20 March 2023

March 2023 in brief

Russia fired 81 missiles, including six Kinzhals, killing five people in a residential area of Lviv oblast and one in Dnipropetrovsk oblast according to regional governors, and the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was cut from the grid for hours. ^[1] Police and volunteers evacuated civilians from Chasiv Yar and nearby towns under artillery fire, and WHO recorded attacks affecting health facilities in Kostyantynivka and Kherson. ^[1][2][3] In Bakhmut, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed about half the city as Ukraine's commanders chose to keep defending it, and he accused Russia's defence ministry of withholding ammunition. ^[1][2] The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Putin and children's commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova over the alleged unlawful deportation of children; Russia opened a criminal case against the prosecutor and judges, and Dmitry Medvedev said it was possible to imagine a hypersonic missile fired at the court. ^[1][2] Putin visited annexed Crimea and occupied Mariupol a day after the warrant, and later said Russia would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus while keeping control of them. ^[1][2] The Black Sea grain deal was renewed, with Russia saying it agreed to 60 days and Ukraine saying 120. ^[1] EU ministers backed a 2 billion euro plan to supply Ukraine with one million artillery shells within 12 months. ^[1]

Written from the records it cites; every figure appears in a cited record.