March 22st, 2022
1. Humanitarian situation in general
On March 21st also from 10:00AM Russian troops have once again opened and secured humanitarian corridors in the Kiev, Chernigov, Sumy and Kharkov directions: one corridor eastward into Russian territory; and one more through Kiev-controlled territories towards Ukraine's western borders.
The Ukrainian side continues to prevent the evacuation of civilians and foreign citizens to the territory of the Russian Federation. At the same time, for the current day, official Kiev has additionally announced seven more humanitarian corridors - in the Kiev, Kharkov and Zaporozhye directions.
As a result of the effective measures taken over the past three days, 59,304 people, as well as 139 foreign citizens, were evacuated to the Russian Federation from the hotbed of horror and arbitrariness staged in the city by nationalists.
Despite the humanitarian corridors opening daily, Ukrainian neo-Nazis continue to hold more than four and a half million civilians as a "human shield" in Kiev, Kharkov, Chernigov, Sumy and more than two dozen other large settlements blocked, as well as 6,838 foreign citizens from 18 foreign countries.
A significant part of the population forcibly held by radicals in Ukrainian cities is still looking for any opportunities to evacuate to the territory of Russia, as evidenced by numerous appeals of citizens to official structures, public organizations, directly to the subjects of our country, to relatives and friends, as well as acquaintances living in the Russian Federation.
According to the results of daily monitoring, it was found that only over the past day another 5,117 such appeals were received, and in total there are already 2,716 436 personsin the Russian database with specific surnames and addresses from two thousand ninety-five settlements of Ukraine.
2. Situation over Mariupol is unresolved
In Mariupol, which has become a base of operation for the “Azov” battalion, nationalists are preventing the evacuation of local residents and using civilians as human shields while they launch counterattacks at advancing Russian Forces from hospitals, schools, and other civilian infrastructure. The rescued residents of Mariupol, finding themselves in complete safety in Russia, openly talk about all the mass outrages and crimes committed by neo-Nazis.
A severe humanitarian disaster has developed in the city of Mariupol as a result of the outrage created by Ukrainian nationalists. The desperate and mindless extremists, realizing the refusal for providing any assistance from Kiev, staged mass terror in those quarters of the city that they still control. At the same time, the reliable information received by the Russian side testifies to the terrible atrocities of the militants who were distraught from despair. The tone of their active negotiations with officials in Kiev, which is recorded daily in radio intercepts, speaks of their extreme anger towards the Ukrainian authorities because they were simply abandoned, while being forced to strictly follow the order: stand to death, and the status of martyrs of Mariupol has already been assigned to them.
According to available data, up to 130 thousand civilians and 184 foreign citizens from six countries are currently being held hostage in the city. Considering the above, in order to save human lives and preserve the infrastructure of Mariupol, guided exclusively by humane principles, as well as on the basis of an analysis of the content of radio conversations intercepted only today by desperate neo-Nazis who realized the complete hopelessness of the situation for them and the senselessness of further resistance, the Russian Federation will open humanitarian corridors from Mariupol to the east from 10:00AM (Moscow time) on March 21, 2022, and, in agreement with the Ukrainian side, in western directions.
It has been objectively established that over the past three days, 80 to 235 innocent civilians who are trying to leave the city on their own have been killed by the Nazis every day, the militants simply shoot them.
At the same time, the formations of the Donetsk People's Republic with the support of the Russian Armed Forces, realizing that the neo-Nazis are closed by a human shield of innocent people, are forced to carry out measures to unblock Mariupol only point-by-point, house by house, block by block, without using heavy weapons, thereby avoiding civilian casualties.
Russia called on UAF, territorial defence battalions and foreign mercenaries to cease hostilities, lay down their weapons and withdraw to Kiev-controlled territories using humanitarian corridors agreed with the Ukrainian side. In this case, we guarantee the safe exit from Mariupol and the preservation of life for all those who have laid down their arms. The commanders of the units of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Russian Armed Forces will be prepared for such a scenario and will ensure their safe exit, but only without weapons and ammunition, to any area they so desire. Russia called official Kiev for prudence and the cancellation of earlier instructions that obliged the fighters to sacrifice themselves and become "martyrs of Mariupol".
For the strict fulfillment of this task, in addition, Russia sent an official appeal to the United Nations, the OSCE, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organizations, whose representatives are invited to accompany the practical measures of this humanitarian operation, as it is called directly on the ground, that is, in Mariupol, while necessarily as part of humanitarian convoys of both Russian and Ukrainian sides.
