It's 5:15 pm Thursday in Ukraine, what do we know?
What do we know in Ukraine?
The exodus from eastern Ukraine continues as Russian troops mass in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions
The Russian forces include mercenaries, Syrians, new conscripts and Georgian fighters. Despite the new recruits, the Russian military’s effectiveness has been dramatically degraded by stiff Ukrainian resistance since the war began
The DoD is training Ukrainian soldiers to use anti-tank and anti-personnel drones in the US. The Ukrainian soldiers were already in the US as part of a scheduled visit prior to the war, so the Pentagon decided to take advantage of their presence to instruct them on how to use the highly advanced technology
In Bucha, Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk reported that about 90% of the dead have bullet wounds, rather than shrapnel wounds
Der Spiegel reports German intelligence intercepted radio communications between Russian troops about murdering Ukrainian civilians
The Russians have shelled Kharkiv nearly 50 times in the last 24 hours, ahead of their anticipated offensive
The UN will vote today on whether to remove Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, given that they show a general antipathy towards human rights. Removal would require a ⅔ majority in the General Assembly
The US Senate is reviving the Lend-Lease Act. The WWII act allowed the US to arm England while technically remaining neutral in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s
More info on Merrick Garland’s statements yesterday: the FBI took control of thousands of routers and firewall applications Russian military hackers had been using to create a ‘botnet’. This ‘botnet’ was capable bombarding computer systems with rogue traffic
What else do we know?
By this evening, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will be the newest Associate Supreme Court Justice
Worth your time: a fascinating story in today’s NY Times on the collision of religion and far-right extremism in the United States