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What 17 March 2022 showed about the war's wider fronts
Summary
A look back at a day of arrests, sanctions and pledged aid, set against the fighting in Ukraine.
What did the war look like beyond the front line on 17 March 2022? The reports from that day, and from the days just before it, show a conflict that was spreading into sanctions lists, parliaments and the Russian security apparatus.
Inside Russia
On 17 March 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Federal Security Service to arrest General Roman Gavrilov, the deputy chief of Rosgvardiya. The day before, Putin had addressed his ministers on Ukraine and the Russian economy. He described Russian "traitors" in harsh terms and accused a so-called "fifth column" of trying to destroy the country from within.
On 16 March 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said there was hope of reaching a compromise aimed at a ceasefire.
On the ground and in Kyiv
On 17 March 2022, Russian-backed militants from the so-called Luhansk People's Republic took control of government buildings in the town of Rubizhne. Separately, Ukrainian intelligence information held that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had pledged to supply Russia with 40,000 mercenaries.
In Kyiv, politics was shifting as well. On 15 March 2022, Illia Kyva of the pro-Russian Opposition Platform — For Life was deprived of his status as an MP in the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament. A further four MPs quit the party.
Sanctions and aid
On 17 March 2022, New Zealand added 364 Russian political and military figures to its travel-ban list. It also added 13 individuals and 19 entities to its sanctions list, which includes asset freezes. Putin and Lavrov were among those named.
Washington was moving on two tracks. On 15 March 2022, US President Joe Biden signed a $1.5 trillion budget bill that included $13.6 billion in aid for Ukraine. On the same day, the US Senate unanimously passed a bipartisan resolution declaring Putin a war criminal and calling for an investigation by the International Criminal Court. On 16 March 2022, Biden announced a further $800 million in security assistance for Ukraine, including 800 anti-aircraft systems, thousands of anti-tank missiles and armed combat drones.
Moscow answered with its own measures. On 15 March 2022, Russia sanctioned Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, CIA Director William Burns and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in response to US sanctions on Russian officials. The same day it barred Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, General Wayne Eyre and most members of the Canadian parliament from entering Russia.
The picture
Taken together, the reports from 15 to 17 March 2022 show a war that was being fought on several levels at once: local control of a town in Luhansk region, a purge of a senior Rosgvardiya figure, and a widening exchange of sanctions and aid between Russia and Western governments.
