War in Ukraine: What to remember on the 384th day of the Russian invasion

Europe 1 with AFP 11:11am, March 15, 2023

THE ESSENTIALS

Ukraine on Wednesday accused Russia of seeking to "expand" the war in Ukraine to other parties, after an incident between Russian fighters and a US drone in the Black Sea. "The incident with the US MQ-9 Reaper drone provoked by Russia in the Black Sea is a signal from (Vladimir) Putin that he is ready to expand the conflict zone and involve other parties in it," Ukrainian Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said on Twitter.

Three missiles shot down over Russia's Belgorod region

Three missiles were shot down Tuesday night over the Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, said the governor of the region Vyacheslav Gladkov on his Telegram channel. The missiles were shot down by Russian air defenses and their debris damaged homes in the city of Belgorod and its surroundings, the governor said, without reporting casualties.

Vyacheslav Gladkov also announced that a drone had been shot down in the area and had damaged a garage by crashing. At the end of January, the governor of the Belgorod region announced that since the beginning of the Russian offensive against Ukraine 25 people had been killed and nearly 100 others wounded in total in Ukrainian strikes on the region.

Localities and infrastructures in the Belgorod region are regularly subjected to strikes attributed by Moscow to the Ukrainian army, without Kiev claiming to be the perpetrator. The regional capital, of the same name, has also been hit directly several times.

Russian ambassador to US calls on Washington to stop 'hostile' flights

Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov on Wednesday called on Washington to stop "hostile" flights near Russia's borders, after a US drone intercepted by Russian fighters crashed the day before in the Black Sea. "We assume that the United States will refrain from further speculation in the media space and cease its flights near the Russian borders," Antonov said in a statement on Telegram.

"We consider any action involving the use of American weapons to be openly hostile," he said. "Russia does not seek confrontation and remains for pragmatic cooperation in the interest of the peoples of our countries," Antonov said. The United States on Tuesday accused Russian aircraft of "intercepting and ramming" an American Reaper drone over the Black Sea and causing it to fall.

Russia denied the accusations while acknowledging that two of its fighters had intercepted a US drone that had been detected "in the area of the Crimean peninsula" and was advancing "in the direction" of Russia's borders.