Russia will reroute trade to BRICS partners, Putin says
Updates from key battlefields: ‘Hellish battles’ in the east, civilian strikes near Russian border
Watchdog to scrutinize how U.S. military will restock weapons it provides Ukraine
International views improve on NATO, U.S., decline on Russia, Pew finds
The E.U. is poised to back Ukraine’s candidate status. Here’s what that means.
Germany, Austria, Netherlands plan return to coal amid gas shortage
Letters written, tanks in position as battle for Lysychansk looms
Microsoft launches effort to slow Russian propaganda on war, vaccines
South Korea’s Russian oil imports plunged in May
Putin lays wreath to honor WWII dead on anniversary of Nazi invasion
Russia declares area outside U.S. Embassy in Moscow ‘Donetsk People’s Republic Square’
Ukrainian photojournalist ‘executed in cold blood’ by Russians, group says
Estonia protests Russian invasion of airspace as Baltic frictions rise
Russia suffered ‘significant losses’ in Snake Island attack, Ukraine says
Canada bolsters air defense, citing threat of ‘autocratic regimes’
Russia will reroute trade to BRICS partners, Putin says
Updates from key battlefields: ‘Hellish battles’ in the east, civilian strikes near Russian border
Watchdog to scrutinize how U.S. military will restock weapons it provides Ukraine
International views improve on NATO, U.S., decline on Russia, Pew finds
The E.U. is poised to back Ukraine’s candidate status. Here’s what that means.
Germany, Austria, Netherlands plan return to coal amid gas shortage
Letters written, tanks in position as battle for Lysychansk looms
Microsoft launches effort to slow Russian propaganda on war, vaccines
South Korea’s Russian oil imports plunged in May
Putin lays wreath to honor WWII dead on anniversary of Nazi invasion
Russia declares area outside U.S. Embassy in Moscow ‘Donetsk People’s Republic Square’
Ukrainian photojournalist ‘executed in cold blood’ by Russians, group says
Estonia protests Russian invasion of airspace as Baltic frictions rise
Russia suffered ‘significant losses’ in Snake Island attack, Ukraine says
Canada bolsters air defense, citing threat of ‘autocratic regimes’
This live coverage has ended. For Thursday’s live updates, click here.
The fate of Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region is on the line as Russian forces continue to advance. Ukraine says the village of Toshkivka, south of Lysychansk, fell to Russia this week and is being used as a base to bombard the city, where Ukrainian forces are digging in. “Hellish battles” are ongoing in Severodonetsk, the regional governor said Wednesday, while Lysychansk is “constantly suffering from enemy fire.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that the country would redirect trade to “reliable international partners,” which include four of the world’s fastest growing economies, at a time of intense pressure from the West.
Speaking at this year’s summit for the coalition known as BRICS — which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — Putin highlighted a 38 percent increase in trade between Russia and the group’s member states during the first three months of the year.
There is constant, bloody fighting in and around a key eastern city, as Russia fights to surround the Ukrainian troops there. In the northeast, a barrage of strikes on civilians means a rising death toll, with local leaders projecting prolonged conflict.
Here are more updates from across the country:
The Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General will scrutinize the degree to which the Pentagon has planned to restock weapons and ammunition it is providing Ukraine. The U.S. military has provided billions of dollars in arms to Kyiv as it fights off a Russian invasion.
The Pentagon’s top independent watchdog signaled its interest in the topic in a memo to senior U.S. defense officials and reserved the right to “revise the objective” of the evaluation as it proceeds.
In a time of crisis, the international image of the United States, NATO and Russia has shifted — with views on Russia plunging and views of the United States and NATO remaining positive, even increasing, a new Pew study of 18 nations found.
In Poland, the shifts have been dramatic. Views on the United States, European Union and NATO have reached all-time highs — all hovering around 90 percent — since the question was first asked in 2007. And views on Russia plummeted from one-third of Poles with a favorable view in 2019 to 2 percent in 2022.
BRUSSELS — European leaders meeting Thursday are expected to back European Union candidate status for Ukraine, a move that would mark a historic moment for the bloc and a major morale boost for Kyiv amid war with Russia.
