Ukraine, Briefly

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• Russian missile attacks have inflicted massive destruction in towns and cities throughout eastern and southern Ukraine, the BBC reported. According to local officials, four people were killed in a hit on Siversk, a town in the Donetsk area. Still, Russian ground forces do not appear to have made major breakthroughs in their effort to capture the remainder of the Donetsk area in the last 24 hours.

• Russia is deploying reserve soldiers closer to Ukraine in preparation for future assaults, CNBC noted. Meanwhile, Moscow has stated that it has no intentions to remove its troops from seized portions of Ukraine’s south, and that Russian troops will defeat Ukrainian forces throughout the Donbas region.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed his ambassador to Germany a week after the envoy praised the legacy of a World War II nationalist leader who cooperated with the Nazis, according to the New York Times.

• The first batch of Ukrainian soldiers, many of whom have no prior military training, has reportedly arrived in the UK for combat training, according to the British defense ministry, Sky News added. The eastern European country is scrambling to replace troops killed or injured in its conflict with Russia. The initial few hundred recruits are being trained at various locations throughout the United Kingdom as part of the UK’s goal to train 10,000 Ukrainian troops in weapon handling, first aid and patrol tactics.