On 1 March, 10 civilians were killed in a massive shelling of Kharkiv. Among other targets, one of the largest city squares in the world, the Freedom Square, was struck.

The European Parliament adopted a resolution on the Russian aggression against Ukraine, in which it condemned the Russian Federation’s illegal, unprovoked and unjustified military aggression against and invasion of Ukraine, as well as the involvement of Belarus in this aggression. The resolution also denounced the unilateral recognition by the Russian Federation of the independence of the Russian-occupied areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine and urged all countries to refrain from joining it in this recognition. It reiterated that the EU did not recognise and continued to condemn the illegal annexation of Crimea as a violation of international law and remained committed to fully implementing its non-recognition policy, including through restrictive measures and cooperation in international forums.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine announced that Belarusian troops joined Russia’s invasion and entered the Chernihiv oblast. A spokesman for the Ukrainian territorial defence issued a similar statement. The United States denied this information. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that Belarus would not join the war, but at a meeting of the Belarusian Security Council he officially admitted that some Russian units had launched attacks on Ukraine from Belarusian territory, towards Kyiv.

On 2 March the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported that over 2 thousand civilians had been killed in Ukraine since the outbreak of the war.

For the first time since the beginning of the war, Ukrainian troops went on an offensive in the Horlivka and Kyiv regions, launching a counterattack against the wing trying to encircle the Ukrainian capital from the west.

Russian troops captured the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest in Europe. 

On 4 March, news first appeared about the expulsion of the Russians from Bucha and Vorzel near Kiev.

First reports of rape by Russian soldiers were published.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg rejected Ukraine’s request to institute a no-fly zone over Ukraine. In his opinion, to establish a no-fly zone would take sending NATO fighter planes to shoot down Russian aircraft, which would lead to a full-fledged war across Europe.

On 5 March, Russian troops occupied Borodyanka, Bucha and Hostomel. The Ukrainians regained control over Mykolaiv.

Protests broke out in occupied Kherson, preventing the establishment of a puppet Kherson People’s Republic.

Photo: Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko. CC-BY 4.0