Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 754

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 region”. It added that the military equipment destroyed in the footage, which appeared across social media, “has not worked for several years”.
  

Vladimir Putin claimed a landslide victory and a fifth term in Russia’s presidential election, with the Kremlin’s electoral machine boosting his share of the vote and turnout to near farcical levels.

Russian interior ministry launches 61 criminal cases after presidential election

Sixty-one criminal cases have been launched by the Russian interior ministry, and 150 administrative offence acts have been issued, during the 15-17 March presidential election, the Interfax news agency reports.
Deputy interior minister Alexander Gorovoy has been quoted by the Moscow-based news agency saying the largest number of criminal cases were for announcing a deliberately false act of terrorism (23) and for obstructing voters in exercising their rights (21).
Gorovoy claims that ministry departments had received “1,400 statements and reports of violations and possible crimes”, and that 547 hoax bomb threats were made during the three-day election period.
As we’ve been reporting, at least 80 people have been arrested across Russia for allegedly vandalising polling stations.

Western leaders denounce Putin’s 'illegitimate' election win

EU does not recognize results of Russian presidential pseudo-elections in Ukraine’s occupied territories

The European Union has condemned the holding of the Russian presidential pseudo-elections in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, and will not recognize their results.

This is said in a statement by EU High Representative Josep Borrell, Ukrinform reports.
As noted, the presidential elections held by Russia on 15-17 March took place in a highly restricted environment exacerbated also by Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine.
The statement says that Russian authorities have continued to increase the systematic internal repression by cracking down on opposition politicians, civil society organisations, independent media and other critical voices with the use of repressive legislation and politically motivated prison sentences.
According to Borrell, the shocking death of opposition politician Alexei Navalny in the run-up to the elections is yet another sign of the accelerating and systematic repression.
“The elections took place in an ever-shrinking political space, which has resulted in an alarming increase of violations of civil and political rights, and precluded many candidates from running, including all those opposed to Russia’s illegal war of aggression, deprived Russian voters of a real choice and heavily limited their access to accurate information. The European Union will continue to support the important work of Russian civil society organisations, human rights defenders and independent media,” the statement says.
The European Union will continue to support the important work of Russian civil society organisations, human rights defenders and independent media.
Borrell has stated that the European Union regrets the decision of Russian authorities not to invite OSCE/ODIHR observers to its elections.
In addition, the European Union strongly condemns the illegal holding of so-called “elections” in the territories of Ukraine that Russia has temporarily occupied: Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol, as well as in parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
“The so-called ‘elections’ in these territories represent yet another manifest violation by Russia of international law, including the UN Charter, and of Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity… We urge Russia to respect Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders and sovereignty,” the statement says.
The European Union reiterates that it does not and will never recognise either the holding of these so-called “elections” in the territories of Ukraine or their results. They are null and void and cannot produce any legal effect whatsoever. Russia’s political leadership and those involved in organising them will face consequences of these illegal actions.
“The European Union reiterates its unwavering support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders. Russia must cease its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine and immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw its military forces and equipment from the entire territory of Ukraine,” the statement says.
As reported, the pseudo-elections in Russia took place on March 15-17.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that these so-called elections have no legitimacy and cannot have any.
On Monday, the EU Foreign Affairs Council plans to adopt a statement on the so-called 'election' of the Russian president, as well as discuss Russia's war against Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East.

Here is a video of Vladimir Putin’s election victory speech, in which he vowed to prioritise what he called Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine:

Ukraine has collected pretrial information on over 128,000 victims of war crimes,

The Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations has recorded information on more than 128,000 victims of war crimes, and the number is growing every day of the war.
We see our function as being a bridge between the victims and those who provide help.
We are creating an ecosystem of support because no government body, no organisation can provide for so many victims.

More than a dozen European Council members have said that the EU must increase its security and defensive capabilities in the face of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine has brought rapid, profound and long- lasting changes to the European security environment.
We must continue to provide strong political, economic and military support to Ukraine for as long as necessary and the EU must increase its strength and capabilities in security and defence.
In the coming months, we will be setting the EU’s future strategic priorities amongst which, the security and defence sector will be one of the main issues.

Two people were killed and four more injured in Ukrainian shelling of the village of Nikolskoye in Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine

Polish farmers blocked two border crossings with Germany on Monday, local police said.

Kremlin says creation of a 'buffer zone' is necessary to protect Russian territory from Ukrainian attacks

Against the backdrop of (Ukrainian) drone attacks and the shelling of our territory: public facilities, residential buildings, measures must be taken to secure these territories.
They can only be secured by creating some kind of buffer zone so that any means that the enemy uses to strike us are out of range.

Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, has said that the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children now includes 33 countries

Russia's decade-long occupation of Crimea marked by severe human rights violations — Amnesty International

Three more families with children brought back to Ukraine from temporarily occupied territories

Three families from temporarily occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk Oblasts have returned to Ukraine-controlled territory.

Closing Summary:

• Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said it was “critically important” for the US to provide additional military aid to Ukraine, during a meeting with US senator Lindsey Graham on Monday. “It is critically important for us that the Congress soon completes all the necessary procedures and makes a final decision … which will strengthen the Ukrainian economy and our armed forces,” Zelenskiy said in a statement, AFP reported.
  
  
• Putin declared the Donbas and other occupied areas as the “New Russia” during a speech in Moscow’s Red Square remarks to mark his re-election and the 10th anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, [url=https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-68536879?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=65f86cb646578322549c005d%26Putin describes occupied regions as part of a %27New]BBC reported[/url]. Putin added that a new rail link is being built through parts of occupied Ukraine, noting that those regions have “declared their desire to return to their native family”.
  
  
• Putin added that Crimea returned ‘to our common family’ during his remarks. “Through decades, they carried faith in their fatherland. They never separated themselves from Russia and that’s what allowed Crimea to return to our common family,” he said.
  
  
• Putin also compared Crimea to an aircraft carrier that returned to its “home harbor”. “Ten years ago here, in the Red Square, on this very stage, I recalled that Crimea is often called an unsinkable aircraft carrier and it is appropriate to say that Crimea has returned to the home harbor,” Putin said.
  
  
• An independent Russian vote monitoring group has said that the presidential election that Vladimir Putin won in a landslide with nearly 90% of the vote was the most fraudulent and corrupt in the country’s history. Golos (Voice) said the three-day election that ended on Sunday could not be considered genuine because “the campaign took place in a situation where the fundamental articles of the Russian constitution, guaranteeing political rights and freedoms, were essentially not in effect”. “Never before have we seen a presidential campaign that fell so far short of constitutional standards,” the group said in a statement.