Russia attacks northern Ukraine
Over the past three days, Russian troops have crossed Ukraine’s northeastern border. They have occupied more square kilometers per day than at almost any other time in the war (except the beginning) and are moving close to Kharkiv.
Russian forces launched a complex offensive on Friday. At least nine villages were taken. Now, some Ukrainian troops are withdrawing and some commanders have taken the unusual step of blaming each other.
General Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top military commander, admitted that the situation had “worsened significantly.” But he said Russian attempts to break through Ukrainian defensive lines had so far failed.
Thousands of people fled to Kharkiv, the large city closest to the villages. About 20 miles from the border, it’s safe… for the moment. “We could hear machine gun fire getting closer and closer,” said a newly arrived woman. The Russians were “about to break in.”
Toll: Villagers in the Kherson region slowly rebuilt their lives after Ukraine pushed back Russia. Now they are prepared for a new attack.
In Russia: President Vladimir Putin moved Sergei Shoigu, his defense minister, to a leadership position in the national security council. It was the first reshuffle of his national security team since the invasion began.
In Belarus: Russia is upgrading a munitions depot, possibly to house nuclear weapons, a Times analysis of satellite images found.
Fighting breaks out in northern Gaza
Hand-to-hand ground fighting between Hamas fighters and Israeli troops occurred over the weekend in Gaza City and nearby Jabaliya, both sides said.
It fits a now-familiar scenario: Israeli forces return to an area where they had defeated Hamas earlier in the war – especially in the north – only to see the group fill the anarchic power vacuum left behind.
Military analysts have said Hamas can reconstitute itself in those areas because Israel has refused to administer them itself or transfer them to non-Hamas Palestinian control. In Beit Lahia, another northern city, weekend fighting killed at least 12 people, according to Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency.
Other updates:
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Rafa: US intelligence said Yahya Sinwar, the top Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, was not hiding in Rafah. Such an assessment could undermine the Israeli justification for conducting major military operations in the city, from which, according to a UN agency, some 300,000 people had fled.
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Aid: The flow of food and goods into Gaza has almost completely stopped over the past week, according to the UN.
Deadly floods in Afghanistan
Flash floods have killed more than 300 people, destroyed thousands of homes and leveled entire villages, U.N. and Afghan officials said. The floods were caused by heavy seasonal rains in the northern province of Baghlan, which appears to have suffered the worst devastation, and at least three other provinces.
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In Bangkok, the site of a factory that once produced cigarettes has become an oasis for residents (and mosquito-eating birds, bats and dragonflies), bringing a breath of fresh air to the congested, smog-filled city. center of the megacity.
The letter from Australia: Flooding cut off food supplies to remote Indigenous communities this year, requiring charter flights to stock shelves.
CONVERSATION STARTERS
The British fight over their apostrophes
A British regional council caused a stir when it began removing apostrophes from road signs on roads such as St. Mary’s Walk and King’s Road. In protest of the measure, someone removed an apostrophe.
Officials said the decision would make it easier to search for streets in databases. And some grammarians said that apostrophes served no real purpose; one linguist said they could be decorative and confusing, like the “fish forks” of punctuation.
But some advocates are furious. The president of the Apostrophe Protection Society, a small group in Britain, said phasing out apostrophes was “cultural vandalism.”
“Whats Next?” said one former teacher, adding: “Do we only use emojis?”