The Russian Armed Forces strictly observe the ceasefire on all routes without exception, including those declared by Kiev. At the same time, the Ukrainian side continues systematic shelling of humanitarian convoys and attempts to shift responsibility for its own inhumane acts to the units of the Russian troops, as well as the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics.
The Russian side still keeps a sufficient number of vehicles ready at the checkpoints, including comfortable buses for transporting refugees to selected destinations, as well as to temporary accommodation points, where all citizens arriving on the territory of Russia are provided with three hot meals a day and medical assistance is provided around the clock.
Over the past day, without the participation of the Kiev authorities, 16,434 people were evacuated from dangerous areas of Ukraine, Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics to Russia, including 2,389 children, in total, 330 thousand 686 people, of which 68,983 children, have already been evacuated since the beginning of the special military operation.
A total of 1,815 private motor vehicles crossed the state border of Russia, and a total of 38,525.
3. Developments at the battlefields
Operational-tactical and army aviation hit 44 military assets of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Among them: 4 command posts, 2 multiple launch rocket systems near Nalivaykovka and Zolocheva, 6 Buk M-1 anti-aircraft missile systems, 3 artillery mounts near Vyshgorod, 4 missile and artillery weapons depots, as well as 23 areas of military equipment concentration. Russian AAD shot down 2 more Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle in the air over Chernobayevka and Circuny.
A group of "night hunters" consisting of Ka-52 and Mi-28n helicopters destroyed 8 tanks, 4 infantry fighting vehicles and 3 armored personnel carriers during night strikes. Also, high-precision air-launched cruise missiles destroyed an ammunition depot and the headquarters of a mechanized brigade near Selets.
In total, from February 24th till March 21st 216 unmanned aerial vehicles, 180 anti-aircraft missile systems, 1,506 tanks and other ACVs, 152 MRLSs, 592 field artillery and mortars, as well as 1,284 special military vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were destroyed during the operation.
4. Sabotage at Sumy
In Sumy city, a planned provocation of Ukrainian nationalists was carried out at night. The Russian Defence Ministry officially warned about this provocation a few days ago. According to the head of Sumy regional Administration, there was an ammonia leak at “Sumykhimprom” plant. There is no threat to the residents of Sumy, since the wind moved off the city into the opposite direction.
On March 19th, Russian MoD officially warned about the mining of this enterprise by Ukrainian nationalists to commit a provocation in order to accuse Russia of allegedly using "chemical weapons". Canisters with ammonia and chlorine have been mined by nationalists. The leakage of ammonia took place at this plant on March 21st at 4:30 AM local time (5:30 Moscow time). At 7:50 the leakage has been eliminated.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have not planned and are not striking any Ukrainian facilities for the storage or production of toxic substances. The coordinates of all such objects and data on the toxic substances stored there on the territory of Ukraine were obtained by Russian troops during the seizure of the combat documentation of the 4th Brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard.
The Kiev nationalist regime is directly responsible for any possible incidents with Ukrainian storage facilities of toxic substances. Unfortunately, the Western nations pay no attention to such acts, hinting that president Zelensky can continue such provocations.
5. Russian Forces are close to defeating Ukrainian nationalist battalion called 'Donbass'
One of the main declared goals of the Russian special operation in Ukraine is to de-Nazify the country. Nationalist groups are the core of the volunteer battalions that have been used by Kiev in its attacks on the Donbass republics since 2014, with many of them being caught committing war crimes. The new nationalist-minded authorities largely turned a blind eye to these crimes, failing to prosecute even members of the notorious "Tornado" battalion, which was disbanded precisely because of the atrocities it was committing. The war crimes of another notorious battalion, "Aidar", were well documented by the Amnesty International non-profit back in 2014, but none of its members were probed and punished for their deeds.
Up to 60 of the “Donbass” battalion’s fighters were killed, two tanks, while three ACVs and six pieces of artillery and mortars were destroyed during Russian troops’ push towards Nikolskoye settlement. Currently, scattered groups of the nationalist battalion "Donbass" are being destroyed.
6. The number of mercenaries downsized
On the night of March 21, high-precision air-launched cruise missiles struck the Training Centre for Foreign Mercenaries and Ukrainian Nationalist Formations at Novaya Lyubomirka combined arms training ground in Rovenskaya Region. More than 80 mercenaries and nationalists were killed.
From March 13th, totally 360 foreign mercenaries have been killed in Ukraine backing Kiev’s aggression versus Donbass that is shelled every day and night by heavy artillery and mortars.
Written by Vladimir P. Kozin
