Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 397

As the war between Russia and Ukraine enters its 397th day, we take a look at the main developments.

This is the state of affairs on Monday, March 27, 2023:

Diplomacy

• After Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to ally Belarus, Ukraine has called for an extraordinary UN Security Council meeting to “take decisive action” to prevent Russia’s use of nuclear weapons.
• Russia “took Belarus as a nuclear hostage,” Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov wrote on Twitter.
• NATO has condemned the move, labeling it “dangerous and irresponsible”.
• The European Union has warned Belarus against hosting Russian nuclear weapons, saying it was an “irresponsible escalation and threat to European security”.
• Germany has also condemned Putin’s decision, while Lithuania said it would demand new sanctions against Moscow and Minsk.
• However, the United States has reacted cautiously to Putin’s move, with a senior government official saying Washington estimates there is no evidence that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons.
• The chief of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, said on Saturday he will visit the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine next week to assess the dire situation there.
• In the UK, Ukrainian fans turned part of London’s Wembley Stadium into the blue and yellow of their country’s flag as they watched their team take on England in an emotional Euro 2024 qualifier.
• Choirs from around the world have joined their voices to sing for peace in Ukraine, with nearly 300 singers gathering in Madrid, Spain, where the initiative began a year ago.

To fight

• Fighting continues in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, but Kiev’s top soldier, General Valerii Zaluzhniy, said the situation in the area was stabilizing.
• Separately, the British Ministry of Defense has also said that Russia’s months-long attack on Bakhmut had stalled, mainly due to heavy troop losses.
• Ukraine’s General Staff has said its forces have repelled 85 Russian attacks in various parts of the eastern front, including the Bakhmut area, in the past 24 hours.
• Russia has reported a drone strike on the southern Russian city of Kireyevsk, with three people injured in the attack. The state news agency TASS said the drone was a Ukrainian Tupolev Tu-141 Strizh loaded with explosives.
• More than 5,000 former criminals have been forgiven after terminating their contracts to fight against Ukraine in Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, the group’s founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday.
• Tensions are rising at a prominent Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Orthodox monastery complex in Kiev, where the monks will be evicted later this month. The Ukrainian government is cracking down on the country’s Orthodox Church because of its ties to the Russian Orthodox Church and its leader Patriarch Kirill, who supported Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Economy

• Kiev will no longer resort to “dangerous” monetary financing to fund its war against Russia, central bank governor Andriy Pyshnyi says.