Chernobyl handed back as Mariupol convoy stalls

What did 31 March 2022 show about the direction of the war? Two developments pointed in opposite directions: Russian forces gave up ground in the north, around Chernobyl, while the besieged southern port of Mariupol stayed out of reach of relief.

Chernobyl returned to Ukraine

On 31 March 2022 the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Russian forces had handed control of the former nuclear power plant back to Ukraine. Energoatom, the Ukrainian nuclear operator, confirmed that the troops who had occupied the plant had left the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Russian troops also withdrew from the city of Slavutych, returning to Belarus.

The handover followed signals a day earlier. On 30 March, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk called on Russia to pull out of the exclusion zone and for the troops occupying the plant to leave. The same day, a U.S. official said Russian forces had begun withdrawing from the Chernobyl area and had moved into Belarus.

The background to the handover is the first day of the invasion. Russian forces had entered from Belarus on 24 February and seized the whole plant area by the end of that day. On 7 March it was reported that around 300 people had been trapped at the plant since its capture. By 31 March it was reported that most of the occupying troops had withdrawn, as the Russian military abandoned the Kyiv offensive to focus on operations in eastern Ukraine.

A wider shift around Kyiv

The Chernobyl withdrawal fitted a broader pattern reported on 30 March. According to the Pentagon, about a fifth of Russian forces around Kyiv had begun moving north towards Belarus. It was seen as a strategic step that would let them resupply and regroup for possible deployment elsewhere in Ukraine. The UK Ministry of Defence said that deployment would most likely be in the east. Also on 30 March, Ukrainian troops repelled several Russian attacks in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Mariupol: buses, a blocked road and a promised corridor

In the south, the picture was far harsher. Ukrainian officials said a large humanitarian convoy of 45 buses had set out for Mariupol on 31 March. Its purpose was to deliver supplies and evacuate residents who lacked food, water and electricity. Vereshchuk said Ukraine had sent buses to the city to evacuate citizens. On the way, the convoy was blocked by Russian forces near Berdyansk.

The Russian Ministry of Defence said that, at the request of the leaders of France and Germany, its forces would open a humanitarian corridor from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia the following day, 1 April. The day before, on 30 March, Ukraine had said Russian artillery and aircraft targeted a Red Cross hospital in Mariupol.

Talks and displacement

Diplomacy continued in parallel. On 30 March, after the latest round of negotiations in Turkey ended, Ukrainian negotiator Davyd Arakhamia said the Russian and Ukrainian delegations would resume their peace talks online on 1 April.

The human cost of the war was also being counted. On 30 March the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said more than four million Ukrainians had fled the country since the invasion began on 24 February.

What 31 March 2022 left open

By the end of 31 March, a plant that had been held by Russian troops since the first day of the invasion was back under Ukrainian control. Mariupol's residents, meanwhile, still depended on a corridor that Russia had promised for the next day and on buses that had been stopped on the road.