Three fronts of risk on 16 March 2024

What did the reporting on 16 March 2024 show about the reach of the war? Taken with the days before it, it pointed to violence in Ukrainian cities, in a Russian border city and at a nuclear plant under occupation.

On 16 March 2024, Russia said two civilians had been killed by Ukrainian shelling in the city of Belgorod. The claim came from Russia, and it belonged to a category of reports on attacks inside Russian territory during the invasion.

The previous day, 15 March 2024, a Russian double tap missile strike on Odesa killed at least 20 people and injured at least 73 others. A double tap strike hits the same place twice. The casualty figures were the most serious of the three reports.

The Zaporizhzhia plant

On 14 March 2024, Russian-installed officials at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar said shelling had hit critical infrastructure at the plant. They called such attacks unacceptable. The plant lies in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, which Russian forces entered after launching an invasion out of Crimea on 24 February 2022. Russia declared the annexation of the Russian-controlled parts of the oblast on 30 September 2022, and administered them through a military-civilian administration until then.

What the sequence shows

The three reports came from different places and different sources. The Odesa figures concerned a Russian strike on a Ukrainian city. The Belgorod claim was Russia's account of Ukrainian shelling. The Enerhodar statement came from officials installed by Russia. Each side was describing harm to people or infrastructure, and each account reached beyond the front line. Taken together, they show the war reaching civilians and a nuclear facility in the space of three days, from 14 to 16 March 2024.