Day 23 of the Russian operation in Ukraine
There were new developments, especially in the diplomatic and political arena as Russians intensified their attacks on certain hotspots. The main focus of Russian operations is currently on securing and expanding conquered areas.
Published: March 19, 2022, 8:12 am
The 23rd day of the war began with heavy Russian bombardment against the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Russian cruise missiles were reported to have hit the airport and suburbs, and fire and smoke could be seen in the city. Long-range high-precision weapons dealt a blow to the military infrastructure in the city, as well as ammunition depots and Ukrainian military equipment in the suburbs of Nikolaev and Voznesensk.
Meanwhile, Russia is increasing pressure on the Ukrainian capital, with fierce fighting reported from Kiev in the suburbs and on the outskirts of the city. The Ukrainian defenders are still holding their ground. The Russians have also intensified their offensives in the embattled cities of Mariupol and Chernihiv. The Ukrainian leadership has announced that it was still in control of the most important areas.
According to Ukrainian reports, at Chernobaevka Airport near Kherson in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainian armed forces ambushed the Russian military here for the sixth time and inflicted massive losses. A few dozen attack helicopters and a Russian command post were destroyed. Control over Kherson allowed Russia to restore fresh water supplies to Crimea; Ukraine cut off the water after the peninsula voted in 2014 to rejoin Russia.
Strikingly, Russian rocket and artillery fire was reported from all parts of the country on Friday morning, as Moscow seems to be moving into a hot phase of hostilities. Surprising for many experts however, is that the Russian fighter planes are only used in very limited operations over the Ukraine.
Russia has imposed a no-fly zone over the Donbass region, according to a Russian media report. This was reported by the Russian news agency Interfax with reference to a representative of the Donetsk People’s Republic.
According to Ukrainian reports, artillery fire on the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv intensified during the night, and the Russians have maintained a partial blockade of the city. The embattled city of Kharkov in the northeast and the southern and central Ukrainian cities of Kryvyi Rih and Dnipro also reported heavy rocket fire on Friday morning. Current fighting and shelling is increasing across the country, and Russian forces appear to be entering a new phase.
The Ukrainian General Staff reported in a situation assessment that in the Kiev suburb of Brovary, positions of the Ukrainian army were taken under artillery fire. In the south of Ukraine, Russian units tried to locate and destroy the air defence system along the Black Sea coast. In conclusion, Russian soldiers were concentrating primarily on securing their terrain gains and preparing new offensives.
The head of the Kiev regional military administration Olexander Pavlyuk said on Thursday evening that the Ukrainian army had launched operations to push back Russian formations from suburbs of Kiev. The war situation in the Kiev region is difficult, but currently “controllable”.
The most threatened areas are the road to the western city of Zhitomir, the towns of Butsha, Irpin and Hostomel close to the Kiev city limits northwest of the capital, and the town of Makariv further west of Kiev. There is also constant shelling in the district of Vishhorod north of the capital.
The map of March 17 showed the Russian army’s far-reaching territorial gains, in contrast to cartographic representations by Western media.
The thoroughly coordinated action of the Russian armed forces is now quite evident, according to French analyst Xavier Moreau. Russians have formed their units into three attack groups (evident from the map above in the coloured squares). Territorial gains are increasing little by little and strategically important cities and transport hubs in the north, south and east are now in Russian hands.
According to the statements of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, after the start of the counteroffensive to recapture the territories, Ukraine lost access to the Sea of Azov.
The most tangible outcome of the operation is a change in the information sphere. In the early days a typical bureaucratic approach of the Russian Ministry of Defense was observed, which was harshly criticised as being inadequate. Unlike the Ukrainian side, the Russian Ministry of Defense reports every day on the destruction of their intended targets.
The continuous flood of visual evidence from the cellphones of Ukrainian civilians filming the destruction of critical facilities by Russian troops has been posing a problem for the initial Ukrainian information flurry which is now losing momentum. Even if they dominated the media space at the start, the information capabilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been severely undermined by their own efforts to shape the narrative through too many fictitious representations.
All rights reserved. You have permission to quote freely from the articles provided that the source (www.freewestmedia.com) is given. Photos may not be used without our consent.
Consider donating to support our work
Help us to produce more articles like this. FreeWestMedia is depending on donations from our readers to keep going. With your help, we expose the mainstream fake news agenda.
Keep your language polite. Readers from many different countries visit and contribute to Free West Media and we must therefore obey the rules in, for example, Germany. Illegal content will be deleted.
If you have been approved to post comments without preview from FWM, you are responsible for violations of any law. This means that FWM may be forced to cooperate with authorities in a possible crime investigation.
If your comments are subject to preview by FWM, please be patient. We continually review comments but depending on the time of day it can take up to several hours before your comment is reviewed.
We reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive, contain slander or foul language, or are irrelevant to the discussion.

