Ukraine: WAR BULLETIN March 24, 10.30 EST
Embassy of Ukraine in the USA
WAR BULLETIN
March 24, 10.30 EST
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on NATO to provide Ukraine with military assistance to the extent that will enable the Ukrainian army to oppose the military arsenal of the Russian Federation.
Russia has launched a new phase of terror against the city of Mariupol. Residents who survived Russian bombing and artillery shelling are now being forcibly deported to Russia.
An unexploded «Tornado» projectile was found at the site of the Neutron Source nuclear facility in the Kharkiv region.
Russian war crime – the shelling of the town of Rubizhne in the Luhansk region with phosphate munitions.
WAR ROOM
General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
The total combat losses of the enemy from 24.02 to 24.03:
personnel – 15800,
tanks ‒ 530,
APVs ‒ 1597,
artillery systems – 280,
MLRS – 82,
anti-aircraft warfare systems – 47,
aircrafts – 108,
helicopters – 124,
vehicles – 1033,
boats / vessels – 4,
fuel tanks – 72,
UAVs operational-tactical level – 50.
special equipment – 16.
The estimations of losses are completed under high intensity of hostilities.
The 29th day of the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people to the Russian military invasion has begun.
The Defence Forces continues to conduct a defence operation in the Eastern, Southeastern and Northeastern directions.
The enemy did not succeed in any of them.
Groups of troops deter the enemy in these areas, conduct a stabilization operation and perform territorial defence tasks.
250 aircraft flights of the enemy were completed for the past 24 hours (which is on 60 flights more than on March 22). Russian forces significantly intensified their air strikes aiming at military and civilian infrastructure of Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv regions.
The Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine repulses concentrated missile and air strikes of the enemy. One of the main objectives is to provide aerial support of crucial infrastructure and groups of troops of Ukraine. For the previous day, 11 enemy air targets were downed (7 planes, 1 UAV, 1 helicopter and 2 cruise missiles). Data are being clarified.
In the temporarily occupied territories of Kherson region, in connection with peaceful protests against the occupation, the enemy resorted to terror of the local population, actively using “Rosguard” units to prevent these actions of civil disobedience.
The enemy continues to lose manpower and equipment in all directions. Total resistance of the Ukrainian people continues.
Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights
The aggressor’s troops continue terrorist acts against the sources of increased nuclear danger in Ukraine. An unexploded «Tornado» projectile was found at the site of the Neutron Source nuclear facility in the Kharkiv region.
The presence of this warhead next to a subcritical nuclear installation poses a potential risk of explosion. Currently, it is impossible to neutralize the projectile due to constant hostilities in Kharkiv in general and directly in the area of the location of the nuclear installation, which has repeatedly come under fire.
As of today, it has been transferred to a deep subcritical state.
The Neutron Source facility, like any other nuclear facility, is not designed to operate in combat. Continued bombing or shelling could result in severe radiation effects.
The situation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is also deteriorating. Forests are burning near the station. 7 fires were recorded.
The area of forest fires in the exclusion zone exceeds the permissible values by tens of times. Ukrainian rescuers are hampered by fighting and the presence of Russian occupiers in the fight against forest fires that have covered an area that significantly exceeds the permissible norms.
There is a significant deterioration in safety parameters and the state of the radiation situation.
Further escalation and fighting near nuclear facilities threaten to turn Ukraine and all of Eastern Europe into a nuclear desert.
The enemy daily violates the requirements of the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Hostile Use of Means of Environmental Influence and Article 56 of the 1977 Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions and Other Acts Regulating International Nuclear Obligations.
I reiterate the need for the IAEA to take all possible measures and take the nuclear facilities of Ukraine under its protection.
Another Russian war crime was the shelling of the town of Rubizhne in the Luhansk region with phosphate munitions.
Rockets filled with white phosphorus fell on a residential area of the city. There was a fire. It is currently known about four dead and 6 wounded. The number of victims is being clarified.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the ignited phosphorus burns at temperatures above 800 degrees Celsius, and fires can spread over large areas, up to several hundred square kilometers.
The use of such weapons can cause very severe and painful injuries or lead to a slow painful death.
