Here is the situation on Friday, March 29, 2024.

Fighting

• At least three people were killed in Russian shelling and aerial attacks. One of the dead was a taxi driver in southern Kherson whose car was hit by a missile. His two passengers were injured and taken to hospital.
• Two people were injured by falling debris in southern Zaporizhzhia after Russia launched drone attacks on eastern, southern and southeastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian military said it shot down 26 of the 28 Iranian-designed attack drones.
• Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said security measures in the Ukrainian capital would be tightened, particularly around large gatherings, after a spate of Russian ballistic missile attacks and threats of escalation.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke on the phone with Mike Johnson, speaker of the House of Representatives, telling him it was “vital” for the United States Congress to pass a $60bn military aid package for Kyiv that has been held up for months.
• Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba arrived in New Delhi for talks on Kyiv’s 10-point peace formula ahead of a proposed summit in Switzerland. The plan demands the complete withdrawal of Russian troops and the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Moscow has dismissed the initiative as a non-starter.
• Matthew Axelrod, a senior official in the US Commerce Department, said the US was asking American companies to stop shipping goods to more than 600 foreign parties over fears the items could be diverted to Russia for use in Ukraine.
• Russian human rights group Memorial warned the health of Oleg Orlov, its 70-year-old leader, was deteriorating, and accused prison authorities of subjecting him to inhumane treatment. Orlov was jailed last month for two and a half years over his criticisms of the war in Ukraine. He has filed an appeal.
• A court in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad jailed journalist Mikhail Feldman for two years for criticism of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
• A Russian military court in Yekaterinburg jailed 31-year-old self-described anarchist Azat Miftakhov for four years on charges of “justifying terrorism” over comments made to inmates while serving a six-year sentence for breaking a window at a local office of President Vladimir Putin’s political party. Prosecutors said Miftakhov had told other prisoners he would “avenge” a friend who died fighting for Ukraine and expressed support for the bombing of a regional office of Russia’s FSB security service in 2018.
• The French Defence Ministry said authorities took down a fake website recruiting volunteers to fight for Ukraine against the Russian invasion. The site had claimed that 200,000 French people were invited to “enlist in Ukraine”, with immigrants given priority.

Weapons

• Ukraine’s defence minister asked allies for more air defences at an extraordinary meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council and said some 97 percent of Russian missile, drone and guided bomb attacks so far this year had been on civilian infrastructure.
• Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), visited Pyongyang this week to deepen bilateral cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang. North Korea has been accused of sending weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES