These are the key developments on day 1,124 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is the roundup of key events on Monday, March 24.
Fighting
- Ukraine’s Air Force said it destroyed 97 of 147 Russian drones in an overnight attack on multiple Ukrainian regions. A further 25 drones were reportedly “lost” due to electronic warfare.
- Russian news agency Interfax reported Russia’s Defence Ministry as saying its forces captured the village of Sribne in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
- Russian attacks on the Donetsk region killed four people, including three who were killed in a strike on Dobropillia, a town on the front lines of the war.
- At least one person was killed and several injured in an explosion at a police station in the Odesa region, southern Ukraine, local media reported. Witness statements cited in the reports said the explosion was caused by a woman who walked into the building with an explosive device in a plastic bag.
- Russia launched its third consecutive overnight attack on Kyiv, wounding a 37-year-old man and damaging several houses, Kyiv’s regional Governor Mykola Kalashnyk said. The man sustained injuries to his upper body and head from shrapnel and was later hospitalised, Kalashnyk added.
- In a separate attack in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, a 54-year-old woman was injured and several multistorey buildings were damaged, the region’s administration said.
Politics and diplomacy
- Steve Witkoff, United States President Donald Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, told Fox News that he does not believe Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to invade Europe. “I just don’t see that he wants to take all of Europe. I take him at his word in this sense,” Witkoff said.
- Zelenskyy said Putin should be pressured to end his three-year invasion of Ukraine. “No matter what we talk about with our partners, we need to push Putin to give a real order to stop the strikes: The one who brought this war must take it away,” he said in a social media post.
- Ukrainian and US officials met in Saudi Arabia to discuss a partial ceasefire amid warnings by Moscow that negotiations would be “difficult” despite Washington’s hopes for “real progress”.
- Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said the delegations were “working through a number of complex technical issues” but described the negotiations as “productive and focused”.
- He also said the discussions included proposals to protect Ukraine’s energy facilities and critical infrastructure. “We addressed key points including energy,” Umerov wrote on X, reiterating that the goal was a “just and lasting peace”.
- The Reuters news agency reported that the US delegation plans to seek progress towards a Black Sea ceasefire and a broader halt to violence when Washington sits down with Moscow in Saudi Arabia on Monday.