The Additional Protocols of 1977 to the Geneva Convention prohibit the use of white phosphorus munitions if they endanger civilians.
Attacking a peaceful city with such weapons is a war crime under the Statute of the International Military Tribunal and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
As of March 24, 2022, according to the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations, as well as other sources that need confirmation, 128 children (+7 per day) have died and 172 children (+5 per day) have been injured since the Russian invasion in Ukraine.
It is impossible to establish the actual number of dead and wounded children due to the fact that the occupying forces are actively fighting in Ukrainian cities.
11-year-old Ukrainian gymnast Kateryna died under the rubble in Mariupol. The shell of the Russian occupiers hit the house where the girl was at the time.
As a result of mass shelling of Rubizhne, Luhansk region, 6 were wounded, 4 died, 2 of them children.
In the city of Bucha, Kyiv region, Russian soldiers ruthlessly shot dead a car with a family, a mother and two children aged 4 and 9. Everyone died.
As a result of daily bombings and shelling, 566 (+18 per day) educational institutions were damaged. 73 of them were completely destroyed. It is more than 230 schools, 155 kindergartens.
Such actions of the Russian occupation forces are a direct violation of the Hague and Geneva Conventions. The aggressor continues to defiantly violate the fundamental rights of children – the right to life and health, guaranteed to every child in the world by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Each of these facts is a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Head of Kharkiv Region Administration
In Kharkov at the point of delivery of humanitarian aid Russians killed 6 people, 15 people wounded. Russians continue to terrorize civilians!
In Kharkiv, near Akademika Pavlova Street, Russians fired long-range weapons at the Nova Poshta checkpoint, near which Kharkiv residents were receiving humanitarian aid.
According to preliminary data, 6 civilians were killed and another 15 were wounded, and they were hospitalized. The number of victims is being determined.
This is another war crime of the Russian occupiers.
Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine
About 200 civilians were evacuated from the shelled cities of Donetsk oblast.
Russian troops do not stop firing on settlements in the region. In the past 24 hours residents of Avdiivka and Ocheretyn were evacuated to safe places.
140 people were rescued from Avdiivka, including 32 children, and 46 people from Ocheretyn.
https://www.facebook.com/mvs.gov.ua
POLICY
President of Ukraine
NATO can still prevent the deaths of Ukrainians from Russian strikes by providing weapons – Volodymyr Zelenskyy
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on NATO to provide our country with military assistance to the extent that will enable the Ukrainian army to oppose the military arsenal of the Russian Federation.
“Ukraine does not have powerful anti-missile weapons, and has a much smaller aircraft fleet than Russia. Therefore, their advantage in the sky is like the use of weapons of mass destruction. And you see the consequences today – how many people were killed, how many peaceful cities were destroyed,” the Head of State noted during the speech in the video conference format at the NATO summit in Brussels.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed that the Ukrainian army has been resisting the Russian invasion for a month in unequal conditions. Russia’s superiority has resulted in numerous casualties, including among the civilian population of Ukraine.
“To save people and our cities, Ukraine needs military assistance – without restrictions. As Russia uses without restrictions its entire arsenal against us. Destroys all living things. Any objects – from houses to churches, from food warehouses to universities, from bridges to hospitals,” the President said.
He reminded that Ukraine had asked NATO to close the skies for Russian military aircraft or to provide aircraft.
“You have thousands of fighter jets! But we haven’t been given any yet. We asked for tanks. So that we can unblock our cities that are now dying – Mariupol, Berdyansk, Melitopol, others. Cities where Russia is keeping hundreds of thousands of people hostage and artificially creating famine – no water, no food, nothing there. You have at least 20,000 tanks! Ukraine asked for a percent, one percent of all your tanks to be given or sold to us! But we do not have a clear answer yet. The worst thing during the war is not having clear answers to requests for help,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized.
The Head of State stressed that Ukraine had never wanted this war and did not want to fight for years.
“We just want to save our people. We want to survive,” he added.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed: the North Atlantic Alliance can still prevent the deaths of Ukrainians from Russian strikes by providing weapons needed by the Ukrainian army.
