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What happened on 19 March 2022 in the war
Summary
A look back at a day of evacuation corridors, Russian claims about a new missile and the aftermath of deadly strikes in the south.
What did the war in Ukraine look like on 19 March 2022? It was a day defined by a Russian claim about a new weapon, a failed attempt to rescue civilians and the aftermath of heavy losses in the south.
A missile claim
Russia said that it had used the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal hypersonic missile for the first time in Ukraine, and that the strike destroyed a weapons storage facility in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. The claim followed reports on 18 March 2022 that Russia had fired hypersonic missiles at Ukraine. US officials said that was the first known use of such missiles in combat, and that they were used to destroy a munitions depot at Deliatyn.
Corridors and Borodianka
Eight evacuation corridors operated on 19 March 2022. Even so, Russian shelling meant the authorities were unable to rescue people from Borodianka.
The aftermath in Mykolaiv
The day also followed one of the heaviest reported blows to Ukrainian forces in the south. On 18 March 2022, a Russian missile strike destroyed a military barracks in Mykolaiv, killing at least 50 soldiers, with many more believed to be buried under rubble. Another report said Russian fighters bombed two military bases in the city and that dozens of Ukrainian troops died. A surviving soldier who had been sleeping in a barracks opposite one of the strike sites said that of roughly 200 people there, about 90 per cent had not survived.
In Zaporizhzhia, nine people died on 18 March 2022 when Russian shelling hit the city.
Ukrainian strike on a Russian commander
Also on 18 March 2022, Andrii Mordvichev, commander of the 8th Combined Arms Army of Russia's Southern Military District, was killed in a Ukrainian strike on the airbase at Chornobaivka.
Diplomacy around the war
On 18 March 2022, US President Biden spoke for almost two hours with Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, about the war in Ukraine and warned against any support for the invasion. A day earlier, a statement from China's foreign ministry on a meeting between Yang Jiechi's counterpart...
