Talks between the two countries are ongoing, but Ukraine finds no concrete progress in pacifying its territory.
The Pentagon claimed that Russia has “relocated” in recent hours less than 20% of its soldiers who are near Kiev and reiterated that this is not a withdrawal.
US intelligence sources have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin receives misleading information from his advisers about the mediocre performance of Russian forces in Ukraine.
On Thursday, the installation of a humanitarian corridor is expected in the city of Mariupol, one of the most affected by the attacks of the Russian Army.
Next, the minute by minute of the Russian invasion: (Ukrainian time, GMT+2):
Thursday, March 31:
4:30: The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) stated that he cannot communicate with his employees in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol due to the proportion of fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces in the city.
“Some managed to get out. Some are inside and we can't communicate with them right now,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi in an interview with US network CNN from Lviv.
On the other hand, he called for “firm commitments” from Russia that there will be no fighting to carry out humanitarian corridors in the city and added that it is “very complex”, so such guarantees are needed.
Grandi discussed with the Ukrainian authorities, as well as senior United Nations officials and other partners how to increase his support for people affected and displaced “by this senseless war,” he said on his official Twitter profile.
4:00: The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounced that civilians in the city of Chernigov, in the north of the country, need access to basic services, humanitarian aid and safe evacuations.
“Civilians in Chernigov have been trapped in a cascading crisis for days without access to basic services and no means of escape, all while living under the constant threat of Russian attacks,” said Human Rights Watch crisis and conflict researcher Richard Weir.
He stressed that “Russian forces, together with Ukrainian forces, must take the necessary measures to allow civilians to leave the city safely if they so desire and ensure that the basic needs of remaining civilians are met.”
3:30: The president of the UN Human Rights Council, Federico Villegas, announced this Wednesday the creation of a commission to investigate war crimes and other abuses committed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Specifically, the commission must “collect, summarize and analyze evidence of violations and abuses, including gender, and systematically record and store all information, documentation and evidence, including interviews, witness testimonies and forensic evidence, in accordance with the standards of international law,” Villegas explained in a UN statement.
The three-person commission, Erica Messe, from Norway (the president), Jasminka Dzumhur, from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Pablo de Greiff, from Colombia, must “establish the facts, circumstances and root causes of such violations and abuses”.
02:58: Jeremy Fleming, the head of the GCHQ, one of the UK intelligence services, assured that “it seems increasingly that Putin has misjudged the situation. It is clear that he has misjudged the resistance of the Ukrainian people.”
In a speech during a trip to Australia, Fleming said that Putin “underestimated the strength of the coalition that his actions would drive. It underestimated the economic consequences of the sanctions regime. He overestimated the ability of his military to secure a swift victory. We have seen Russian soldiers, lacking weapons and morale, refuse to follow orders, sabotage their own equipment and even accidentally shoot down their own planes.”
02:15: The Pentagon confirmed this Wednesday that the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, is not “fully informed” by his advisers to the Ministry of Defense about the course of operations on Ukrainian territory.
“Trying not to get into intelligence, we agree with the conclusion that Putin has not been fully informed by the Ministry of Defense over the past month,” his spokesman, John Kirby, said at a press conference.
This information, which was first advanced by a senior US official, has been described by Kirby as a “matter of concern” for the allies and for Ukraine. “If Putin is uninformed about what is happening. The fact that he doesn't have the whole context, that he doesn't fully understand the extent to which his forces are failing in Ukraine, is a bit disconcerting,” he said.
01:42: The Armed Forces of Ukraine have assured this Wednesday that Russia has begun preparations to organize a referendum in the region of Kherson, in which about 280,000 people live, taken by the Russians last March 2.
“In order to control the temporarily occupied territories of southern Ukraine, the enemy is trying to create military and civilian administrations and has begun preparations for a referendum on a quasi-state entity in the Kherson region, the so-called “People's Republic of Kherson”, they said in their evening report.
In addition, they pointed out that Russian troops have not had “active actions” in the northerly direction. “In the near future, fire on Ukrainian units is expected to intensify to ensure the movement of their troops, with the additional task of blocking the city of Chernigov,” they said.
00:56: Russia and Ukraine will resume their online peace talks on April 1, as stated on Wednesday by a senior Ukrainian official, after concluding the last round of negotiations in Turkey.
Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said in an online post that Ukraine had proposed that the two leaders of the countries meet, but Russia responded by saying that more work needed to be done on a draft treaty.
00:14: Russian hackers have recently tried to penetrate the networks of NATO and the armed forces of some Eastern European countries, said the Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG) in a report released on Wednesday.
The report did not say which armies had been targeted in what Google described as “credential phishing campaigns” launched by a Russian-based group called Coldriver or Callisto.
News in Development...
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