Ukraine war situation update 15 – 21 March 2025

Key trends

• In the Donetsk region, Russian forces seized a village southwest of Pokrovsk. Russian forces also advanced near Velyka Novosilka and northeast of Lyman. 
• Russian forces occupied two settlements west of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhia region and advanced northeast of Dvorichna in the Kharkiv region.  
• ACLED records 17 Russian long-range missile and drone strikes, including in the Kyiv region and Kyiv city. Ukrainian forces intercepted strikes in at least 40 other instances in 15 regions, including in the western region of Khmelnytskyi.
• Russian shelling, missiles, and drones killed at least 24 civilians in the Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Sumy, and Zaporizhia regions.

Spotlight: Strikes on energy infrastructure continue despite the limited ceasefire

On 18 March, Ukraine and Russia verbally agreed not to target each other’s energy infrastructure for 30 days. This followed talks with the United States in which Russia refused the full unconditional 30-day ceasefire the US initially proposed.¹ Despite this, since 18 March, Russia and Ukraine have exchanged more than 20 strikes on energy infrastructure, of which some appear deliberate. 

Less than an hour after the announcement, Russian glide bombs hit the railway power system in Slovyansk in the Donetsk region, causing blackouts in the city. This was followed by a “double-tap” strike targeting firefighters who arrived at the scene.² The strikes on civilian energy infrastructure continued throughout the night, causing power outages, interrupting gas supply in other towns of the Donetsk region, and damaging a gas pipeline in the Sumy region. Later the same night, Ukrainian drones struck an oil depot in Russia’s Krasnodar region, causing a fire that lasted for several days. Russian strikes continued in the following days. A wave of drone attacks caused blackouts in Odesa city on 20 March. On 21 March, Ukraine and Russia accused one another of hitting a gas metering station near Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk region,³ with Russia threatening continued attacks.⁴

Russia has been systematically targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since October 2022, inflicting significant hardship on civilians by causing blackouts and interruptions to the country’s heating and water supply. Ukraine has also been increasingly targeting Russia’s oil and gas facilities, focusing on facilities involved in exporting energy. 

Explore the ACLED Conflict Exposure tool to assess the numbers of people affected by armed violence, disaggregated by locations, time period, and actors involved.