At the same time, the President thanked those NATO member states that help Ukraine as much as they can. But now is the time to take care of security in Europe.
“I am sure you already understand that Russia does not intend to stop in Ukraine. Does not intend and will not. It wants to go further. Against the eastern members of NATO. The Baltic states, Poland – that’s for sure,” he said.
The President called on the Alliance to provide Ukraine with one percent of all their aircraft and tanks, as well as MLRS systems, anti-ship weapons, air defense equipment.
“When all this is finally available, it will give us, and you as well, one hundred percent security,” said Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
He also made a request to NATO regarding the Ukrainian military: “After such a war against Russia, I ask you: Never, please, never tell us again that our army does not meet NATO standards. We have shown what our standards are capable of. And how much we can give to the common security in Europe and the world. How much we can do to protect from aggression against everything we value, everything you value,” the President stressed.
At the same time, the President added that NATO had yet to show what the Alliance can do to save people, “to show that this is truly the most powerful defense union in the world.”
Speech by the President of Ukraine at the Riksdag in Sweden
Swedish people!
Now the blue and yellow flag in the world is probably the most popular. These colors are associated with freedom. This is true for different people on different continents. And of course in Europe.
The blue and yellow colors of the national flag are not just about Ukraine. This is about you as well, about Sweden. And obviously this is not a coincidence. This is fate. Because we are equally for freedom. We are equally for a peaceful life. We are equally for respect for everyone. We are equally for justice and equally for caring for the natural world in which we live. Therefore, it is logical that Sweden is now among those who support Ukraine the most.
And I am sincerely grateful to each of you for this.
Today is exactly the month of the worst ordeal – the full-scale war waged by Russia against our state.
Europe has never known such a dark month since World War II. It has not seen such destruction and such war crimes. The list of those killed already reaches thousands. Dozens of our cities and communities were destroyed. Russian troops do not distinguish between civilian and military targets. They destroy everything. They burn residential neighborhoods and houses. They blow up hospitals. They even fire at kindergartens with rocket artillery! Hundreds of educational facilities and more than 200 schools were destroyed. Russian troops bombed universities.
Imagine – they destroy any infrastructure that simply serves life. Warehouses with food and medicine. They seized two nuclear power plants. Yesterday they hit the second chemical production already. Phosphorus bombs were used today! Both adults and children were killed. What is the purpose of such actions of Russia? What is the reason of such terror against us? This is an attempt to conquer the whole nation. An attempt to make the neighboring state a slave.
Modern Europe, which has finally become peaceful, is built on clear principles. Namely: there can be no forced border revision. And every nation has the right to choose its own future – without dictatorship, without coercion, without occupation. Thanks to these two principles, we in Europe have had an unprecedented era of cooperation. Peace. Confidence.
We had it until the Russian leadership decided that it could travel in time. That it allegedly could cancel the 21st century. Allegedly could act as in the old days of totalitarian ideologies.
If Ukraine failed to endure, defend itself, it would mean that everything we, living and modern people, value was lost. Everything you value. Everything that is valued by any free people of any state. This would mean that all of Russia’s neighbors are in danger. This would mean that you are in danger, because only the sea separates you from this aggressive policy of this state.
And Russian propagandists are already discussing on state television how Russia is occupying your Gotland island in particular. And how to keep it under control for decades. They show it to the Russians on the map, show the directions of the offensive… You may ask for what purpose? They say it will be beneficial for Russia to deploy air defense systems and a military base in Gotland. To cover the capture of the Baltic states.
Russia went to war against Ukraine because it expects to go further to Europe. Expects to destroy freedom further in Europe. This is a fundamental challenge for the European security system.
Please take a look at what the Russian military has already done in our country. 8 years of war in the east. Occupation of Crimea. This is repression. Torture of people, suppression of all manifestations of freedom and diversity.
A month of full-scale war. Total cruelty. The bombing of peaceful cities is as terrible as it was in Syria. Abduction of children. Forced transportation of children and adults to Russia. Rape in the occupied areas. Large-scale looting by the Russian military. Now tens of thousands of houses and tens of thousands of apartments have been destroyed. And there are already almost ten million migrants, three and a half million of them in the European Union.
