Your Monday Briefing: Inside Ukraine’s Trenches

[ad_1]

Ukrainian soldiers are preparing for a spring offensive, and the country is under pressure to show some success to boost the morale of soldiers and civilians, bolster Western support and reclaim stolen territory.

With the fighting in the eastern Donbas region settling into a bloody stalemate, a patch of Zaporizhzhia region in southeastern Ukraine could prove to be the next big theater, the focal point of the long-awaited counteroffensive. The Times spent two weeks near the front lines there, documenting life in the trenches.

The battle there is very personal. My friends spent time with the 110th Territorial Defense Brigade, and most of their soldiers came from what is now Russia. “We just want to kick our land, that’s why,” said the 32-year-old former teacher. “We’re not going back if we don’t stop this.”

strategy: Zaporizhzhia forms the heart of the southern land bridge, which connects Russian territory to the occupied Crimean Peninsula. A military push by Ukraine there makes sense, military officials and experts say: If Ukraine punched south through the Russian line, it could split Russian forces and cut off important supply lines.

barrier: Ukraine has had to deal with a heavily armed defensive line that Russian forces have built over the past 10 months. After 14 months of non-stop fighting, Ukrainian soldiers were exhausted, and Ukraine’s artillery supplies were running low. American officials said the counteroffensive failed to significantly alter the momentum.

More updates:

Two weeks of fighting in Sudan has fueled renewed violence in Darfur, a region wracked by a two-decade genocidal conflict that has killed 300,000 people. Experts fear that the security vacuum, exploited by militias and armed tribes, could lead to civil war.

Armed groups have looted health care facilities and set fire to households. The markets are on fire. Civilians are fighting the militia as well as the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group fighting the Sudanese Army.

Background: New instability began in the early 2000s, when the military and former dictators allied with Arab fighters, the “Janjaweed,” to crush non-Arab rebel groups. A widespread campaign of rape, murder and ethnic cleansing. In the 2010s, the Janjaweed became the RSF, which is now fighting its former ally, the Sudanese military.

In the capital: A total collapse of the health care system is possible within days, the Sudanese Doctors Trade Union has warned.

No ceasefire: A ceasefire scheduled to end overnight collapsed on Saturday as the capital, Khartoum, came under artillery fire and airstrikes.

Last week, President Yoon Suk Yeol received a warm welcome from President Biden in Washington, but back home he faced a different tone. The South Korean public is wary of Yoon’s foreign policy, which aligns the country more closely with the US and Japan.

Many also doubt the strength of the “Washington Declaration,” a new nuclear agreement with the US that codified America’s commitment to defend South Korea with nuclear weapons, if North Korea were to launch such an attack first. In return, the South rejected efforts to pursue its own nuclear arsenal.

Some called the agreement pragmatic. But critics have felt that Yoon gave away too much for too little. For such skeptics in South Korea, Washington’s promises “are just rhetoric, but you’re packing,” said a Seoul-based researcher.

Decades ago, limos were a symbol of prosperity, used almost exclusively by the rich and famous. Over time, they became more than a common luxury, booked for children’s birthday parties or by teenagers going to prom.

Today, thanks to ride-sharing apps, the Great Recession and new regulations, almost no one rides.

Countless Chinese are riding the wave of direct shopping, which mixes entertainment with consumerism and has changed the way people buy and sell. Star marketers can amass huge followings and exciting fortunes through this format, which mixes influencer culture with live online video.

The most famous streamers have become celebrities, like Li Jiaqi, whose prowess in trying and creating makeup products earned her the nickname “lipstick king.”

Direct shopping emerged in China a few years ago, then became common during the coronavirus pandemic. Today nearly half of China’s one billion internet users have tried online shopping, although it is still relatively unknown in the West. (Last year, about $500 billion worth of goods were sold via livestream on apps like Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, or Kuaishou.)

But the government is trying to control e-commerce more tightly as part of a crackdown on the tech sector. Several celebrity hosts, who have been subjected to government surveillance, have suddenly disappeared from view.

[ad_2]

Source link

Leave a Reply