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Mariupol fighters ‘successful in tying down Russian forces
Ukrainian forces in Mariupol have successfully tied down thousands of Russian soldiers who otherwise would’ve been redeployed northwards for the main battle in Donbas, according to Professor Malcolm Chalmers, Deputy Director General of the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi).
“Defenders of Mariupol, having lasted so long, have made a significant contribution to the overall war effort – even if they eventually are overwhelmed”, he tells the BBC.
“Russian resources are not unlimited and they lost a lot of equipment and people in a failed campaign to take Kyiv,” Chalmers adds.
He says Putin’s maximum aim remains to replace the Ukrainian government with a regime to his liking – even the total absorption of Ukraine to Russia.
“The battle of Donbas is a case of sequencing – trying to achieve one thing at a time.”
He says if Russia is successful in its Donbas assault, “which is possible but not likely”, they would then move on to the south to attack Odesa and Kyiv.
“In retrospect, the Russian leadership will believe they made a strategic error trying to fight Ukraine on several fronts at the beginning of the war,” Chalmers says.
Fears Izyum will become next Bucha, with thousands trapped
The city of Izyum – known as the gateway to the Donbas region and the Black Sea – is experiencing fierce fighting as the Russians use it as a staging post to attack towns in the east.
Now, there are fears Izyum will become the next Bucha – where Russia is accused of war crimes against the civilian population, including executions and torture.
Izyum reportedly has the highest concentration of Russian troops in Ukraine.
The strategic city, located 70 miles south-east of Kharkiv, heads into the separatist-controlled east and fell completely to the Russians on 1 April.
While some civilian evacuations were carried out before Russian soldiers invaded, there are around 10,000 to 15,000 people still trapped according to officials.
Almost 80% of the city’s residential buildings have been destroyed and train lines have been cut, the city’s deputy mayor says.
People who have managed to flee Izyum told the BBC that it is on the edge of a humanitarian catastrophe.
For more than a month, civilians haven’t had access to humanitarian help, with “no electricity, heating or water”, head of the Izyum military administration, Stepan Maselsky, says.
Maselsky, who is in a Ukrainian-held area surrounding Izyum, says contact with civilians is being controlled by Russian forces, who won’t allow people to enter or leave the area.
“We have unconfirmed reports of deportations [of civilians] to Russia – people are not allowed to move around inside the city,” he says.
In maps: The latest across Ukraine
We’ve been focusing on Mariupol so far today – but let’s take a look at the broader picture across Ukraine.
Russia’s military has seized most of Ukraine’s eastern border areas, and its forces have now fully withdrawn from around the capital Kyiv and northern Ukraine to Belarus and Russia.
Following the withdrawal, Russia refocused its efforts to launch a large-scale offensive in eastern Ukraine, intensifying fighting in the Donbas region.
Russia continues to build troops along its 300-mile eastern front, with satellite imagery showing a build-up of forces on Ukraine’s border and convoys of vehicles travelling towards the front line.
Track the war in maps here.
Russia claims to have hit 1,053 Ukrainian military facilities overnight
Russia’s Ministry of Defence claims its forces have hit 1,053 Ukrainian military facilities overnight.
In a Telegram update this morning, the defence ministry said it had destroyed 106 artillery firing positions and shot down six Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles.
It said its forces hit 73 military assets of Ukraine, among them:
- Four command posts
- 57 areas of Ukrainian manpower and military equipment
- Seven strong points and four ammunition depots
- Six tanks and nine armoured vehicles and
- One Msta-B howitzer battery weapon
It added that a high-precision missile strike killed up to 40 Ukrainian military personnel and destroyed seven military equipment units.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation said it continues “the special military operation in Ukraine”.
The BBC has not been able to independently verify these claims.
‘Still 100,000 people left in devastated Mariupol’
As we’ve been reporting, Ukraine hopes to evacuate 6,000 people from the besieged city of Mariupol via humanitarian corridors on Wednesday.
However, the mayor, who has left Mariupol, says that there are still about 100,000 people left in the city.
Vadym Boichenko also warned that the agreement with Russia was only preliminary. If it holds, it will be the first on creating safe corridors since 5 March.
That agreement collapsed, and many people have been trapped in Mariupol for weeks without running water, power or other supplies.
It’s a strategic target for Russia because it’s a south-eastern port for Ukraine. Russia claims to control most of it, with the last Ukrainian defenders holed-up in the vast steelworks.
What’s going on in Mariupol and why it matters
What’s happening
Russia has given Ukrainian forces in Mariupol a fresh ultimatum to lay down their weapons by 11:00 GMT on Wednesday. They’re holed up in a huge steelworks complex at the moment.
The port city is surrounded but still hasn’t fallen, and Ukraine’s foreign minister said Russia has decided to raze it to the ground.
Around 130,000 citizens have been blockaded in the besieged city for 50 days and are struggling to find food, water, and medicine, the city’s deputy mayor says.
Why Mariupol matters
- Securing land: Capturing Mariupol would leave Russia in control of a vast swathe of southern and eastern Ukraine
- Strangling the economy: It’s home to an important port, which in normal times is a key export hub for steel and coal
- Propaganda opportunity: Mariupol is home to a Ukrainian militia unit called the Azov Brigade, which contain far-right extremists. Although they form only the tiniest fraction of Ukraine’s fighting forces, it has been a useful propaganda tool for Moscow
- Morale boost: It would help the Kremlin to show its population – through state-controlled media – that Russia was achieving its aims
Get more detail from our security correspondent Frank Gardner here.