I deliberately do not want to call these Ukrainians refugees. Because I know that they will return to Ukraine. As soon as Russia leaves our land, as soon as peace is established.
Sweden was one of the first to come to our aid. I am grateful to you! Your support is absolutely sincere. It is based on values. On our love for freedom. On what our blue-yellow national colors symbolize.
The whole world knows what Sweden wants. The whole world has seen in a month of this shameful war what Ukraine wants. We are together in our anti-war coalition. And we must do everything to make Russia seek peace.
Sweden has made a historic decision to provide Ukraine with the necessary weapons. We thank you for that! For your prudence. For your foresight.
Sweden supports the sanctions policy. A policy without which there will be no peace. Because the Russian leadership will not understand any language other than effective sanctions.
But for peace to come faster, sanctions packages against Russia must be applied on a weekly basis. Not a single barrel of Russian oil! No Russian ships at your ports! Not a single euro of taxes of your companies in Russia! Their military machine must be left without means of subsistence.
Deliberate actions of Russian troops to destroy civilians in Ukraine, to destroy our peaceful cities must receive an inevitable and principled response from all European countries. From the free world.
This has already become the typical feature of Russian troops… Syria, Ukraine… Massacres. Cities destroyed to the ground. Phosphorus and other prohibited munitions. To prevent this from becoming a victorious strategy, all war crimes must be punished. Those who gave the order to kill and those who killed must face the Tribunal. So that no other country in the world thinks that it can kill people with impunity just like that, that it can destroy neighboring countries.
I am confident that together we will be able to ensure peace, and that is why we must now think about rebuilding Ukraine after this war. And it will happen! I invite Swedish architects, Swedish companies, the Swedish state, your people to take part in this historic project.
Ukraine was beautiful. But now it will be great, because this is our nation. Great Ukraine. Great recovery project. For the sake of the people. For the development of our country and the whole of Europe.
I invite you to show to the world, to all present and future generations that war does not bring the result. And peace does. And it gives life.
Sweden is the first country we offer this project to. You can take patronage over any city, region or industry to restore them. I am confident that your leadership will be indispensable. Your technology, business and your love of life. Your ability to organize space in people’s best interest.
Ukraine – all our heroic defenders, all our citizens – has already done a lot to protect our common European values, our common European home.
We are fighting not only for Ukraine, but also for the security of the European Union! And we have proved that we deserve to be a full member of the European Union. The decision is already being elaborated. It’s time to adopt it!
I believe that you will support us in this as well.
Thank you, thank you Sweden!
https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/promova-prezidenta-ukrayini-u-riksdagu-shveciyi-73793
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba
If any EU country bows to Putin’s humiliating demands to pay for oil and gas in rubles, it will be like helping Ukraine with one hand and helping Russians kill Ukrainians with the other. I urge relevant countries to make a wise and responsible choice.
https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1506899782786244612
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine on the forced deportation of residents of Mariupol by Russia
The Russian Federation has launched a new phase of terror against the city of Mariupol. Residents who survived Russian bombing and artillery shelling are now being forcibly deported to Russia.
15,000 residents of the Left Bank district of Mariupol are in grave danger. The Russian occupiers are forcing them to move to Russia. The invaders confiscate people’s passports and other identity documents.
According to the information available, the Russian army has forcibly deported about 6,000 Mariupol residents to Russian filtration camps in order to use them as hostages and put more political pressure on Ukraine.
At the same time, the Russian armed forces are firing on evacuation columns trying to leave Mariupol for the territory of Ukraine free from Russian occupation. Russian troops continue to hold in detention a humanitarian convoy of buses that arrived a few days ago from Zaporizhia to take people from Mariupol.
Such actions by Russia are a gross violation of the laws and customs of war, the norms of international humanitarian law, in particular the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions.
We call on the world leaders gathered in Brussels today for the NATO, Group of Seven and EU summits to take urgent action to save the lives of the residents of Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities who have found themselves in an inhumane siege by the Russian army.
The international community must impose new tough sanctions on Russia to stop its deadly military machine, as well as cut off all business ties with Russian companies to stop funding Russia’s war against Ukraine.
