Ukraine War Live Updates: Russian Strikes Overnight Kill Civilians; Estonia calls China’s peace plan “extremely unfair”

The death toll in Kostiantynivka, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, after Russian night attacks rose to five on Friday afternoon, counting two men and three women, the Ukrainian State Emergency Service told via Facebook.

“On the night of March 24, the city of Kostiantynivka was attacked by missiles,” the post said, according to a translation by Ukrainian state media Ukrinform.

“One of the missiles hit a one-story building where the invincibility point was operating. Rescuers from the 16th State Fire Unit arrived at the scene and began emergency rescue operations,” it said.

State media said a “point of invincibility” had been reached during an attack carried out by both drones and fighter jets. Invincibility Points are the name of locations in Ukraine established to provide generators to charge phones and other essential electronic devices.

—Natasha Turak

Several people were killed in Russian strikes in different parts of Ukraine overnight, Ukrainian state broadcaster Suspilne reported. The attacks used drones and Iranian-made “Shahed” fighter jets, the agency said.

“At night, Russian troops shelled an ‘invincibility point’ in Kostyantynivka, Donetsk region. Three women resettled from other settlements in the region died under the rubble and two more people were injured,” Suspilne wrote in a Telegram post. , according to a Google translation.

“The Sumy district was massively attacked overnight: the Russian Federation used a dozen “Shahed” fighter planes, artillery and drones. Two people were killed in the city of Bilopillya, nine others were injured. In Kryvyi Rih, in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, there were five “Shahed” drone hits. Air defense forces managed to shoot down one,” the post said.

CNBC has not independently verified the information.

—Natasha Turak

Russia’s troop movements in Belarus suggest that it is continuing a training program in the country with Belarusian forces, despite the fact that the latter’s army is far less experienced, the British Ministry of Defense wrote in its daily intelligence update in Twitter. Retaining a training ground there also sends an important political message, he said.

“By mid-March 2023, Russia had likely redeployed at least 1,000 soldiers who had been training at the Obuz-Lesnovsky training camp in southwestern Belarus,” the ministry wrote.

“Although no new troop rotation has been noted, it is highly likely that Russia has left the tented camp in place, suggesting that it is considering continuing the training program,” he noted.

“The fact that Russia has resorted to training its personnel under the much less experienced Belarusian military highlights how Russia’s ‘special military operation’ has seriously dislocated the Russian military’s training system: instructors have been deployed in large measure in Ukraine”.

—Natasha Turak

China’s peace proposal to end the war in Ukraine is “extremely unfair,” the permanent secretary of Estonia’s Defense Ministry told CNBC.

from beijing 12 point peace plan it does not respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and has not been fair to its people, Kusti Salm told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Friday.

“Every time we measure… the viability of any peace agreement, it must be measured against the same principles. Are we eliminating aggression as a tool?” she asked.

“Are we honoring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of independent nations?”

Those are the “key missing ingredients and elements” in China’s peace proposal, he said.

chinese president Xi Jinping’s three-day visit to Russia It concluded on Wednesday but failed to make any significant progress in resolving the Ukraine conflict.

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—Audrey Wan and Sumathi Bala

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that if Europe hesitates to support Ukraine, “the evil may have time to regroup and prepare for years of war.”

“It is in your power not to let this happen,” Zelenskyy said in a sweeping speech to members of the European Council.

The Ukrainian president also reiterated calls for more military aid from European leaders.

“The more often Ukrainian guns hit the occupier, the less chance Russia has to implement its genocidal policy against Ukrainians and other Europeans,” Zelenskyy said.

“God forbid anyone sees this happen in their own country,” he added.

Zelenskyy also thanked members of the European Union who support the work of the International Criminal Court to hold Russian President Vladimir Putin to account for the ongoing war in Ukraine.

—Amanda Macias

Ukraine’s top ground forces commander said the country’s forces would launch a long-awaited counter-offensive “very soon” just as Russian forces are seen losing momentum in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi said Thursday on Telegram that Russian forces have not given up “hope of taking Bakhmut at all costs, despite losses in manpower and equipment,” noting that the main Russian units that received the coup were mercenaries in the Wagner Group.

“Springing nothing, they lose considerable strength,” he said, adding that “very soon we will seize this opportunity, as we once did near Kiev, Kharkiv, Balakliya and Kupiansk,” he said, according to comments translated by Google. .

The comments come as military analysts see Russia’s offensive around Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine losing momentum after seven months of brutal and unrelenting fighting that has left Bakhmut largely in ruins and thousands of soldiers dead in both sides, estimates of daily deaths suggest.

Ukraine has previously signaled that it would launch a counter-offensive in the spring, but has also been waiting for more Western weaponry to arrive.

Syrskyi said that soldiers on the front line in Bakhmut had shown “superhuman stamina, courage and bravery” in the face of “continuous fire from enemy artillery and aircraft”.

—Holly Ellyatt

Russia threatened to escalate attacks in Ukraine after the British government announced it would provide Ukraine with a type of ammunition that Moscow falsely claims has nuclear components.

Britain’s Defense Ministry confirmed on Monday that it would provide Ukraine with armor-piercing shells containing depleted uranium.

These shells were developed by the US during the Cold War to destroy Soviet tanks, including the same T-72 tanks now faced by Ukraine in its effort to break the deadlock in the east.

Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process needed to create nuclear weapons. The projectiles retain some radioactive properties, but cannot generate a nuclear reaction as a nuclear weapon would, said Edward Geist, a nuclear expert and RAND policy researcher.

That didn’t stop the Russians from offering a full-throated warning that the rounds were opening the door to further escalation. In the past, they have suggested war could escalate to the use of nuclear weapons.

Both the British ministry and the White House dismissed the Russian accusations. But ammunition carries risks even if it is not a nuclear weapon.

-Associated Press