Ukraine, Briefly

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• Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree Thursday to boost the size of his country’s military forces by 137,000, as the Kremlin’s conflict in Ukraine entered its sixth month, NBC News reported. The decree will increase the number of combat personnel in the Russian armed forces by about 10 percent to 1.15 million. That will take the total head count of the military to 2.04 million.

• The head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill has canceled his scheduled attendance at an interfaith summit in Kazakhstan next month, where he was expected to meet with Pope Francis, in a sign of growing worsening in relations over Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Associated Press noted.

• The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) chairman said his team is “very, very close” to visiting the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in southern Ukraine, which has been under Russian military occupation since March, CNBC wrote.