europe.
- German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hosted French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Berlin for pressing discussions on how finest to assist Ukraine, which is brief on the navy assets wanted to definitively halt Russia’s invasion.