THE RUSSO-UKRAINE WAR BRIEF
Day 1122 of the full scale invasion
Slava Ukraini! In early 2022 I began a Telegram channel aggregating news from a number of sources daily on the war in Ukraine. In June 2023 I began providing a daily draft for the Ukraine War Brief Podcast collecting news from over 70 sources daily, which formed the basis of the script. While the Podcast no longer exists I have continued to make this Brief available for my followers here on Substack for those who wish to keep up with the news from the war.
All the latest news on the Russo-Ukraine War 6 days per week
ALONG THE CONTACT LINE
GSAFU Morning Report
For: Mar 21, 2025
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in its Operational Information update at 08:00 on Mar 21 stated that day 1122 of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation against Ukraine had begun.
The situation on the line of combat remains tense in some sectors. Ukrainian defenders continue to actively counteract the Russian aggressor, causing them significant losses in personnel, equipment and technology. Exhausting the enemy along the entire front line and continuing to disrupt the plans of Russian occupiers to advance deeper into the territory of Ukraine.
During the past day, 166 combat engagements took place.
Over the past 24 hours, the enemy carried out 2 missile strikes, 94 air strikes, used 3,000 drones and fired approximately 6,500 artillery shells across the positions of Ukrainian forces and civilians.
The GSAFU announced on the morning of Mar 21, 2025 another grim milestone. As of today it is estimated that since the start of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb 24, 2022 the Russian armed forces have needlessly suffered more than 900,000 casualties.
At current casualty rates, unless Russia stops its senseless invasion by this time in June they will have reached an astronomical 1 million casualties.
Air Force Daily Report
114 ENEMY UAVS SHOT DOWN, 81 SIMULATOR UAVS FAILED TO REACH THEIR TARGETS (LOCATIONALLY LOST)
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On the night of March 21, 2025 (from 8:00 p.m. on March 20), the enemy attacked with 214 Shahed attack UAVs and simulator drones of various types from the directions: Kursk, Bryansk, Millerovo, Primorsko-Akhtarsk - Russia, Chauda - Crimea.
The air attack was repelled by aviation, anti-aircraft missile troops, electronic warfare units, and mobile fire groups of the Air Force and Defense Forces of Ukraine.
As of 09:30, 114 Shahed attack UAVs and other types of drones have been confirmed shot down in the south, north, and center of the country.
81 enemy drone simulators — lost in location (without negative consequences).
The Odesa, Khmelnytskyi, Sumy, and Kyiv regions were affected by the Russian attack.
Combat Operations in the Russian Federation
Kursk Salient: The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US based think tank, in its Mar 20 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment reported that Russian forces continued to advance in Kursk Oblast.
Assessed Russian advances: Geolocated footage published on Mar 19 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced in northern Rubanshchina (west of Sudzha) and in a forested area southeast of Gogolevka (immediately west of Rubanshchina).
Belgorod Incursion: Ukrainian forces recently marginally advanced in western Belgorod Oblast.
Geolocated footage published on Mar 19 indicates that Ukrainian forces recently marginally advanced northwest of Prilesye (northwest of Belgorod City along the international border). Russian milbloggers published maps acknowledging Ukrainian advances in the field southwest of Demidovka (north of Prilesye), indicating that Ukrainian forces recently advanced in the area.
The Khortytsia operational-strategic group
(Responsible for the northeastern part of Ukraine. )
Sumy Sector: Russian forces continued ground attacks against Ukrainian positions near Basivka, Sumy Oblast on Mar 19 and 20.
Toretsk Sector: Russian forces recently advanced in the Toretsk direction.
Geolocated footage published on March 19 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced northwestward in northern Toretsk.
The Tavria operational-strategic group
(Responsible for the central-eastern and southeastern part of Ukraine.)
Pokrovsk Sector : Russian forces recently advanced in the Pokrovsk direction.
Geolocated footage published on March 19 and 20 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced to the T-0504 Pokrovsk-Kostyantynivka highway west of Vodyane Druhe (east of Pokrovsk) and to Nova Street in northern Shevchenko (south of Pokrovsk).
Velyka Novosilka Sector: Russian forces recently advanced in the Velyka Novosilka direction.
