24 March 2026

March 2026 in brief

A ballistic missile hit a five-storey apartment block in Kharkiv, killing 11 people including two children, according to local authorities, and a later attack killed six people across Ukraine and set fire to St Andrew's Church in Lviv's UNESCO-listed old town, officials said. ^[1][2] The UN Humanitarian Coordinator condemned a drone strike on an evacuation van of the Ukrainian NGO Proliska in Donetsk Oblast that killed two women, citing Russian forces' increasing use of such drones against civilians and aid workers. Moldova declared a 15-day environmental alert after oil contamination linked to a Russian strike on Ukraine's Novodnistrovsk hydropower plant reached the Dniester, threatening its water supply, and Romania's foreign minister said Russia bore full responsibility. ^[1] A UN commission of inquiry found that Russian authorities' deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children amounted to crimes against humanity, saying it had verified more than 1,200 cases. ^[1] Ukraine's Air Assault Forces said they had retaken nine settlements in the Oleksandrivka sector, and Ukraine's military said it struck the Kremniy El microchip plant in Bryansk with Storm Shadow missiles, where the regional governor said at least seven people were killed. ^[1][2] Stray Ukrainian drones crashed in Latvia and hit the chimney of an Estonian power plant during Ukrainian strikes on Russian Baltic ports, with no one hurt. ^[1] Russia and Ukraine exchanged 500 prisoners each over two days in early March, and US and Ukrainian delegations met in Miami on 21 and 22 March after the US-Israeli strikes on Iran postponed a planned trilateral round. ^[1][2]

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