Kyiv came under heavy Russian bombardment on Thursday morning. “Rocket fragments fell on a kindergarten in Sviatoshynskyi district,” said Vitali Klitschko, mayor of the Ukrainian capital, in a series of updates on Telegram. An apartment building and cars in other areas were on fire, he added, with evacuations under way. Ten people had been injured, Klitschko said, among them an 11-year-old girl.
Ukraine’s air force commander, Mykola Oleschuk, said all 31 Russian missiles targeting Kyiv were shot down, comprising two ballistic missiles and 29 cruise missiles. Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said: “After a pause of 44 days, the enemy launched another missile attack on Kyiv.” Popko said the Russians used strategic bombers and also launched some missiles from Russian territory; while after complicated manoeuvres in neighbouring regions, the missiles targeted the city from different directions. Air alerts lasted for nearly three hours.
A Russian missile hit an industrial area in Ukraine’s northern city of Kharkiv on Wednesday, killing at least five people, injuring eight and leaving others missing while causing a major fire in a printing house, local authorities said. The mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov, said later, at about 11pm local time, that Kharkiv had come under fresh shelling. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the strike underscored the lack of proper air defences in Kharkiv. “Kharkiv needs an adequate number of air defence systems, Sumy region needs it, Chernihiv region and all our regions suffering from Russian terror need it.”
The Netherlands is providing Ukraine with €350m for F-16 fighter jet ammunition and advanced reconnaissance drones, the Dutch defence minister, Kajsa Ollongren, has announced in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
The European Commission has disbursed the first €4.5bn of support under the EU’s new Ukraine Facility. In a statement published on Wednesday by the commission, its president, Ursula von der Leyen, said: “Today is a good day for Ukraine, as more EU funds are flowing to meet urgent needs.”
EU leaders will discuss a plan on Thursday to use €2.5-€3bn a year of profits from frozen Russian financial assets to buy arms for Ukraine.
Five member countries have urged the EU to impose a ban on grain imports from Russia and its ally Belarus, citing Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and internal market dumping.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told Ukraine during a trip to Kyiv on Wednesday a major US assistance package that has been blocked by Republicans for months would “get to Ukraine”, though he could not say how soon, as he vowed the Biden administration’s support would continue.
Ukrainian drones operated by the GUR military intelligence agency attacked the Engels airbase deep inside Russian territory early on Wednesday, a Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters. The governor of the Saratov region, where the base is located, confirmed an attack by Ukrainian drones.
Ukraine could make 2m drones a year – double the existing rate of production – with extra financial support from the US, other western governments and private citizens, the country’s minister for digital transformation has told the Guardian’s defence editor, Dan Sabbagh. Mykhailo Fedorov said Ukraine’s government was “contracting much less than our manufacturers are capable of”. Ukraine is also soliciting donations from the public through its United 24 fundraising initiative for both air and sea drones. The drones could typically carry only about two grenades’ worth of explosives, Fedorov said, meaning “we can’t say that drones are a full substitute for artillery” of which Ukraine remains badly short.
Russia has tortured and arbitrarily detained people in occupied Ukraine, creating a “climate of fear” and suppressing Ukrainian identity, a UN report said on Wednesday. The report, which the UN human rights office said was based on more than 2,300 interviews, accused Moscow of “committing widespread violations” of human rights law. The UN report also said Russia had tried to suppress Ukrainian identity among children, replacing the curriculum in schools with a Russian one that sought to “justify” Moscow’s invasion, the report added.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed its forces had cleared the Russian border village of Kozinka in the Belgorod region of Ukrainian forces, according to the state news agency RIA. Ukrainian forces have made several attacks on Kozinka and nearby frontier settlements in recent weeks.
On Wednesday, the EU reached provisional agreement to extend Ukrainian food producers’ tariff-free access to its markets until June 2025 – albeit with new limits on grain imports. Polish protest leaders said they were not happy with the latest deal as it included the last few years as a reference for import limits. Polish police said they knew of more than 580 protests planned for Wednesday, with an estimated participation of 70,000 people.
Russia has lost 433,090 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022, according to the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces. This number, reported on 20 March via the Kyiv Independent, includes 700 casualties Russian forces suffered just over the past day.
