Regions under fire: what the days before 18 March 2024 showed
A look back at the border and frontline regions of Ukraine in the days leading up to 18 March 2024, from Sumy to Odesa.
What did the map of Ukraine's regions look like on 18 March 2024? The reports from the preceding days describe a country under pressure in the north, south and east, while the fighting also spread into Russian border regions.
The north: Sumy and the border
On 17 March 2024, Ukraine said that three Russian sabotage groups had been intercepted in Sumy Oblast. Four days earlier, on 13 March, a Russian drone attack on an apartment building in the city of Sumy had killed two people and injured at least eight others.
Cities struck by missiles
On 12 March, a Russian missile strike on apartment buildings in Kryvyi Rih, in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, killed three people and injured at least 36. Three days later, on 15 March, a Russian double-tap missile strike in Odesa killed at least 20 people and injured at least 73 others.
Zaporizhzhia
On 14 March, Russian-installed officials at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar said that shelling had hit critical infrastructure at the plant. They called such attacks unacceptable. The plant lies in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, parts of which Russia had occupied since the invasion began on 24 February 2022. Russia declared the annexation of the Russian-controlled parts on 30 September 2022.
The fighting reaches Russian regions
The days before 18 March also brought attacks inside Russia. On 12 March, Ukraine launched 25 drones at Russian cities and hit a major oil refinery in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. On 13 March, a second consecutive day of drone strikes caused a fire at a Rosneft refinery in Ryazan Oblast, and a Ukrainian drone was reportedly shot down near the Kirishi refinery in Leningrad Oblast. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the attacks were an attempt to disrupt the upcoming presidential election.
On 12 March, the Freedom of Russia Legion, the Sibir Battalion and the Russian Volunteer Corps entered Belgorod and Kursk oblasts. Russia claimed to have repelled the attacks. On 14 March, a civilian was killed and three others injured by airstrikes launched by Ukraine in Belgorod Oblast. Also on 12 March, a Russian Aerospace Forces Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane with 15 people on board crashed in Ivanovo Oblast.
A regional picture
Taken together, the reports from 12 to 17 March 2024 show that the war's effects were felt in many regions at once: apartment blocks in Sumy and Kryvyi Rih, a port city in Odesa, a nuclear plant in the occupied south, and refineries and border districts on the Russian side.
