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In a video statement, the spokesperson for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Alexander Štupun, gave an update on the eight-month-old conflict, saying Ukrainian forces had repelled Russian attacks in the east of the country. “The enemy is firing at our troops’ positions along the line of encounter and conducting air reconnaissance. Over the past 24 hours, the adversary launched missile and air strikes on infrastructure and housing of civilians, violating the standards of international humanitarian law, laws and customs of warfare,” he said, according to an English translation of the statement posted on Facebook....

Russia's Olympic roster had nine KHL players on it; one goalie, two defensemen and six forwards. Some of those players, particularly the forwards, were surprising choices over the NHLers; Alexander Semin and Nail Yakupov aren't on the team, for example, while Alexander Popov and Alexei Tereshenko made the cut. That's interesting. OLYMPIC ROSTERS: Canada | Sweden | Slovakia | Czech Republic If the people who selected the team thought they were the best choices, so be it....

As of Friday, the Kremlin’s military had lost a total of 286 aircraft since Russia’s late-February invasion of Ukraine, reported the open-source military tracking site Oryx. The tally includes combat aircraft, transportation vehicles and drones that have either been destroyed, damaged or captured. In comparison, Oryx counted that the Ukrainian military had lost 129 aerial vehicles in the same time period. Early last month, the U.K. Defense Ministry predicted that Russia was losing its aircraft faster than it could replace it due to its poorly trained air forces....

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) said that the images show the “destruction of Ukraine’s manpower and military equipment by the Russian Armed forces in Ukraine.” They also said that “M777 155-mm howitzers delivered by USA and European countries to Ukraine have become a good target for Russian destruction means. Fifteen howitzers, mostly yet unused and deployed near Druzhkovka railway station, have been destroyed over the past 24 hours.”...

Georgia is a key transit state of non-Russian oil and gas to European countries, including the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Supsa oil pipelines, and the Southern Gas Corridor. The latter will deliver 16.2 bcm of natural gas to the EU and Turkey by the end of this year. Plans to double this volume will be speeded up because of Russia’s war against Ukraine and replace up to 17 percent of current Russian gas deliveries to the EU and Turkey....

The Ukrainian military is set to receive an influx of new light armored personnel vehicles from its allies. The vehicles have been likened to tanks, but, as the Associated Press explained, they are lighter and more agile than traditional tanks, and come equipped with a variety of mounted weaponry. The U.S. will provide 50 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, known for their ability to destroy enemy tanks, while Germany will provide 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles, which boast similar capabilities....

This is the first time since the Cold War that Moscow, which claims the waters belong to Russia, has used live ammunition to deter a NATO warship. The U.K. Ministry of Defense denied Russia’s claims about the incident. The ministry said that the Royal Navy ship was “conducting innocent passage through Ukraine territorial waters in accordance with international law” and that “no shots were directed at HMS Defender and we do not recognize the claim that bombs were dropped in her path....

Referee Deniz Aytekin was forced to stop the match inside the first minute once the flare struck Akinfeev. The object appeared to hit Russia’s goalkeeper in the head, immediately dropping him to the ground. Akinfeev was taken off on a stretcher. He was reportedly knocked unconscious. The extent of Akinfeev’s injuries are unknown, although the game resumed following a 30-plus minute delay. Substitute Yuri Lodygin took Akinfeev’s place in between the posts....

The Kyiv Post reported that the retired colonel, Vadim Zimin, is currently in intensive care after being discovered by his brother in the city of Krasnogorsk, which is located near Moscow. The Ukrainian newspaper wrote that Russian state media said Zimin was found “in a pool of blood” after allegedly sustaining a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Zimin, 53, is a retired colonel of Federal Security Service (FSB)—Russia’s main security agency—who has been photographed with Putin while carrying the leader’s “Cheget,” according to The Kyiv Post....

A few hours later and some 3,000 miles away in New York, another dream was dashed. Silver Charm was trying to become racing’s 12th Triple Crown winner; instead the colt became the unlucky 13th to win both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness but fail in the Belmont Stakes. Chased down in the stretch by Touch Gold, Silver Charm was beaten by less than a length. A tough loss. But that is, of course, what makes horse racing–and, on this day, tennis too....

