Kyiv Post Daily Thread – The Latest News From and About Ukraine on March 14

Protecting Ukraine is not "vital" for the United States, likely presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said, underscoring that the top two Republican contenders don't see Russia's invasion of Kyiv as a foreign policy priority.

DeSantis, the 44-year-old Florida governor, said the United States "has many vital national interests" but that "becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them."

The remark aligns DeSantis, who is considered all but certain to join the 2024 race, with former president Donald Trump in opposing the establishment Republican policy of backing Kyiv.

You can read more here.

Russian troops are again attempting to conduct attacks by storming the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the direction of Kupiansk.

“The enemy has attacked our positions in the village of Hrianykivka today," Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, said.

"Battles are still going on. The enemy is suffering losses and has no success now. They are retreating to previously occupied positions. Such waves of attacks take place here, unfortunately, all the time."

You can read the full story here.

It was in early January that U.S. and Ukrainian officials first commented upon noticeable reductions in Russia’s use of artillery fire, which in some places was 75% lower than in previous months. Some U.S. analysts said that the rate of Russian fire had dropped from 20,000 rounds per day to around 5,000 per day on average.

At the time there was no obvious reason for the drop and there was speculation that it was either down to a Russia reassessing its tactical use of artillery or, as other experts believed, it was simply down to them running out of useable ammunition.

The latest UK Defense Intelligence assessment seems to support the latter theory.

You can read more here.

Russia on Monday began the closed-door trial of jailed opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who faces more than two decades in prison on charges including treason for comments critical of the Kremlin.

His high-profile trial is the latest in a string of cases against opposition voices in Russia in a crackdown that has intensified since President Vladimir Putin deployed troops in Ukraine last year.

Kara-Murza, 41, is accused of high treason, spreading "false" information about the Russian army and being affiliated with an "undesirable organisation".

Read the full story here.

Good morning from Kyiv. Monday saw two air raid alarms in the capital but no attacks. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case elsewhere in Ukraine with 93 recorded in the Kherson region.

“Over the past day, the enemy launched 93 attacks, firing 412 shells from heavy artillery and Grad systems,” Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the Kherson regional military administration, said in a post on Telegram.

“Thirteen shells hit residential quarters, private and apartment buildings,” he added. As a result of the strikes, one person was killed and six more were injured.

Read the full memo here. 

At least one person is dead and three others injured after a Russian missile strike in the center of Kramatorsk early on March 14.

Read the full story on Ukrinform.