Care prompts bishops to criticize transgender ideology
The Catholic bishops of the Scandinavian countries presented an open five-page letter criticizing transgender ideology on March 21, just before Easter. The document primarily expresses care and advice and was read aloud in Catholic churches in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland. Cardinal Anders Arborelius, Bishop of Stockholm, is one of the signatories of the document.

Brits Forced to Live in Darkness and Cold
Food prices are rising at a furious pace, fastest in Scotland in almost half a century. At the same time, energy prices are at record highs. People are forced to choose between freezing or going hungry, and a majority of Scots are forced to live in cold and darkness to cope with bills. Old generations' tricks for saving and keeping warm are returning. Nevertheless, it is feared that 10,000 Brits will die of cold homes this winter. We present the Swedish Public Health Agency's guidelines on indoor temperature. Governments in Europe are introducing rationing and monitoring of food purchases. Net-zero emissions are a lie that, in practice, de-industrializes the West and dramatically lowers our standard of living.

Thousands of Flemish farmers block roads in Brussels against nitrogen policy
BrusselsMore than 2500 farmers from Belgium's Dutch-speaking Flanders region gathered at Brussels' central Arts-Loi street and blocked roads with tractors toward Brussels to protest the regional government's plan to limit nitrogen emissions.

Orban: EU energy sanctions costing citizens billions
BudapestHungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has warned that some western states could soon send troops to Ukraine. He also criticized the fact that the EU sanctions against Russia had cost Hungarian taxpayers tens of billions of euros.

Italy: New leader of the Social Democrats is one of Soros’ ‘preferred politicians’
RomeDuring the election campaign, Elly Schlein presented herself as the standard-bearer of the poorest. However, her background and previous work raise doubts about her honesty.

UK greenhouses shut down due to high energy costs
LondonIn Great Britain, a particularly depressing facet of the crisis is now showing its first contours - and thus anticipating what is likely to happen in other European countries in the near future: because of the exploding energy prices, agriculture is being strangled and fresh produce has to be rationed.

Lisbon opens borders to all Portuguese speakers
LisbonNot only the German and Italian governments keep opening new paths for immigration. Portugal, too, has opened a Pandora's box and is paving the way for possibly millions of non-European immigrants to the EU – something which is not mentioned by the mainstream media.

Illegal immigration to Italy has reached its highest level ever
RomeIn Italy, despite the overwhelming right-wing electoral success in September, there is still nothing to be seen of the promised asylum turnaround – on the contrary. Giorgia Meloni has been in office for five months, but the arrivals of migrants in Italy have doubled compared to the previous year.

Dismantling diplomacy with ‘feminist foreign policy’
BudapestGerman Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) wants to counter German security issues abroad with feminist politics. Gender training, LGBTQ events and quotas are now part of their new guidelines, which are intended to bring about "cultural change". The German ambassador to Hungary, Julia Gross, provided an embarrassing example.

Germans demand investigation of Nord Stream sabotage
BerlinAfter the sensational revelations by US investigative reporter Seymour Hersh about the perpetrators of the Nord Stream attacks on September 26, 2022, the German government has remained silent. It does not want to comment on Hersh's research results, according to which the pipelines were blown up by Americans and Norwegians.