Assessed Russian advances: Geolocated footage published on March 19 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced along Stepova Street in eastern Novosilka (southwest of Velyka Novosilka).
The Odesa operational-strategic group
(Responsible for Kherson, Qırım, (also known as Crimea) and the Black Sea.)
There have been no major changes to the combat environment since our last report.
TEMPORARILY OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
Nothing major to report.
THE HOME FRONT
Russian drones hammer Ukraine's Odesa as Czech leader visits.
Russia pounded Ukraine's Black Sea city of Odesa late on Thursday with one of its biggest drone attacks, injuring three teenagers and sparking fires as the Czech president visited, Reuters reported citing Ukrainian officials.
The attack comes as the United States is pushing for a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, and hoping to agree a partial ceasefire that would halt strikes on energy infrastructure by both sides.
Czech President Petr Pavel, a vocal backer of Kyiv who has led an effort to source more than one million artillery shells for Ukraine's war effort, was in the port city for talks with regional officials at the time of the strikes.
"Significantly, it was during our meeting that the enemy once again massively attacked the Odesa region," Governor Oleh Kiper said on the Telegram messaging app.
The long-range drones buzzed into the city in several waves, damaging infrastructure, residential houses and commercial buildings, and causing multiple fires, the interior ministry said.
Around 25 cars had been set ablaze at a car repair shop.
"We could not do anything. We were just standing and watching as everything was on fire. I am in total shock," the shop's owner, who gave her name as Inna, told Reuters.
Oleksandr Kovalenko, a military analyst, told Reuters that Russia used new tactics for the attack, having its drones descend from a higher altitude than usual and at high speeds to make it harder for Ukraine's air defences.
He said it was one of the "most massive" attacks on Odesa since Russia invaded in February 2022: "It was intimidation. Terror against the civilian population."
Russia launched a total of 214 drones at Ukraine overnight, the air force said. It did not specify how many drones targeted Odesa. The air force said it shot down 114 of the drones and that another 81 drones were "lost", its term for those suppressed using electronic warfare defences.
RUSSIAN WORLD
Russia and Ukraine Trade Blame for Attack on Gas Pumping Station in Kursk Region.
Russia and Ukraine on Friday accused each other of shelling a gas pumping station in the southwestern Kursk region overnight, days after the two warring sides agreed to pause attacks on energy infrastructure, the Moscow Times reports.
Earlier, the Ukrainian military and Russian pro-war bloggers reported a strike on the nonfunctioning Sudzha gas pumping and metering station, with images showing a huge fire lighting up the night sky.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces dismissed Russian military bloggers’ claims that it was responsible for the attack, calling it part of a “campaign to discredit Ukraine.”
“Today, the enemy has ramped up its planned destructive information influence with another provocation — it fired artillery at this facility [in Sudzha],” the General Staff claimed in a statement.
“The [Sudzha] station was repeatedly shelled by the Russians themselves,” it added, citing what it said were similar incidents last summer.
Later on Friday, Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed that retreating Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region attacked the Sudzha gas pumping station, calling it a “deliberate provocation... aimed at undermining the peace initiatives of the U.S. President.”
After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia continued transporting natural gas to Europe through the Sudzha hub until Kyiv declined to extend a transit deal at the start of 2025.
The town of Sudzha, home to around 5,000 people, was the largest Russian settlement to be seized by Ukrainian forces during a surprise cross-border incursion last August. Russia said it had regained full control of Sudzha last week.
The reported strike on the Sudzha gas station came after Russia and Ukraine agreed to a 30-day pause in attacks on energy infrastructure. Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday accused Kyiv of violating the ceasefire with an attack on an oil depot in the southern Krasnodar region.
Later on Friday, the Kremlin appeared to suggest that the attack could lead to a disintegration of the ceasefire deal.
“This information more than clearly shows how much faith one can have in the word of Zelenskyy and his team,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
However, he said Russia would continue to adhere to the pause in attacks on energy sites in Ukraine.
“The order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief is in effect, and the Russian Armed Forces are currently refraining from striking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in accordance with the agreement that was reached between the United States and Russia.”
Russian law enforcement authorities later announced that they launched a criminal investigation into the gas pumping station attack, which they are treating as an act of terrorism.
