Ukraine Briefly

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• Russia captured the Ukrainian southern city of Kherson Wednesday as its forces pound the cities of Mariupol and northeastern Kharkiv, Al Jazeera reported. Early Thursday, Russia continued its bombardment of Kyiv. Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said they foiled an assassination attempt against President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Euronews wrote.

• NATO airspace will not be used to transfer fighter planes to the Ukrainian military, alliance leaders said Tuesday after a meeting in Poland, according to Stars and Stripes. Some countries such as Poland worry about provoking Russian attacks on their soil. Ukrainians, meanwhile, accuse alliance leaders of not doing enough. In a video that went viral this week, a Ukrainian activist dressed down an uncomfortable British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, telling him that “rich Russians were still living in their London mansions while Ukrainians died from Russian bombs,” the Guardian said.

• Just over one million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began, according to the UN’s refugee agency, an exodus that is already on par with the number of refugees who were displaced from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in Europe’s refugee crisis in 2015, the Washington Post reported.

• The International Paralympic Committee on Thursday quickly reversed an earlier decision that would have allowed Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete at the Beijing Games to begin Friday, CBS News reported. IPC President Andrew Parsons said that while the organization believes sports and politics should not mix, it has come under pressure from an “overwhelming number of members.”