The situation at the front
Russian forces are advancing in the Kupyansky, Limansky, Bakhmutsky, Avdeevsky and Maryinsky directions, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reports in a report dated March 27. The Ukrainian army repulsed more than 60 attacks over the past day. The Russians continue to storm Bakhmut, as well as the villages of Bogdanovka and Ivanovskoye in the Donetsk region.
Commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Alexander Syrsky visited the front line in the Bakhmut direction. “The most intense phase of the battle for Bakhmut continues. The situation is stubbornly difficult. The enemy suffers significant losses in people, weapons and military equipment, but continues to storm,” Syrsky said.
The founder of PMC Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said that "the Ministry of Defense has taken over the security on the flanks" of the group besieging Bakhmut. The positions around the city are currently mainly mercenaries from PMCs.
shelling
Russian forces bombarded Slovyansk with S-300 missiles. According to the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, as a result, two people died and 32 were injured, including a child. Five high-rise buildings and seven private houses, as well as administrative and office buildings, were destroyed.
Over the past day, according to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Russian side shelled settlements in Sumy, Kharkiv, Zaporozhye, Kherson and Donetsk regions.
Explosions occurred in occupied Melitopol on the morning of March 27. Vladimir Rogov, a member of the council of the Russian-appointed "administration" of the Zaporozhye region, said that as a result of an artillery strike by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the college building was partially destroyed, four people were injured.
Russian military Telegram channels reported that Ukrainian artillery fired on Russian-occupied Lisichansk, Luhansk region. As a result, a hospital, two residential buildings and a gas pipeline were damaged. There are also reports of strikes on the Kalininsky district of Donetsk, as a result of which several apartment buildings caught fire. Presumably, there are casualties among the population.
On March 26, a drone exploded in Kireevsk, Tula region, damaging 12 houses within a radius of 200 meters. The Russian Defense Ministry said that the region was attacked by a Tu-141 Strizh drone in strike performance, but it did not reach the target, as it fell due to the impact of the Russian Pole-21 electronic warfare complex.
Losses
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine claims that 610 Russian servicemen were killed over the past day. According to reports, about 100 bodies of Russian servicemen were delivered to the mortuary of the Troitskoye settlement in the Luhansk region. 140 seriously wounded soldiers were admitted to the hospital for treatment.
It is alleged that during the day the Russian army lost six armored combat vehicles, seven artillery systems, one multiple launch rocket system (MLRS).
Arms deliveries
18 Leopard 2 tanks arrived in Ukraine from Germany, Der Spiegel reports . In addition, 40 Marder combat vehicles were handed over to Ukrainians. Later, the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov said that he took part in the testing of new equipment that came into the possession of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: Challenger tanks, as well as Stryker, Cougar and Marder combat vehicles.
The British Ministry of Defense, in turn, reported that the Ukrainian tankers had completed a course in operating the British Challenger 2 and went home to continue fighting. The training began shortly after the British authorities announced in January that they would hand over 14 Challenger 2 tanks and their ammunition to Kyiv.
Israeli military expert David Gendelman told The Insider that the new tanks will be most useful during a massive counteroffensive.
“Arrived tanks should be used to staff the new brigades and reserve corps that are being created. It is ineffective to use them separately, the main use of tanks should be during the counteroffensive, where they should be used as part of battalion or brigade tactical groups in close cooperation with infantry, artillery, engineers, intelligence, etc. The start date of the offensive depends primarily on the accumulation of weapons and military equipment required by the plan, and secondly on weather conditions. When both points are completed, then we will see the offensive and the role of tanks in it.
Russia has added Su-35 fighter jets to the air units involved in the war with Ukraine, which can provide it with air superiority. A high-ranking Ukrainian official told ABC News about this. According to him, the Su-35s are equipped with “very effective radar and long-range missiles,” and Russia uses these fighters both to attack Ukrainian aircraft in the air and to support ground operations. The ABC News interlocutor emphasized that Ukraine does not have the ability to counter this threat.
The Wall Street Journal writes , citing its own sources, that Russia transferred to Iran developments in the field of electronic intelligence and tracking in exchange for the supply of kamikaze drones.
Assassination attempt on Russian police chief in Mariupol
In occupied Mariupol, the car of Mikhail Moskvin, the head of the city police department appointed by Russia, was blown up . According to TASS, he himself was a few meters from the car at the time of the explosion. Moskvin received a concussion, but survived.
The head of the IAEA visited Dneproges
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi met with President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, visited the Dnieper hydroelectric power station with him and examined the damage caused to the dam. Grossi emphasized that the hydroelectric power plant "is an integral part of the system that ensures the nuclear safety of the Zaporozhye NPP."
British intelligence: the threat of a drone attack keeps the Russian Black Sea Fleet from action
A British military intelligence report published on March 27 says that the Russian fleet in the Black Sea has been attacked at least twice by aerial and surface drones over the past six months. In particular, on March 22, three unmanned boats and a drone attempted to strike at the naval base in Sevastopol. The attack was repulsed and the Russian ships were not damaged. During the previous attack, on October 29, 2022, surface drones damaged the minesweeper Ivan Golubets and the frigate Admiral Makarov. “The threat of surface drones is likely to continue to deter the actions of the Russian Black Sea Fleet,” the report says.
Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus
On March 25, Vladimir Putin announced the construction of a storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Kyiv demanded to convene an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, and the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, said that if nuclear weapons are deployed in Belarus, the EU will impose new sanctions.
Orlando Bloom arrived in Ukraine
British actor and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Orlando Bloom visited Kiev, Irpen and the village of Demidov. In the capital, he met with Zelensky. Bloom said he would support projects to provide humanitarian assistance and restore infrastructure for Ukrainian children.
The Russian prosecutor's office sent inspectors to the "DPR" after a complaint from the Kaliningrad military
Officers from Moscow arrived in the Donetsk region with a check, sent there by the military prosecutor's office after the publication of an appeal recorded by the Kaliningrad mobilized. This is written by "7×7" with reference to a friend of one of the authors of the appeal, Nikolai Rakov. Servicemen from the “Storm” detachment spoke about the assault on the village of Vodiane, during which, according to them, the commanders drove the soldiers “to machine guns, to mortars, to tanks”, did not allow them to retreat and threatened to “destroy”.
Russian commander dies after violating the conditions of the "green corridor" near Ilovaisk
Ukrainian media and military bloggers reported the death of the commander of the 1st battalion of the 247th airborne assault regiment of the Russian Armed Forces, Hero of Russia Dmitry Lissitzky. According to Ukrainian sources, the battalion under his command, in violation of the agreements, shot down a convoy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the exit from the Ilovaisk cauldron in 2014. Ksenia Sobchak's Telegram channel "The Bloody Lady" claims that Lieutenant Colonel Lissitzky committed suicide.
The Insider on weekdays publishes reports with the main events of the war, about the situation on March 24 – in the material “Prisoners have become the largest category of losses, in the Lugansk region they cannot cope with the flow of the wounded. What's going on at the front .