Damaged apartments in Kharkiv in northern Ukraine after Russian airstrikes, March 27, 2024

Wednesday’s Coverage: “1/3 of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Sunk or Disabled”

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1904 GMT:

At least five independent journalists in Moscow have been detained by police over the past day.

SOTAvision journalist Antonina Favorskaya was taken for interrogation late Wednesday. She had been serving a 10-day jail sentences for laying flowers at the grave of the late opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

Her colleagues Alexandra Astakhova and Anastasia Musatova were seized when they came to meet her at the detention center, expecting her release.

SOTAvision reporter Ekaterina Anikievich and Konstantin Zharov from RusNews were arrested by police early Thursday while filming near Favorskaya’s home.

Zharov said, “They kicked me, put a foot on my head, twisted my fingers, mocked me when I tried to get up, demanded to show my rucksack as if it might contain explosives.”

UPDATE 1900 GMT:

A Russia military aircraft crashed into the sea near the port of Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea on Thursday.

Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said the pilot safely ejected and was picked up by rescuers.

Russian Telegram channels reported that the warplane was a Su-35 fighter jet.

UPDATE 1853 GMT:

Twelve people were injured by a Russian missile strike on the Mykolaiv region in southern Ukraine on Thursday afternoon.

Six residential buildings were damaged.

In the Zaporizhzhia region, Iran-type attacks drones injured two women aged 72 and 74 as seven buildings were damaged.

UPDATE 1352 GMT:

Ukraine Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Poland counterpart Donald Tusk have met in Warsaw in an attempt to resolve the long-running dispute over Ukrainian exports.

Polish farmers argue that they have been undercut by cheaper Ukrainian agricultural products, leading Warsaw to block entry of commodities.

Shmyhal posted:

UPDATE 1343 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has appointed Oleh Ivashchenko as the new head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence service.

Ivashchenko succeeds Oleksandr Lytvynenko, who was named Secretary of the State National Security Council on Wednesday.

UPDATE 1004 GMT:

The head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service SVR has visited North Korea, which is propping up Vladimir Putin’s 25-month invasion of Ukraine.

Sergey Naryshkin was in Pyongyang from Monday to Wednesday, meeting North Korean Minister of State Security Ri Chang Dae. The SVR said. “They discussed topical issues of the development of the international situation, ensuring regional security, and deepening Russian-North Korean cooperation in the face of attempts to increase pressure from external forces.”

The North Korean regime’s KCNA said the two sides discussed further boosting cooperation to deal with the “ever-growing spying and plotting moves by the hostile forces”.

North Korea is providing munitions to Russia to try and sustain assaults on Ukraine.

UPDATE 0633 GMT:

In its latest quarterly report, the UN Human Rights Commission highlights Russian torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war.

Commission staff interviewed 60 POWs, recently released in prisoner exchanges, who spent between several weeks and nearly two years in Russian captivity.

Their accounts reinforced previously documented patterns of widespread torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of Ukrainian POWs in Russian captivity, as well as conditions of detention that fail to comply with international law.

The cumulative impacts of repeated torture, ill-treatment, isolation and poor conditions in Russian captivity severely affected the physical and mental well-being of many POWs, with risk
of long-lasting adverse effects.

The Commission cites reports of the execution of at least 32 recently captured Ukrainian POWs in 12 separate incidents. It
verified three of the incidents in Russian forces killed seven Ukrainian troops outside of combat.

UPDATE 0621 GMT:

The Ukraine Air Force says air defenses downed 26 of 28 Iran-type attack drone launched by Russia overnight.

The UAVs were fired from the Kursk region in southwest Russia and from Cape Chauda in occupied Crimea.

Russian forces also fired three X-22 cruise missiles, an X-31P anti-radar missile launched from the Black Sea, and an S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, have denounced “Russian terror” as a 12-year-old boy was killed and 19 wounded in Kharkiv by Russia’s airstrikes.

Four of the injured were children. Thirteen residential buildings and the Institute for Emergency Surgery were damaged.

Mayor Ihor Terekhov posted, “This is another act of bloody terror against Ukrainians.” Zelenskiy wrote as he visited the Sumy region, west of Kharkiv along the Russian border:

The President added, “I am grateful to everyone who stays in the Sumy region and works to ensure that the region withstands challenges. I thank everyone whose job it is to preserve the normalcy of life and the opportunity for everyone to live despite any difficulties.”

He urged Ukraine’s international allies to accelerate deliveries of warplanes and air defense systems, “There are no rational explanations for why Patriots, which are plentiful around the world, are still not covering the skies of Kharkiv and other cities.”

The head of police for the Kharkiv region, Volodymyr Tymoshko, said the Russians may have used a new guided bomb, the UMPB D-30, “This is something between a guided aerial bomb which they have used recently, and a missile. It’s a flying bomb.”

Governor Oleh Synehubo noted, “It seems that the Russians decided to test their modified bombs on the residents of the houses.”