| Russia and Ukraine step up attacks |
| Russia launched broad aerial assaults yesterday across Ukraine, and Ukraine reported that its pilots had carried out four strikes in Russian-occupied territory on areas where enemy personnel were concentrated. Together, the attacks were a sign of intensifying fighting ahead of an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive. |
| Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said that the country’s military was “reaching the finish line” in preparations to launch a counteroffensive. In response, Russian forces have moved into defensive positions in the south, according to Ukrainian and Western officials. Unusually muddy ground is one obstacle that the Ukrainian military is finding difficult to overcome. |
| In Pavlograd, in central Ukraine, dozens of buildings were damaged, and at least 34 people, including five children, were wounded, local officials said. In Kyiv and elsewhere, explosions echoed across the predawn landscape as air defenses shot down what the Ukrainian military said were 15 of 18 Russian cruise missiles. |
| Analysis: Britain’s defense intelligence agency said that Russia had “constructed some of the most extensive systems of military defensive works seen anywhere in the world for many decades,” not only near the front line but also “deep inside areas Russia currently controls.” |
| Toll: White House officials released new estimates that since December alone, the Russian military had sustained a staggering 20,000 deaths in Ukraine. |
