Live:Ukraine
⚡️This week, Russian forces attacked Ukraine with 1,770 drones, more than 1,530 guided aerial bombs, and 86 missiles, including more than 20 ballistic ones, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia launched 97 drones overnight, 90 of which were neutralized.
Kherson was under attack during the night. An artillery strike caused a fire in a five-story residential building. In the morning, a drone strike set a minibus on fire.
Homes also burned in the Novhorod-Siverskyi district of the Chernihiv region as a result of attacks. Two women were injured.
⚡️ “Fck you” — that was Russia’s response to a French proposal to include Europeans in peace negotiations, the Financial Times writes.*
In February, advisers to French President Emmanuel Macron on national security, Emmanuel Bonne and Bertrand Buchwalter, visited Moscow for talks with Russian negotiator Yuri Ushakov. According to sources, French officials insisted that Moscow agree that Europeans should have a seat at the negotiating table.
“Ushakov’s response to that question was basically: ‘Sorry, actually no, we don’t — f*ck you,’” a senior European diplomat said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Financial Times that “Europeans do not want to help the peace process,” adding that when the French representative arrived, he “did not bring any positive signals, so indeed he heard nothing positive in response.”
⚡️ The number of people killed in the shelling of Zaporizhzhia on March 14 has risen to two, while the number of injured has increased to 21.
“Russia has taken another life — a 17-year-old boy who was wounded in the enemy attack on Zaporizhzhia has died in hospital,” said the head of the regional military administration, Ivan Fedorov.
⚡️ The United Kingdom is studying the possibility of using Octopus interceptor systems, produced jointly with Ukraine, to help unblock the Strait of Hormuz.
The Times reports this citing sources. “Ukraine is certainly the top priority for receiving these systems. But beyond that, the axis of aggression between Russia and Iran is clear,” a source told the newspaper.
The Times notes that the British Ministry of Defence is considering deploying thousands of interceptors and mine-hunting drones in the strait after President Trump called on allies to help ensure the safety of tankers passing through it.
▪️Yesterday, the U.S. president expressed hope that China, France, Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom would send vessels to protect the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil supply passes.
⚡️ FT: Trump is losing interest in negotiations on Ukraine, focusing on Iran.
According to four EU diplomats involved in talks with Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East has diverted Washington’s attention from a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
At the same time, diplomats say this benefits Russia due to higher oil prices, the suspension of U.S. sanctions, and the rapid depletion of American weapons stockpiles needed by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials, with the United States acting as a mediator, are “indeed at risk,” a senior European official said.
⚡️ Zelenskyy said the Defense Forces prevented a large-scale Russian offensive that Moscow had planned to continue this spring.
According to the president, this was largely made possible thanks to Ukrainian drone technologies. Russia has begun losing 30,000–35,000 troops per month due to FPV and other types of drones.
He also stressed that the situation around Iran is bringing Russia more money.
⚡️ In Sweden, the captain of the tanker Sea Owl 1 from Russia’s “shadow fleet” has been taken into custody.
The captain, a Russian citizen, is suspected of using a forged document.
The tanker was sailing under the flag of the Comoros, but the Swedish Coast Guard suspects it is not registered with any shipping company.
The vessel is on the EU sanctions list and was heading from Brazil to Russia. It had previously been used to transport oil between the two countries. However, on March 13 — the day the tanker was detained — there was no cargo on board.
⚡️ Two large rallies took place in Budapest — one by Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party and another by the opposition Tisza party led by Péter Magyar.
Orbán portrayed the April 12 vote as a choice between war and peace and promised that he would “preserve Hungary as an island of safety and calm even in such a turbulent world.”
“We will be here even if hundreds of paratroopers from Brussels fall from the sky. We will gather them up, dust them off, and send them back — some to Brussels and some to Kyiv,” the Hungarian prime minister said.
One of the banners at the party’s march also read: “We will not be a Ukrainian colony!”
Magyar accused the current government of turning Hungarians against each other through propaganda and steering the country away from its rightful place among Western democracies.
“Our homeland is part of the West, the European community, NATO. And not because of treaties or charters, but because it is written in our destiny,” he said.
▪️Tisza is ahead of Fidesz in most independent polls. However, the election outcome remains far from certain, as Fidesz is trying to secure support in many rural areas while using its control over public broadcasters and a vast network of loyal media outlets.
🇺🇸Donald Trump said NATO faces “a very bad future” if U.S. allies do not help unblock the Strait of Hormuz.
Earlier, he made such a request to the United Kingdom, France, China, Japan, and South Korea, arguing that Europe and China are heavily dependent on oil from the Persian Gulf, unlike the United States.
Trump also said he may postpone a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, scheduled for the end of March, if China does not help lift Iran’s blockade.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer refused to send warships. France, Germany, South Korea, Japan, and Australia have also expressed reluctance.
▪️After the start of the war between Israel, the United States, and Iran, the latter effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil supply passes. Brent crude currently costs about $104, roughly 45% higher than before the war.
⚡️ A Financial Times journalist asked Donald Trump whether Russia is providing Iran with satellite data to help it target American and Israeli sites.
He replied that he does not know for sure, but noted that the United States had also helped Ukraine, and that his predecessor Joe Biden had provided Kyiv with $350 billion.
“So it’s hard to say ‘My God, what are you doing?’ when we did the same thing ourselves,” Trump added.
▪️Earlier, several media outlets reported that Russia was providing military assistance to Iran. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi have also spoken about it.
⚡️ Drones attacked Russia overnight.
about:blank 🔴In the city of Labinsk in Russia’s Krasnodar region, an oil depot was hit. This was confirmed by local authorities.
about:blank 🔴Local Telegram channels also report an attack on the Aviastar plant in Ulyanovsk. It is the largest aircraft manufacturing plant in Russia and produces military aircraft.
⚡️ Russia continued attacking Ukraine overnight and in the morning, leaving several people injured:
▪️In Zaporizhzhia, three people were injured in a nighttime drone attack. Another woman was hurt in morning shelling.
▪️In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a woman was injured in the Nikopol district.
▪️One person was reported injured in Kharkiv as a result of a Russian drone strike.
▪️In the morning, Russia attacked Kyiv. The consequences were recorded in the Shevchenkivskyi, Sviatoshynskyi, and Solomianskyi districts. Drone debris also fell on Maidan Nezalezhnosti.
▪️A man who was injured during the shelling of the Kyiv region on March 14 died in hospital. In total, six people have been killed in the region.