WAR IN UKRAINE: March 21, 2023 — Michael Bociurkiw

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 26

In the besieged city of Mariupol, people are now so hungry they are killing stray dogs for food. Dmytro, a businessman who left the city on Tuesday, said friends told him they resorted to this desperate measure in the past few days after their supplies ran out. “You hear the words but it’s impossible to really take them in, to believe this is happening,” he said. “It is hell on earth.” Read the full FT article here
The deadline for the surrender of Mariupol was 10am Moscow time on Monday. Two evacuation routes were proposed: one towards Russia and the other towards government-controlled areas. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk rejected the surrender offer: “There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms. We have already informed the Russian side about this.”
Russian forces are likely to prioritize attempting to encircle Kyiv over the coming weeks, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update on Monday. Despite the continued lack of progress, Kyiv remains Russia’s primary military objective,” it said, and “heavy fight continues north of Kyiv." An overnight attack on a Kyiv shopping center - just 15 minutes from the city centre - created scenes of Armageddon.
Five ships with tens of thousands of tons of grain disappeared from the seaport in Berdyansk. Eyewitnesses say they were driven away by Russian tugs - Ukrainska Pravda
Close to 10 million Ukrainians have left their homes. Ten million people have fled their homes in Ukraine because of Russia's devastating war. This was stated on Sunday by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. "The war in Ukraine is so devastating that 10 million people have fled - either domestically or as refugees abroad," Filippo Grandi wrote on Twitter.

And finally…During a recent tour of European capitals, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave a speech in Berlin which highlighted the lack of spine of his government to confront Mr. Putin militarily. (It’s also worth noting that Canada was among the last countries to agree to ship lethal weapons to Ukraine, despite months of consideration).

"I think for a lot of citizens, they said, well, Russia just invaded militarily Ukraine, surely if you want to stand for Ukrainians, the response has to be military," Trudeau said.

"Well, actually, we have more and better tools than that now. The power we have that we have built up over the past 75 years of unprecedented peace and stability around the world means that we have the tools to damage the Putin regime far more effectively than we ever could with tanks and missiles."

A tip of the hat to CBC’s Murray Brewster for highlighting this quote.