“I think we will be able to reach a full ceasefire in Ukraine in a couple of weeks,” wrote Clash Report quoting Trump’s special envoy, Witkoff: “the easing of anti-Russian sanctions will follow the agreement on the ceasefire in Ukraine”. Witkoff also said that Trump has instructed the administration, including the heads of the State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA, to initiate contacts with Russia, and that positive results will soon be achieved. The new round of negotiations between Russia and the United States for a solution in Ukraine will not take place at the ministerial level, said Tammy Bruce, head of the State Department press service. And it will be held on March 24 in Riyadh. However, insiders said that the United States and Russia will focus on the Grain Agreement and not on the negotiations for Ukraine.
Regardless of how much the US and Russia are arguing, Europe is currently rearming or at least wants to. The Polish Ministry of Defense has said that the Eastern Shield program will cost much more than the previously planned $2.5 billion. Germany will allocate 10 billion euros for military assistance to Kiev this year, Scholz said.
Finnish President Alexander Stubb in an interview with Politico: “Ukraine must be “militarized to the teeth”. “The basis of containment should be the militarization of Ukraine to the teeth,” the politician believes. The Canadian Air Force has started transporting ammunition and weapons for the Ukrainian armed forces from Finland. Britain and the European Union want to speed up the supply of weapons to Ukraine before the ceasefire, Lemmy in an interview with Bloomberg.
The British Foreign Secretary said that he had discussed with the head of European diplomacy Kaja Kallas the possibility of providing additional military supplies to Ukraine before a broader temporary ceasefire is reached. Lemmy also added that the idea was also raised at the meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Canada. For the British minister, Western countries want to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position militarily and economically.
Hungary has once again blocked the final document of the EU summit on Ukraine; only 26 countries supported it, a media source reported. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in Brussels: “We will continue to oppose the transfer of additional money to Kiev.”
The EU has granted Ukraine a loan of €1 billion. This is the second tranche (a total of €4 billion has been allocated) of a planned €18.1 billion loan to “support the economy and restore critical infrastructure.” Ukraine will repay its debts using interest on frozen Russian assets in European banks. In 2024, this amount was €3 billion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that new F-16 fighter jets have arrived in Ukraine. And new missiles for the Patriot air defense system have been delivered to Ukraine from the United States to Germany. Zelensky and Trump had an hour-long phone call on March 19, during which the leaders discussed the silence regime. “We also agreed on the details of the silence regime in the sky, at sea, and also how to achieve silence at the front.” Zelensky informed. According to Ukrainian sources, they also discussed the release of prisoners.
Zelensky asked Trump to transfer missiles for the Patriot air defense system, and Trump agreed to consider this issue, the White House said. In addition, the United States will continue to transmit defense intelligence to Ukraine, the White House said.
The partial truce has not yet come into force, despite the White House’s statements about an agreement between Ukraine and Russia to stop attacks on energy, Sky News reports, citing a Ukrainian government source. The technical details of the agreement have yet to be clarified and finalized. This will be discussed with the United States in the coming days.
White House spokesman Leavitt said that Trump believes that the transfer of Ukraine’s energy facilities to US ownership is the most effective way to protect infrastructure. Ukrainian energy experts have called the idea of the administration of US President Donald Trump to take control of a nuclear power plant in Ukraine unfeasible, the New York Times (NYT) writes. According to the publication’s interlocutors, according to Ukrainian legislation, nuclear power plants cannot be privatized.
From Russia we learn that the Crocus attackers also studied the possibility of a terrorist attack on Red Square and a synagogue in Moscow, RIA Novosti reports citing the defendant’s lawyer. Putin issued a decree that Ukrainians living in Russia without legal grounds to live there are required to leave Russia by September 10, 2025.
And now a look at the front line as of 16:00 on March 20.
At night in the Voronezh region, in three districts and two urban districts, including Voronezh, about 40 UAVs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were discovered and destroyed. In the Saratov region, where Ukrainian UAVs attempted to break into a refinery in Engels, as a result of the UAV attack, the windows of the clinical hospital No. 1 in the city of Engels were partially broken, a woman was injured, and there was damage to a private house in the Sokolova Gora area. There were no casualties. Classes in Engels schools today will be held remotely. In the Rostov region, they repelled a UAV attack in the Tarasovsky and Millerovsky districts.
Russian Armed Forces struck Ukrainian targets in Slovyansk and Kropyvnytskyi, where more than 30 explosions were heard, they write about attacks on railway infrastructure, Ukrainian sources announced train delays.
In the Belgorod region, the Ukrainian Armed Forces attempted for the second day to break through the Russian defense along the Demidovka-Grafovka line, near the state border. Footage of the destruction of other groups of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in armored vehicles is spreading. The command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine continues to strengthen its grouping in this direction, having transferred several combined units of mechanized brigades to the area of the state border, GrV “Nord” reports. They reached the Dragon’s Teeth in the Belgorod region. Russian sources on the front line confirm that Ukrainian troops have reached the outskirts of Demidovka.
In the Krasnoyaruzhsky district, the civilian population is being evacuated, the regional operational headquarters has made a number of decisions: to organize a round-the-clock traffic police service on all roads along which entry into the territory of the Krasnoyaruzhsky municipality is possible, in order to prevent residents from entering (passing) into the territory of the district until further notice. To counter looters, joint patrolling of populated areas in the Krasnoyaruzhsky region has been introduced. Agricultural enterprises 15 km from the border are purchasing armored vehicles for transporting people. To provide food parcels to residents of the Krasnoyaruzhsky district who do not live in temporary detention centers. The head of the Krasnoyaruzhsky district administration should organize daily feeding of domestic animals in the territories of district settlements based on the operational situation and the requests of residents.
Meter-by-meter patrol of the Kursk Territory and the restoration of Russian control are almost complete.
In the direction of Liman, Russian forces are advancing west of the settlement of Balka Zhuravka.
In Chasiv Yar, Ukrainians say Russian aircraft have struck the private sector south of the railway.
Toretsk, fighting continues in the building, reports of Russian forces advancing north of Druzhba. Russian forces have advanced from positions in the northern part of the town of Toretsk, advancing across open fields and taking up positions near the Dylivka water treatment plant. Russian forces have advanced from their positions in the southern part of the now Russian-flagged Toretsk mines. They have also taken up several new positions in the private sector of the nearby village of Krymske.
In the direction of Pokrovs’k, Russian forces have continued their assault operations in the town of Shevchenko and are recapturing a number of previously lost positions. After eliminating the Ukrainian assault groups that broke into the southern outskirts, Russian forces began moving north through the city center, recapturing positions in the surrounding residential areas. The front line was also corrected in Russia’s favor in the tree lines west of Shevchenko. Ukrainian forces are now holding onto houses to the north and are bringing in new forces to try to hold their remaining positions and potentially counterattack in the near future.
In the Burlats’ke direction, Russian troops have occupied a “pocket” south of the settlement of Pryvil’ne in Lobkove. The Russians advanced Novodanylivka, fighting is going on near the village, Ukrainian artillery and kamikaze drones are constantly working, in connection with which the governor announced the decision to suspend the transportation of schoolchildren to some settlements near LBS, children were transferred to distance learning.
In the DPR yesterday, 11 civilians from Horlivka were injured during the morning shelling of the center of Gorlovka.
On the Zaporizhia front in the area of the Stepove settlement, Russian Armed Forces units are moving north from Stepove and south towards Lobkove. There are clashes at the approach.
Graziella Giangiulio
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