Midway through the first quarter, Harden exploded out of a between-the-legs sequence with a strong dribble to his right side. Irving, who had been guarding him at the top of the arc, leaned one way as Houston’s top scorer jetted the other. Westbrook, who watched Irving sway from a vantage point in the corner, leaned all the way back with an “Oh s—” body motion. MORE: Curry injury timetable...

MLB, MLS, the NHL, the WNBA and the NBA all walked away from action following the Sunday police shooting of Black man Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis. The NFL, which started the kneeling movement as a previous form of protest for racial justice, would be the biggest U.S. sporting platform for athletes to make a statement. “Yeah, for sure (we would have joined other leagues),” Wilson told 710 ESPN Seattle on Friday....

It all started when the Seahawks were able to score with a little more than two minutes left in the fourth quarter on Sunday. Seattle recovered an onside kick and scored on a Marshawn Lynch touchdown to take a three-point lead. Green Bay then drove down the field and tied with with a field goal to send it to overtime, 22-22. MORE: NFC Championship images | Richard Sherman’s INT | Marshawn Lynch threatened by NFL...

Head of MI5 Ken McCallum, in his first public comments since starting the job in April, said that Moscow delivered “bursts of bad weather” but China was responsible for “changing the climate” when it came to security activity and intelligence. “If the question is which countries’ intelligence services cause the most aggravation to the U.K. in October 2020, the answer is Russia,” McCallum told an audience at the Home Office in London....

With a new charter, celebratory badges and even a poem, Russian and Saudi officials joined those from 22 other nations to formalize OPEC+, which has been working to buoy falling oil prices. According to Bloomberg, the nations have been coordinating for more than two years, battling the falling price of oil and grappling with the U.S.’ recent ascension of the top of the oil-producing charts. OPEC+ nations will now account for almost half of all oil production globally....

OVD-Info said on its website on Thursday that its account on VKontakte, a Russian social media platform, was blocked after the Prosecutor-General’s Office alleged that the group reported “unreliable” information on Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, including casualties among civilians and combat efforts by Russian forces. “We do not know the exact materials that Russian authorities questioned,” Maria Kuznetsova, OVD-Info’s spokesperson told Newsweek on Friday. “As a project, we stated our anti-war position from the beginning, so any of our posts can be regarded as ‘discrediting’ the Russian military....

The truce was to go into effect at 4 a.m. ET Friday and last until 4 p.m. ET Saturday. Ukraine and Western allies had rejected the ceasefire proposal, however, calling it a battlefield tactic, but Putin was reportedly not conditioning the military halt on Ukraine’s acceptance. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists reported hearing outgoing and incoming shelling in the city of Bakhmut after the ceasefire was scheduled to begin. Air raid sirens were also said to be ringing throughout the country....

Russian Foreign Intelligence Service chief Sergei Naryshkin said Tuesday—without providing any evidence to support the assertion—that the U.S. is training fighters in neighboring nations and sending them into Belarus to support protests against Lukashenko. The 65-year-old president—often described as “Europe’s last dictator”—is under pressure to step down after he claimed a landslide victory in last month’s presidential election. Opponents say the vote was rigged to keep Lukashenko in power for a sixth term....

“They’re essentially grounded. If they fly, they die,” Ward Carroll, a retired U.S. Navy commander who flew combat missions in the F-14, told Newsweek of Ukraine’s embattled air force. Given Russia’s overwhelming airpower, an asset that Moscow appears to be increasingly leveraging as the war enters its second week, Carroll, an author who also hosts a YouTube channel discussing military affairs, said any sorties flown by the Ukrainian jets at this stage of the conflict “would be a last-ditch mission....

Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia’s special presidential envoy for the Middle East and Africa, met Tuesday in Moscow with Iraqi national security adviser Faleh al-Fayad, who also serves as chairman of the state-backed Popular Mobilization Forces. The two shared “a thorough exchange of views on pressing issues of the Middle East agenda with a focus on the situation in Iraq and neighboring Syria,” according to the Russian Foreign Ministry....