Ukraine Conflict Monitor
Update
Ukraine war situation update | 21 – 27 March 2026
Russia carries out one of the largest waves of strikes on large population centers in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion in 2022.
Key stats
1,816 political violence events
4% increase compared to the previous three weeks
139 incidents of violence targeting civilians
8% decrease compared to the previous three weeks
At least 42 fatalities from civilian targeting
33% decrease compared to the previous three weeks
Key events
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23 Mar.
Kyiv — A Russian recruit detonates two explosive devices in Bucha, wounding two police officers
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24 Mar.
Ivano-Frankivsk — Russian drones kill two people in the first deadly strike on Ivano-Frankivsk city
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26 Mar.
Black Sea — A Ukrainian naval drone hits a Sierra Leone-flagged tanker carrying Russian oil outside Turkish territorial waters
Key trends
- Russian forces occupied three villages along the international border in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions. They also claimed limited advances along the front line in the Donetsk region and south of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region.
- Ukrainian forces regained control over a settlement in the Dnipropetrovsk region, pushing Russian forces closer to the administrative boundary with the Zaporizhia region.
- Russian forces launched at least 50 long-range missile and drone attacks, including on the western regions of Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Khmelnytskyi.
- Russian strikes killed at least 33 civilians in the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Odesa, Sumy, Vinnytsia, and Zaporizhia regions. Ukrainian drone strikes reportedly killed eight civilians in the Russian-controlled parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions.
Spotlight: Russia conducts a large wave of long-range attacks on Ukraine’s central and western regions
On 24 February, Russian forces carried out one of the largest waves of strikes targeting large population centers in the central and western regions of Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Unlike most waves of coordinated long-range attacks that happen during the night, most of the drones launched that day — over 5501 — targeted cities during daytime afternoon hours, catching civilians off guard.
A Russian drone hit the Ivano-Frankivsk city center, killing an off-duty National Guard officer and his teenage daughter while they were visiting a perinatal hospital. The strike wounded at least eight people inside the hospital and at a nearby kindergarten. This was the first deadly drone strike on the city since the start of the invasion. ACLED also records civilian fatalities in the city of Vinnytsia for the first time since July last year. Here, Russian drones damaged houses and apartment buildings, killing one civilian and wounding 20 others. In Lviv, Russian drones struck the historic city center and a residential area, injuring 32 people.
Similar attacks also occurred in the western regions of Khmelnytskyi and Ternopil and the central regions of Poltava and Zhytomyr. Throughout the week, Russian strikes also hit other regions farther from the front line, such as Kyiv, Kirovohrad, Odesa, and Cherkasy. Overall, ACLED records Russian strikes in 19 regions of Ukraine, compared to the average of 13 regions hit during the past four weeks.
