What did 7 March 2022 show about the war?

What did 7 March 2022 reveal about the direction of the war in Ukraine? The day combined diplomacy that produced little, military claims that were later contradicted, and signs of how neighbouring states were calibrating their roles.

Talks without a ceasefire

On 7 March 2022, Russian and Ukrainian delegations held a third round of talks at the Belarus–Poland border. Both sides said they had made limited progress on humanitarian corridors, but no ceasefire was agreed, and a fourth round was to be held in future. Separately, Russia and Ukraine set up another ceasefire to allow humanitarian evacuations from some cities. The pattern was a narrow, local pause rather than a general halt to fighting.

The Kremlin's public position was stated the same day. Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said Russia would end its military campaign if Ukraine stopped fighting, did not join NATO, recognised Crimea as Russian territory, and recognised Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states. Those terms sat alongside talks that had so far yielded only limited humanitarian arrangements.

A day earlier, on 6 March 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin told French president Emmanuel Macron in a phone call that Russia would no longer attack nuclear power plants and was open to a trilateral meeting between Russia, Ukraine and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Kharkiv and the nuclear question

The IAEA confirmed on 7 March 2022 that the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, which holds a neutron generator, had been destroyed by Russian shelling. The agency said no radiation release had been detected from the facility, which housed a small inventory of radioactive material. Coming a day after Putin's remarks on nuclear plants, the confirmation kept nuclear safety on the agenda.

Also near Kharkiv, Ukraine said it had killed Vitaly Gerasimov, a general of the 41st Combined Arms Army, who allegedly took part in the annexation of Crimea, Russia's intervention in Syria and the Second Chechen War. He was described as the second general killed by Ukrainian forces after Andrey Sukhovetsky. Ukraine's Defence Ministry reported him dead near Kharkiv. Later, on 23 May 2022, the Russian service of the BBC confirmed that Gerasimov was alive when he received the Order of Alexander Nevsky, so the claim made on 7 March did not hold.

Other fronts

In the south, Ukrainian Navy forces struck the Russian Navy patrol boat Vasily Bykov with missiles in the Black Sea. On 6 March 2022, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy had said that Vinnytsia International Airport in Vinnytsia Oblast was completely destroyed after being hit by eight Russian ballistic missiles, a reminder that strikes were reaching beyond the front lines.

Neighbours and the information space

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán signed a decree allowing NATO troops to be deployed in western Hungary and lethal weapons to cross its territory to other NATO members. The decree did not allow weapons shipments across Hungarian territory to Ukraine. It was a distinction between supporting the alliance and supplying Ukraine directly.

The cyber domain also featured. Belarus launched a widespread phishing attack against Polish and Ukrainian government and military officials; the attack was later contained. On 6 March 2022, a Russian government directive was published ordering government institutions and the internet service providers serving them to switch to Russian DNS servers and, where possible, the .ru domain zone, and to replace foreign-hosted JavaScript code with domestically hosted equivalents by 11 March. Russian authorities did not plan to disconnect from the global internet.

What the day showed

Taken together, 7 March 2022 showed negotiations that dealt with humanitarian access but not with a ceasefire, Russian demands that stayed fixed, and a conflict whose effects touched nuclear-related sites, airports, ships and networks. It also showed states on Ukraine's borders and within NATO drawing different lines about what they would allow.