Victory Chronicles-DAY 764

According to the General Staff, there were 60 combat engagements in the Novopavlivka direction over the last day. The enemy launched 11 missile and 77 air strikes and attacked the positions of Ukrainian troops and populated areas from multiple launch rocket systems. These attacks have resulted in casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including high-rise buildings, medical facilities, schools, and kindergartens. 

The Russians also used a Shahed UAV during the nighttime attack. Air strikes were conducted in various localities in Kharkiv and Donetsk Oblasts, and more than 100 settlements in other Oblasts came under artillery fire. The enemy maintains a military presence in some border areas and conducts sabotage activities. Despite this, Ukrainian troops have successfully repelled enemy attacks in several sectors, including Avdiivka, Bakhmut, Liman, and Novopavlivka. 

The Ukrainian Defense Forces have actively targeted enemy personnel, weapons, and military equipment, inflicting losses on the occupation forces along the entire front line.

According to the Office of the Prosecutor General in Ukraine, Russian troops have already killed 537 children and injured over 1,269 children of varying severity as a result of the full-scale armed aggression in Ukraine. The data is not final, as efforts are being made to establish it in all areas affected by the war. The majority of children were injured in the Donetsk Oblast, followed by Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Dnipropetrovs’k, Mykolaiv, and Zaporizhzhia. The violence against children continues, as on March 27, four children aged three months to 13 years were injured in the shelling of Kharkiv, and on the same day, a 13-year-old boy died in the village of Borova due to a Russian strike.

One of the universities in Kherson, Ukraine, was attacked by Russians, resulting in significant damage to the building. The attack occurred at around 4:00 am, leaving a huge hole in the wall, damaged classrooms, and broken windows. The head of Kherson Oblasts Military Administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, provided a statement confirming the attack and describing the extent of the damage. Additionally, Prokudin mentioned that on March 27, in the evening, Russians also attacked a residential area in the central part of the city. One of the shells hit a residential building directly, but fortunately, there were no casualties reported. 

The Ukrinform news agency published a video of the aftermath of a Russian drone strike in Zaporizhzhia. Private houses were destroyed. This time, there were no casualties.

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) released its 38th report on the human rights situation in Ukraine on March 26, confirming several of ISW’s longstanding assessments about Russia’s systematic violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in occupied territories and towards Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs).

The HRMMU report details activities between December 1, 2023 and February 29 2024, and includes new findings about Russia’s abuse of Ukrainian POWs during this timeframe, based on interviews with 60 recently released male POWs. Nearly all of the POWs that HRMMU interviewed detailed how they were tortured by Russian forces with beatings and electric shocks and threatened with execution, and over half of the interviewees experienced sexual violence. HRMMU also reported that it has evidence of Russian forces executing at least 32 POWs in 12 different incidents during the reporting period and independently verified three of the executions. 

ISW observed open-source evidence of several POW executions during this reporting period: the execution of three Ukrainian POWs near Robotyne, Zaporizhia Oblast on December 27, 2023; the execution of one Ukrainian POW near Klishchiivka, Donetsk Oblast on February 9, 2024; the executions of three Ukrainian POWs near Robotyne, the execution of six Ukrainian POWs near Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast, and the executions of two Ukrainian POWs near Vesele, Donetsk Oblast on or around February 18, 2024; and the execution of nine Ukrainian POWs near Ivanivske, Donetsk Oblast, on February 25.

The summary execution and mistreatment of POWs is a violation of Article 3 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. The HRMMU report also details the forced Russification of Ukrainian populations in occupied areas, including the imposition of Russian political, legal, and administrative systems onto occupied Ukraine in violation of Russia’s international legal obligations as an occupying power. ISW has reported at length on the specifics of Russia’s illegal occupation of Ukraine, consistent with the findings of the UN HRMMU report.

Fighter Ruslan Saakian, with the call sign Sokrat, died on March 9, 2023, in the battle for the city of Vuhledar, Donetsk Oblast. The fighter received fatal injuries as a result of enemy tank fire. The defender would have turned 33 in April.

Ruslan was born in the village of Voronintsy, Poltava Oblast. He lived in the village of Lazirky. He graduated from the Kyiv Higher Lyceum of Woodworking and became a carpenter and carver. He worked as a grain handling operator at Kononivsky Elevator LLC. In his spare time, he went spearfishing and made woodwork. He loved to gather friends and have fun, and he appreciated each of them.

From the first days of the full-scale invasion, the man joined a volunteer territorial defense unit and participated in defense of Poltava Oblast. After 7 months, he was mobilized for military service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. After training, he took a position as a radio operator driver in the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade named after the Black Cossacks and went to the front line.

“Ruslan was a very good man, he always stood for justice to the end. For us, he was just the perfect husband and father,” said the deceased’s wife.

“Rusik was a man of his word, he always had his own opinion and defended it. He was brave, courageous, courageous, unbreakable and strong in spirit. A hero who gave his life for our peaceful sky. I want everyone to know and remember him! It is a great loss and pain for us,” added Yaroslava Holota, a family friend.

Ruslan Saakian was posthumously awarded the Order “For Courage” of the III degree. The defender was buried in the village of Lazirky, Poltava Oblast. Ruslan is survived by his wife Yulia, daughters Milana and Diana, other relatives, friends and fighters-in-arms.

*Ruslan’s story on the Heroes Memorial – a platform for stories about the fallen defenders of Ukraine.

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