The Kremlin will expel more than 20 German diplomats from Russia, state media reported, in a move characterized by Moscow as retaliation for a similar move by Berlin. The German Foreign Ministry acknowledged that it had kicked out Russian diplomats as part of an attempt to decrease the number of intelligence agents in the country.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet U.N. Secretary General António Guterres in New York on Monday. Moscow holds the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council for the month of April.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
In Bakhmut, Ukrainian troops cling to western edge of a destroyed city: For months, Ukraine and Russia have flooded Bakhmut with reinforcements and carted away thousands of dead and wounded in what has become the longest, bloodiest battle of the war. Now, after eight months of Ukraine steadily ceding territory, the fight there is closing in on just a few square miles, Susannah George and Serhii Korolchuk write from the embattled city.
Small teams of Ukrainian and Russian ground forces are battling for control of Bakhmut’s western edge, moving between apartment blocks. “We can attack and repel them for a day or two, or they can advance, and we have to retreat again,” a 35-year-old Ukrainian junior sergeant working on the front lines told The Washington Post. “I don’t even know, to be honest, what will happen in a week or two. … A lot of people are dying here, a lot.”
