KRAZY KATS - 

Summary for Monday, 18th March 2024 - DAY 754

• The war in Ukraine was front and centre in Putin's his victory speech, as he claimed he was securing the border from recent raids by pro-Ukrainian military units and said that his main tasks as president would be the war in Ukraine, “strengthening defence capacity and the military”. Asked about the potential for a direct conflict with Nato, he said: “I think that everything is possible in the modern world … everyone understands that this would be one step from a full-scale third world war. I don’t think that anyone is interested in that.”
  
  
• Speaking in central Moscow after early results indicated he had won Russia’s presidential election in a landslide, Putin said unnamed people made an offer to release Alexei Navalny, the late Russian opposition leader, in a swap deal with the west a few days before he died. “The person who spoke to me hadn’t finished his sentence, and I said I agree. But, unfortunately, what happened, happened,” Putin said. It was the first time the Russian president had commented on Navalny since his death, which he called a “sad event”.
  
  
• The Russian embassy in the US will send Washington a diplomatic note on Monday protesting against the actions of the secret service during Russia’s presidential election on Sunday, Tass state news agency reported. Citing Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, Tass reported that secret service officers “allowed blocking the entrance to the Russian embassy and creating obstacles for Russian citizens who came to vote”.
  
  
• China will consider taking part in a peace conference aimed at ending the war in Ukraine which neutral Switzerland plans to host in the coming months, the Asian country’s ambassador to Berne was quoted as saying on Monday. Wang Shihting, China’s ambassador to Switzerland, said in an interview with the Neue Zuercher Zeitung that all parties should work to end the war. The Swiss government has said it aims to hold the peace conference by this summer after the idea was floated in January.
  
  
• Ukraine’s air defence systems destroyed 17 out of 22 Russia-launched drones overnight, Ukraine’s air force has said. The air force wrote on Telegram that in addition to the attack drones, Russia also launched seven missiles at Ukraine.
  
  
• Ukraine reported dozens of attacks by Russia near their shared border on Sunday, with more than 60 shelling incidents in the district of Sumy in which one person was killed. Earlier on Sunday one man was killed and at least eight people were wounded in a Russian missile attack on the Black Sea port city of Mykolaiv, Ukrainian officials said.
  
  
• A drone strike at a military installation in Moldova’s breakaway republic of Transnistria on Sunday destroyed a helicopter and ignited a fire, authorities in the pro-Russia region said, blaming the strike on Ukraine. However, Moldova’s Bureau for Reintegration Policies said in a statement that after examining video footage, they “do not confirm any attack” on Transnistria and called it “an attempt to cause fear and panic in the …