WAR IN UKRAINE: March 27, 2023
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 397
Russia will station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, President Vladimir Putin has said. President Putin said the move would not violate nuclear non-proliferation agreements and compared it to the US stationing its weapons in Europe, according to Russian state media. Moscow would not be transferring control of its arms to Minsk, he added - BBC
The U.S. has said there’s no need to change strategy in light of the Russian basing of tactical nuclear weapons. And that they’re monitoring the situation. One analyst said the move is part of Mr. Putin’s sabre-rattling, and signals a tightening Russian embrace/stranglehold on the president of Belarus.
The Ukrainian military says that Russian attacks are focusing on Bakhmut and a handful of other eastern areas and Ukraine's president praised recent pledges of international support for Kyiv - RFE/RL
Russian President Vladimir Putin planned a “total cleansing” of Ukraine with “house-to-house terror” to subdue its people, leaked spy documents reportedly show. Chilling emails from within Russia’s FSB intelligence service talk about orders “from the very top” for civilians to be taken to concentration camps in a bid to conquer Ukraine. The emails were leaked by a source within the FSB to Russian human rights activist Vladimir Osechkin, who founded Gulagu, a website that highlights the conditions in the country’s prison system, the US Sun reported. The leak comes a week after the International Criminal Court charged Putin with war crimes on charges related to an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that there have been over 16,000 forced deportations carried out by Russia - NY Post
Since the beginning of March, a growing number of military age men in 43 administrative regions across Russia are receiving summonses to report to their local enlistment offices in what could be preparations for another round of military mobilization in the country, Russian human rights lawyers and advocacy groups say. According to data compiled by various groups based on screenshots and photos of the summonses, the growing number has mostly been directed to reservists and university students that deferred military service because of their studies. Many of those who received a summons have not reported to their local office, according Go by the Forest, a Russian antiwar organization that aims to help Russians avoid being mobilized to fight in Ukraine - RFE/RL