What happened on 18 March 2022 in the war

What did the war in Ukraine look like on 18 March 2022? It was a day of heavy losses in the south, of new weapons reported in use, and of diplomacy aimed at China. This retrospective looks back at those reports.

Mykolaiv: barracks destroyed

The most striking reports came from Mykolaiv. Russian fighter jets bombed two military bases in the city, and dozens of Ukrainian soldiers were killed. A separate report described a Russian missile strike that destroyed a Ukrainian barracks there, killing at least 50 soldiers, with many more believed to be buried under rubble.

A Ukrainian serviceman who survived, and who had been sleeping in a barracks opposite the point of impact at one of the locations, gave a grim estimate. About 200 people had been there, he said, and roughly 90 per cent did not survive.

Zaporizhzhia under shelling

Further east, Russian shelling in Zaporizhzhia killed nine people on the same date. The reports placed the incident within the Battle of Zaporizhzhia, part of the wider fighting in southern Ukraine.

A reported first for hypersonic missiles

The day also brought confirmation that Russia had launched hypersonic missiles at Ukraine. American officials said this was the first known use of such missiles in combat. They were used to destroy a military ammunition depot in Deliatyn.

A Russian army commander killed

On the Ukrainian side, a strike on the airbase at Chornobaivka was reported to have killed Andriy Mordvichev, commander of Russia's 8th Combined Arms Army of the Southern Military District.

Washington speaks to Beijing

On the diplomatic front, US President Biden spoke for almost two hours with Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, about the war in Ukraine. He warned against any support for the invasion.

The call followed a signal from the previous day. After a meeting between Chen Guoping, China's commissioner for foreign security affairs, and Russia's ambassador to China, Andrey Denisov, a statement from China's foreign ministry did not mention the war in Ukraine.

The days before: pressure and posture

Several other developments from 17 March 2022 formed the backdrop. The US House of Representatives voted 424–8 to suspend trade relations with Russia and Belarus following the invasion. British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace announced that the UK was deploying a Sky Sabre air defence system to Poland, with 100 troops to operate it, as part of NATO's response to Russian military aggression.

The gaming platform Steam announced that it would stop payments to Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, one more example of the economic consequences spreading beyond governments.

Inside Russia, President Vladimir Putin ordered the Federal Security Service to arrest General Roman Gavrilov, deputy chief of Rosgvardiya. Separately, according to Ukrainian intelligence information, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had pledged to supply Russia with 40,000 mercenaries.

What the day showed

Taken together, the reports from 18 March 2022 show a war fought on several levels at once. In Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia, civilians and soldiers bore the immediate cost of air and artillery strikes. The use of hypersonic missiles against a depot in Deliatyn was described by American officials as a first. The death of a senior Russian army commander at Chornobaivka was reported at the same time. Meanwhile, the long call between the American and Chinese leaders showed where Washington was directing diplomatic effort.