RELATED INTERNATIONAL NEWS
The UN condemns the unimaginable suffering of Ukrainian children at the hands of Russia.
Russia inflicted unimaginable suffering on millions of Ukrainian children and violated their rights since its full scale invasion of Ukraine begun in 2022, a new report by the United Nations Human Rights Office said on Friday, Reuters reports.
"Their rights have been undermined in every aspect of life, leaving deep scars, both physical and psychosocial," said UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk.
The Russian Mission in Geneva did not respond to a request for comment when contacted by Reuters.
"In the four regions of Ukraine that were illegally annexed by the Russian Federation in 2022, children have been particularly affected by violations of international human rights law...including summary executions, arbitrary detention, conflict-related sexual violence, torture and ill-treatment", the report said.
Five boys and two girls were summarily executed in 2022 and 2023, with the report noting that the wilful killing of civilians was a war crime and a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions.
Some children had to take part in military-patriotic training, including singing the Russian anthem, and to follow the Russian school curriculum - in violation of international humanitarian law.
The transfer of at least 200 children within Russian occupied territory and to Russia between February 2022 and December 2024 may amount to war crimes, the report stated.
Previously Moscow said it had been protecting vulnerable children from a war zone.
Ukraine has called the abductions of tens of thousands of its children taken to Russia or Russian-occupied territory without the consent of family or guardians a war crime that meets the U.N. treaty definition of genocide.
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued warrants for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his children's rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova related to the abduction of Ukrainian children. Russia denounced the warrants as "outrageous and unacceptable."
Russia failed to provide detailed information about the children to the Central Tracing Agency, thwarting families attempts to find them, the report said.
Some 50,000 people were reported missing in the war between Ukraine and Russia over the last year, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross in February.
More than 600 children were killed between 24 February 2022 and 31 December 2024 in Ukraine, including occupied territories, the UN Human Rights Office verified. At least 737,000 children had been internally displaced and a further 1.7 million were refugees.
EU integrates Ukraine into European defense framework with € 150 billion investment.
The European Commission has unveiled its White Paper for European Defence Readiness 2030, marking a pivotal shift in Europe’s security architecture that fully integrates Ukraine’s security into the broader defense framework of the European Union for the first time, says Ivan Nahorniak, a political expert and head of the Eurointegration program at EasyBusiness.
According to Nahorniak, the document signals a new strategic reality.
“Ukraine’s security is now inextricably linked to the security of the entire EU,” he explains.
The White Paper outlines several transformative measures aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s role within Europe’s defense system.
Joint defense production and cooperation: The EU will support joint manufacturing initiatives and foster closer cooperation between Ukrainian and European defense firms
Expanded innovation footprint: The EU Defense Innovation Office in Kyiv will be expanded, boosting joint research and development efforts in critical military technologies
Ukrainian access to key EU defense programs: Ukraine’s defense sector will now be able to participate in EU initiatives such as EDIP (European Defence Industrial Program) and SAFE (Strategic Autonomy Fund for Europe), opening the door to European defense markets and projects
In addition to these industrial initiatives, the strategy introduces crucial logistical and financial tools. For instance, the EU plans to streamline arms deliveries and create secure military corridors to Ukraine, significantly improving the speed and efficiency of logistical operations.
Under the new program, the SAFE Fund will invest €150 billion to fast-track defense procurement and investment in Ukraine.
The German Bundestag approves additional €3 billion in military aid to Ukraine.
The German Bundestag has supported changes to the Constitution that will increase spending in three areas, including unblocking the allocation of an additional 3 billion euros to Ukraine for military assistance. Ukrinform reports.
The voting took place after the relevant decision of the Bundestag on March 18.
As noted, 53 out of the required 46 representatives (two-thirds) voted for the changes. Four states abstained.
The new expenditures will be financed by exempting them from the debt brake rule, which limits government borrowing. In the future, expenditures on defense and some security policy expenditures, in particular intelligence in excess of 1% of nominal GDP, will be exempted from the debt rule.
Thus, Germany will be able to allocate an additional 3 billion euros for military aid to Ukraine this year.
RAF in talks to police skies above Ukraine.
At a meeting of the Permanent Joint Headquarters on Thursday 20 March, the possibility was discussed that Royal Air Force fighters could provide air cover for a potential peacekeeping contingent in Ukraine, The Telegraph reports.
