Here is the situation on Thursday, March 14, 2024.

Fighting

• At least four people were killed and eight injured after a Russian drone and bomb attack on Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Sumy regions hit residential buildings.
• Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskii, Ukraine’s army chief, said the situation on the eastern front was “difficult” and that Russian forces continued to conduct offensive operations. He said Russian activity on the southern front had “decreased significantly”.
• Ukraine targeted oil refineries in Russia’s Rostov and Ryazan regions in a second day of heavy drone attacks, causing a fire at Rosneft’s biggest refinery and temporarily halting production. A Ukrainian source told the Reuters news agency the attacks were the work of the SBU security services.
• Ukraine-based anti-Putin Russian paramilitaries supporting Kyiv urged civilians to flee Belgorod and Kursk, threatening large-scale attacks on military targets in the Russian border cities.

Politics and diplomacy

• Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo warned that Russia was gearing up for a “long conflict with the West” and urged European countries to step up spending and coordination on defence.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would send more troops to Russia’s border with Finland, which joined NATO in 2023 after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
• Leonid Volkov, an exiled Russian activist and one-time senior aide to Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who died in an Arctic penal colony last month, was attacked with a hammer and tear gas near his home in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius. Lithuania accused Russia of being behind the attack, which left Volkov in hospital.
• The leaders of France, Germany and Poland said they would hold urgent talks in Berlin on Friday to boost support for Ukraine.
• Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, met the Chinese ambassador to Kyiv for further discussions on a visit last week by China’s special envoy and preparations for a peace summit to be held in Switzerland. Russia said it had no intention of joining the summit, even if invited.
• Austria ordered two diplomats from Russia’s embassy in Vienna to leave the country. The Foreign Ministry said the two had “engaged in acts incompatible with their diplomatic status”. It did not elaborate.