Because the warfare enters its 752nd day, these are the principle 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 a minimum of 21 individuals had been killed and 75 wounded.
- Zelenskyy mentioned Russia would obtain a “truthful response” from Ukrainian forces for what he referred to as a “vile” strike on a metropolis that has been attacked by Russian drones or missiles nearly daily this month.
- Ukrainian authorities have begun mass evacuations of communities within the northern Sumy area, near the Russian border, after prolonged intervals of intense shelling of the world, native officers mentioned.
- Ukrainian drones struck two oil refineries belonging to Russian state-owned oil big Rosneft in Samara area, Governor Dmitry Azarov mentioned on Telegram.
- There have been no casualties however the Volga river area’s Syzran refinery was on hearth, he mentioned, whereas an assault on the Novokuibyshevsk refinery was thwarted.
- Russia’s President Vladimir Putin promised to punish Ukraine for what he mentioned was election day shelling that struck civilian targets on Russian territory. Russians are voting in elections that finish on Sunday, with Putin extensively anticipated to win a fifth time period.
Politics and diplomacy
- Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations, mentioned 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 one other UN member state’s territory with out its consent is in manifest disregard for the rules of sovereignty and territorial integrity. Such elections don’t have any validity below worldwide legislation,” Kyslytsya mentioned in a joint assertion with European Union nations, the USA, the UK and different nations.
- A UN fee of inquiry on Ukraine mentioned it had gathered extra proof that Russia has systematically tortured Ukrainian prisoners of warfare, by way of rape threats and using 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 mentioned.
- The Group of Seven (G7) nations warned Iran towards offering ballistic missiles to Russia to make use of in its warfare towards Ukraine and mentioned it will “reply 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 sources wanted to definitively halt Russia’s invasion.