British fighter jets will police the skies above Ukraine under proposals being discussed by Sir Keir Starmer’s coalition of the willing.
The Telegraph understands that key military planners discussed sending British Typhoons to Ukraine to provide air cover for troops when they met at Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) on Thursday..
Sir Keir attended the talks in Northwood, which were led by Lt General Nick Perry, the chief of joint operations, along with more than 30 nations who met to discuss how the coalition of the willing could help Ukraine.
The Prime Minister has already pledged to put British troops on the ground if Donald Trump successfully negotiates a peace deal with Vladimir Putin.
A senior RAF source told The Telegraph that air cover the British can supply would have been discussed at the meeting because in the event British soldiers go into Ukraine, “there will be a requirement for top cover”.
“We would never send British troops out on the ground without giving them air cover,” he said.
The RAF would provide either Typhoons or F35s as both provide “excellent air-to-air policing”.
Uncertainty over whether the US will supply any air cover in Ukraine has created the need for Britain to take the lead.
Mr Trump has so far indicated that he will not provide any military support and called on Europe to step up shouldering the burden of supporting Ukraine.
Sir Keir said on Thursday that military planning for the coalition of the willing has been broken down into sea, air, land and borders, and the regeneration of Ukraine.
Sir Keir added: “It is vitally important we do that work because we know one thing for certain, which is a deal without anything behind it is something that Putin will breach.
“We know that because it happened before. I’m absolutely clear in my mind it will happen again.”
While all nations across Europe have the ability to send fighter jets, it is only the US and France which can send Airborne early warning and control aircraft which provide critical surveillance, including detection of missiles.
However, the RAF source said “the British Army and RAF will be part of the first vanguard into Ukraine”.
Britain has already agreed that as part of the Nato Enhanced Forward Presence, six Typhoons will be sent to Poland to conduct air-to-air policing for the first time in the coming weeks.
The source added that “more could be sent” if Typhoons needed to be redirected to Ukraine as they would be in the right part of eastern Europe.
One senior military source stressed that the key priorities for the coalition were returning Ukraine’s airspace and getting the Black Sea back into international waters.
Germany seizes Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tanker in Baltic Sea.
The German government has confiscated a tanker stranded in the Baltic Sea linked to Russia's "shadow fleet," Der Spiegel reported on March 21, citing security sources.
The shadow fleet refers to aging and largely uninsured oil tankers that Russia uses to transport oil above the $60 per barrel price cap that the EU, the U.S., and G7 countries imposed in December 2022 as part of the effort to cut Moscow's fossil fuels revenue.
On March 14, German customs authorities seized the Panamanian-flagged tanker Eventin. It was sailing from the Russian port of Ust-Luga through the Baltic Sea to Egypt and had been anchored off the coast of Ruegen since mid-January.
Due to the risk of an oil spill, the tanker was towed to the waters off Sassnitz, where it was monitored by Germany's Coast Guard and federal police.
After a confiscation order from the General Customs Directorate (GZD), Germany has acquired ownership of the vessel and its cargo — approximately 100,000 tons of crude oil worth over 40 million euros ($43 million).
By seizing the Eventin, the German government aims to signal to Russia that it will not tolerate their oil shipments through the Baltic Sea, Der Spiegel said.
In recent months, shadow fleet vessels have been suspected of sabotage operations in the Baltic Sea, causing major damage to undersea cables.
MILITARY & TECH
ASC 890 Transfer to Ukraine on Track, Linked to F-16 Upgrades.
The transfer of Swedish airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft Saab 340 AEW&C (ASC 890) to Ukraine is proceeding on schedule.
The delivery timeline is linked to the modifications of F-16 fighters to ensure interoperability with these aircraft. Delfi reported citing a comment by the Ministry of Defence of Sweden.
The transfer of these specialized aircraft was first announced in May 2024 of Sweden’s military aid package.
“The delivery dates for the ASC 890 are related to when certain modifications of F-16 fighters will be ready. There are no delays in the transfer of AEW&C aircraft to Ukraine,” the ministry stated.
Grumpy Here - It can be assumed that Mirage 2000-F5s have undergone a modernization program before France handed them over to Ukraine would already possess this interoperability
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