What did 13 March 2024 show about the war's two fronts?
A retrospective on a day of drone strikes on both sides of the border and a new European Union pledge of military funding.
What did the war look like on 13 March 2024? It was a day on which strikes on civilians in Ukraine, Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil facilities and a new European funding pledge all appeared in the same set of reports.
In Sumy, a Russian drone attack on an apartment building killed two people and injured at least eight others. The previous day, 12 March 2024, a Russian missile strike on apartment buildings in Kryvyi Rih, in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, had killed three people and injured at least 36.
Drones across the border
Ukraine launched drone strikes inside Russia for a second consecutive day on 13 March 2024. The attacks caused a fire at a Rosneft oil refinery in Ryazan Oblast, and a Ukrainian drone was reportedly shot down near the Kirishi refinery in Leningrad Oblast. On 12 March, Ukraine had launched 25 drones at Russian cities and hit a major oil refinery in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the attacks were an attempt to disrupt the upcoming presidential election.
Separately, on 12 March 2024 a Russian Aerospace Forces Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane with 15 people on board crashed in Ivanovo Oblast, Russia.
Money for the war effort
On 13 March 2024 the European Union agreed to provide an additional €5 billion to its Ukrainian military aid fund. The decision was one of the day's few developments concerning institutions rather than strikes.
Taken together, the reports from 12 and 13 March 2024 describe a war in which residential buildings in Ukrainian cities were being hit while Ukraine's drones reached refineries in several Russian regions, and in which outside financing for Ukraine's military was being expanded.