Source: BBC
The Global Network of Export-Import Banks and Development Finance Institutions (G-NEXID) successfully held its sixth (6th) Exchange Programme, hosted by the Ghana Export – Import Bank (GEXIM) Bank in Accra from March 22 to 23 March.
The event brought together member institutions, partner organisations and Ghanaian public entities to advance dialogue on South-South trade, investment and development finance, while also creating opportunities for knowledge-sharing and institutional cooperation.
Organised as a capacity-building and networking platform, the 2026 edition of the G-NEXID Exchange focused on GEXIM’s experience in developing innovative solutions to promote intra-African and extra-African trade.
It also highlighted trade and investment opportunities in Ghana, particularly in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and broader national development initiatives.
The Exchange Programme forms part of G-NEXID’s mandate to foster cooperation among export-import banks and development finance institutions in support of South-South trade and investment.
This 6th edition follows earlier successful programmes hosted by India Exim Bank (2016), BNDES (2017), Indonesia Eximbank (2018), Afreximbank (2019) and Saudi EXIM Bank (2025).
On the first day, participants were presented with G-NEXID institutional information and received an update on the Network’s 2026 work programme.
There were a series of substantive presentations, including an overview of the Ghanaian economy by the Ministry of Finance, with particular attention to debt-related challenges; a presentation by the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), on investment opportunities in the country; and institutional presentations by GEXIM and Development Bank Ghana (DBG) on their respective mandates, initiatives, products and services.
Discussions during the sessions underscored strong interest in sector-focused webinars and business dialogues, particularly in agribusiness value chains such as poultry and rice.
Participants also emphasized the importance of continued information exchange and the sharing of best practices, especially in the area of guarantees.
The second day opened with a presentation on the 24-Hour Economy and Accelerated Export Development Programme, a national economic transformation strategy launched by President John Dramani Mahama in July 2025.
The initiative aims to enhance economic productivity through continuous industrial activity, accelerated export development and strategic import substitution.
As the programme is expected to mobilise both private and development capital, it presents concrete opportunities for G-NEXID members in areas such as co-financing, guarantees, trade finance and technical cooperation.
The programme also featured institutional presentations by guest organisations, namely the African Guarantee and Economic Cooperation Fund (FAGACE) and the West African Development Bank (BOAD), which shared their mandates, initiatives, products and services.
Following these exchanges, the G-NEXID Secretariat held bilateral discussions with both institutions as part of the Network’s ongoing membership drive.
Participants further benefited from a presentation by the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank (TDB), as well as a showcase of GEXIM’s key pipeline projects.
On the margins of the Exchange Programme, G-NEXID members also held their 20th Annual General Assembly Meeting to review progress and discuss strategic priorities.
Following the event, participants joined the GEXIM@10 International Conference, held from March 24-25, 2026 under the theme, “A Decade of Enabling Export Trade and Industrial Transformation: Resetting GEXIM for the Next Frontier.”
The conference provided an important platform for exploring how Ghana can strengthen its transition from a primary commodity exporter to a more competitive player in value-added trade and industrial development.
Source – G-NEXID
President John Dramani Mahama on Tuesday, March 31, 2026, signed five bills including three amendment bills passed by Parliament into law.
They are: Security and Intelligence Agencies Bill, 2025; University of Engineering and Agricultural Sciences Bill, 2025; Ghana Deposit Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2025; Growth and Sustainability Levy (Amendment) Bill, 2026; and Education Regulatory Bodies (Amendment) Bill, 2026.
In a brief remark after assenting to the bills, President Mahama explained that the Security and Intelligence Agencies Act, 2026, scraps the Office of Minister of National Security and frees the President’s to appoint any Minister to supervise the security agencies.
He said it also reverses the name of the office of National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), to the original name, Bureau of National Intelligence, (BNI).
This the President said, addresses the confusion between that security agency and a well-known Ghanaian financial institution, the National Investment Bank.
President Mahama also noted that the University of Engineering and Agricultural Sciences Act, 2026, establishes another University in the Eastern Region, at Bonsu, with three campuses – the main campus at Bonsu in the Eastern Region, with the second campus to be cited at Ohawu in the Oti Region.
The third, the Presdient assed will be located at Acherensua in the Ahafo Region.
Touching on the Amendment to the Growth and Sustainability Levy Act, the President said, “As you’re aware, the act was amended to increase it from 1% to 3%, and so this act reduces it again. That is the levy on mining companies. It reduces it again to 1%, because of the introduction of the sliding scale of royalties.”
He also spoke to the passage of the Government Education Regulatory Bodies Amendment Act, emphasising that amends Act 1023 to grant greater flexibility to private tertiary institutions and the option to Charter.
The Ghana Deposit Protection Amendment Act, the President concluded, is an amendment to an original act that was supposed to guarantee deposits held in commercial banks or financial institutions.
It basically expands protection to include mobile money wallets and other digital platforms, ensuring a wider scope of digital financial assets are secured.
The signing ceremony, was witnessed by the Clerk of Parliament, Mr. Ebenezer Ahumah Djietror, Secretary to the President, Dr Callistus Mahama, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Dr Dominic Akrutinga Ayine, Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah, Joyce Bawa Mogtari, a Senior Presidential Advisor and a Special Aide to the President, Finance Minister, Dr Cassiel Ato Baah Forson, and the Vice President, Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang.
