What did 12 March 2024 show about Ukraine's war?
A look back at a day of missile strikes, drone attacks and an Oscar-winning film's aftermath.
What did the war look like on 12 March 2024? It was a day of strikes on both sides of the front line, set against the recognition given two days earlier to a film about the war's early weeks.
In Kryvyi Rih, in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, a Russian missile strike hit apartment buildings. Three people were killed and at least 36 others were injured, according to reports at the time.
The same day, Ukraine launched 25 drones at Russian cities. One of them hit a major oil refinery in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.
Separately, a Russian Aerospace Forces Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane with 15 people on board crashed in Ivanovo Oblast, Russia.
An Oscar two days earlier
On 10 March 2024, 20 Days in Mariupol won the Oscar for Best Documentary at the 96th Academy Awards. The film, directed by Mstyslav Chernov, focuses on the siege of Mariupol during the Russian invasion. It is a 2023 Ukrainian documentary built from footage of the first several weeks of the invasion.
The award and the strike on Kryvyi Rih came within days of each other. The film recorded the early weeks of the invasion, while the strike showed that residential areas were still being hit more than two years into the war.