Support for Ukrainian candidacy does not grant membership but would be a first step on the long and difficult road to joining the bloc. Full membership would still be many years or even decades away.
BERLIN — Austria, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands announced plans this week to prepare to resurrect old coal plants as natural gas supplies dwindled. The moves came just days after Moscow reduced gas flows to several European countries, including Italy and Slovakia, alarming leaders who are worried about energy reserves ahead of winter.
That’s not the direction in which these government wanted to move. A return to coal would controvert climate policy already in place in Amsterdam and Berlin. Some officials are concerned about the longer-term threat such a move would affect efforts to fight climate change in Europe.
LYSYCHANSK, Ukraine — With Russian forces massed just across the river, Valentina Danko leaned over a pool of candlelight and wrote letters to her children. They had left months ago, but she chose to stay in her hometown and has lived in a dark school basement for 116 days.
“Everything is fine with me,” she wrote, her pen scratching quietly across the paper amid the coughs of other poor and elderly residents now directly in the path of the Russian military’s gruesome march across eastern Ukraine.
Microsoft said Wednesday that it would do more to slow the spread of covert foreign government propaganda in the United States and other countries, starting with stories pushed by Russia to distort the war in Ukraine and to stir fear about coronavirus vaccines.
Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, the maker of Windows software and Outlook email programs, would use more data, new analytics and additional staff to counter Russia’s success in distributing false narratives through government-owned and government-influenced media. Microsoft has unusual visibility because most computer owners use one or more of its products daily, including its browsers and web servers.
South Korea, Asia’s third largest buyer of Russian oil, continues to let Russian oil imports plunge. All of the country’s crude oil imports from Moscow in May were carried on a single Aframax cargo, customs data showed.
That marks an 84.3 percent drop in Russian crude imports from the same month last year — a dive that signals South Korea is on track to phase out Russian oil by the end of the year, industry sources say, according to an analyst insight from S&P Global Commodity Insights.
Russian President Vladimir Putin laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow on Wednesday to mark the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union in 1941.
The anniversary, known in Russia as the Day of Remembrance and Sorrow, is also marked in Ukraine and Belarus. An estimated 26 million Soviet citizens died during World War II.
Russia issued a decree proclaiming the area outside the U.S. Embassy in Moscow “Donetsk People’s Republic Square,” state media reported, the latest move in a dispute over the area’s name.
The name references the Russian-aligned, self-proclaimed breakaway region in eastern Ukraine. It follows an announcement by Russia in May that the square would be called “Defenders of Donbas Square,” a reference to the larger Donbas region, including Donetsk, on which Moscow has set its sights.
There is evidence that Russian forces killed a Ukrainian photojournalist, along with a soldier accompanying him in a forest near Kyiv in March, Reporters Without Borders said in an investigation published Wednesday.
Maksym Levin, whom colleagues called Max, was found dead in April after friends lost contact with him in March. The photojournalist — who had worked for organizations including Reuters, the BBC and Ukrainian outlets — had been reporting near the front lines around the capital, from which Russian forces later retreated.
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The latest: U.K. intelligence believes Russia’s momentum could slow in the coming months as the Kremlin exhausts its resources. Meanwhile, the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk remain the sites of “hellish battles” against Russia.
The fight: A slowly regenerating Russian army is making incremental gains in eastern Ukraine against valiant but underequipped Ukrainian forces. The United States and its allies are racing to deliver the enormous quantities of weaponry the Ukrainians urgently need if they are to hold the Russians at bay.
The weapons: Ukraine is making use of weapons such as Javelin antitank missiles and Switchblade “kamikaze” drones, provided by the United States and other allies. Russia has used an array of weapons against Ukraine, some of which have drawn the attention and concern of analysts.
Photos: Post photographers have been on the ground from the very beginning of the war — here’s some of their most powerful work.
How you can help: Here are ways those in the U.S. can help support the Ukrainian people as well as what people around the world have been donating.
Read our full coverage of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for updates and exclusive video.
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