The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

LATEST ON THE WAR AND ITS IMPACT ACROSS THE GLOBE

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■ Ukraine said Russia launched more than 100 missiles Friday. “The threat of strikes by the Russian Federation on civilian targets across Ukraine remains high,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in an update Saturday, adding that Russia had also used Shahed-type drones. Local officials reported that civilian infrastruc­ture was hit, stripping much of the country of power and heat.

■ Zelenskyy has pushed for a ban of Russian and Belarusian athletes at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Zelenskyy made a passionate plea to a group of 35 internatio­nal sports and government ministers, urging them to push the Internatio­nal Olympic Committee to ban the athletes, amid a simmering debate on the issue. “The Russian state has chosen the path of terror and that is why it has no place in the civilized world,” he said Friday.

■ Moldova appointed a new prime minister shortly after Russian missile violated its airspace. Dorin Recean will replace outgoing leader Natalia Gavrilita, who resigned Friday. Nearby Romania, a NATO member, confirmed Russian targets did not pass through its airspace, despite reports to the contrary by Ukrainian officials.

■ Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is looking to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, he told CNN on Friday during a visit to the United States. Lula said that Ukraine had the right to defend itself “because the invasion was a mistake on the part of Russia” but that Brazil would not give Ukraine ammunition. “I don’t want to go join the war. I want to end the war,” he said. He has proposed setting up a “peace club” of countries that could mediate an end to the war and has repeatedly rejected calls from Western countries to support Kyiv with weapons.

■ Ukraine has submitted a request for F-16 fighter jets to the Netherland­s, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said. “We need to discuss the availabili­ty of F-16s with the Americans and other allies,” Ollongren told local media.

■ Russia is to cut its oil production by 500,000 barrels a day from next month in response to price caps imposed by the United States and Europe on its fuel exports, said Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. The move will effectivel­y reduce Russia’s output by about 5 percent. Analysts have said the decision could lead to higher gasoline prices globally.

■ Rivalry between Russia’s military and the Wagner private mercenary group is rising, according to a daily intelligen­ce update from Britain’s Defense Ministry. There is “increasing­ly direct rivalry between the Russian Ministry of Defence and Wagner,” it said. It added that data had showed a “drop-off ” in the number of recruits to Wagner from Russian prisons and warned the “Russian leadership faces the difficult choice of either continuing to deplete its forces, scale back objectives, or conduct a further form of mobilizati­on,” if it is to continue to amass troops.

■ Ukraine is without 44% of nuclear generation and 75% of thermal power capacity after Russian attacks on Friday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said, according to Reuters. The strikes were against “entire power plants that heat millions of homes and lights thousands of city blocks, offices, hospitals and schools,” Vedant Patel, a spokespers­on for the U.S. State Department, said in a press briefing. “This is a deliberate targeting of infrastruc­ture that keeps Ukrainians alive in winter.”

■ Two of the three operating Ukrainian nuclear power plants have reduced power as a precaution after renewed shelling of energy infrastruc­ture, Ukrainian regulators told the Internatio­nal Atomic Energy Agency.

Instabilit­y in the electrical grid from the shelling caused one of the reactor units at the Khmelnitsk­y nuclear power plant to shut down, the IAEA said in a statement, adding that nuclear safety systems at the plant worked as expected.

 ?? ?? People wait Saturday for a turn to refill their water jugs with drinking water in Kyiv. Russia’s targeting of civilian infrastruc­ture also has stripped much of Ukraine of power and heat.
People wait Saturday for a turn to refill their water jugs with drinking water in Kyiv. Russia’s targeting of civilian infrastruc­ture also has stripped much of Ukraine of power and heat.

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