The Russian army took full control of the Kherson region of Ukraine

On March 15, 2022, the main event of a special military operation on the territory of Ukraine was the official transfer of the entire Kherson region of Ukraine, directly bordering the Republic of Crimea, to the control of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Active hostilities have stopped in Kherson itself.

It was also reported from numerous sources about the removal of Ukrainian flags in Energodar and Melitopol (Zaporozhye region), which had previously come under the actual control of Z units.

The DPR troops broke through the nationalist lines at Panteleimonovka, reaching the Verkhnetoretskoye - Novoselovka line.

The situation is critical for Ukrainian nationalists in Mariupol, where, according to various sources, up to 14,500 Ukrainian servicemen are surrounded by DPR troops.

Fighting continues in the Kharkov region, with the previous goal of closing the ring around this large settlement. According to reports from the Ukrainian side, the city of Izyum, which is important in the context of the offensive on Kharkov, have been taken under the actual control of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

Mobilisation in Ukraine is intensifying, which may be due to both large losses and poor quality of mobilisation activities. At the moment, almost 100% of reservists who were registered in the territorial recruitment centres were sent to combat units, so the command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced the mobilisation of military service for other categories.

Kiev Mayor Vladimir Klitschko called on the men who left Kiev 20 days before the start of the Russian special operation to return to the city for its defence. In addition, Klitschko urged residents of Kiev to prepare for the fact that they will have to be at home for two days and hide in a shelter at an alarm signal. Also in Kiev and throughout the Kiev region, a curfew was imposed from March 15 to March 17 from 21:00 Moscow time to 8:00 Moscow time.

Apparently, in the Ukrainian capital, a powerful assault on the city by Russian troops is expected in the near future, which looks plausible given the accumulation of reserves by Group V in the north of the Ukrainian capital that has been going on for a week.

For his part, President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky signed a law on supplementing the Criminal Code of Ukraine with the article "Collaboration", which is supposed to be used to punish any cooperation with Russia.

Over the past day, the Aerospace Forces and Air Defence of the Russian Federation shot down 16 Ukrainian air targets - one Su-24 and one Su-25 aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force, one Mi-8 helicopter and 13 Ukrainian UAVs, including six Bayraktar TB-2. At the military airfield near Kramatorsk, 3 hangars with four Ukrainian Su-25 attack aircraft and six helicopters (1 MI-24 and 5 Mi-8) were destroyed.

Since the previous report, 136 military facilities of Ukraine have been additionally hit, including: seven control points and communication nodes, four air defence systems, three multiple rocket launchers, four radars, target illumination and guidance of S-300 air defence systems, one electronic warfare station, four ammunition depots and 72 places of accumulation of military equipment.

In total, 156 drones, 1306 tanks and armoured vehicles, 127 MLRS units, 471 guns and mortars, 1054 units of special purpose vehicles have been destroyed since the beginning of the operation.

More and more information is being received about the trophies taken in the form of foreign equipment and weapons. So, Russian paratroopers seized 10 American Javelin complexes and a number of other weapons near the settlement of Guta-Mezhigorskaya, after which they were transferred to strengthen the armies of the DPR and LPR.

The consistent destruction of the military infrastructure of Ukraine continues. In particular, the "Impulse" plant - the only enterprise where detonator caps, electric detonators, detonating cords and other means of detonation were produced - in the Sumy region was hit with high-precision weapons, as well as the "Artyom" plant in Kiev, where aviation missiles were produced.

The recruitment of foreign mercenaries for Ukraine faced serious difficulties after the Russian strike with precision weapons at the Yavorov training ground (Lvov region), where groups of mercenaries from various countries of the world who arrived for the war on the side of Ukraine were located.

The official structures of NATO have once again confirmed their categorical refusal to transfer aircrafts to Ukraine or directly participate in the creation of obstacles to the actions of Russian aviation.

In the near future, we should expect an increase in the fighting for Kiev, both in the form of traditional encirclements and in the form of assault operations. The capture of the Kherson region opens up opportunities to focus on the direction of Nikolaev-Odessa, as well as to expand the scope of action to the Dnepropetrovsk region of Ukraine in order to close the arc around the Donetsk grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The information from the area of Severodonetsk, where up to 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers are in a state close to encirclement, is extremely fragmentary. However, the whole logic of the previous events speaks of the imminent intensification of actions aimed at the complete encirclement of the largest and most armed group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This will help to avoid further attempts to unblock Kharkov or Kiev.