Putin blamed the West for Ukraine’s incursion
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, lashed out at the West yesterday over Ukraine’s weeklong incursion into the Kursk region of Russia. His comments are a sign that the cross-border assault has unsettled the Kremlin. Even as Moscow scrambled to respond, its forces kept up their attacks in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv military officials said.
“The West is fighting us with the hands of the Ukrainians,” Putin said in a televised meeting with top officials, adding, “The enemy will certainly get the response he deserves, and all our goals, without doubt, will be accomplished.”
Kursk’s acting governor told Putin that 28 towns and villages were under Ukraine’s control. He said its troops had pushed nearly 12 kilometers into Russian territory. However, the head of Ukraine’s armed forces claimed control of more than twice as much territory, “about 1,000 square kilometers.”
Background: Analysts said Ukraine’s move had two main goals: to draw Russian forces from the front lines in eastern Ukraine and to seize territory that could serve as a bargaining chip in future peace negotiations. Putin insisted that the attack would not soften his negotiating position.
On the ground: The Times visited one of the spots where Ukrainian forces stormed into Russia and surprised the defenders. Reporters found scenes of ruin.
Israel is bracing for an attack from Iran
The Israeli military said it was at “peak readiness” yesterday as it girded for retaliation from Iran and its regional proxies; the U.S. military was moving a guided-missile submarine into the region; and a White House spokesman said U.S. intelligence suggested it was “increasingly likely” that an attack on Israel “could happen as soon as this week.” Here’s the latest.
President Biden spoke with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy about efforts to de-escalate tensions and broker a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, the spokesman said. In a joint statement, the leaders expressed support for a truce and urged Iran to “stand down its ongoing threats” against Israel.
Iran vowed revenge after a top Hamas leader was killed in Tehran last month, leading many in Israel to fear an imminent attack. Nearly two weeks have passed and no large-scale response has materialized, leaving the region on edge. Analysts say Iran is trying to formulate a response that doesn’t let an assassination on its soil go unpunished, while avoiding an all-out war.
In other news from the region:
🇺🇸 U.S. ELECTION 2024
The presidential election is less than 90 days away. This is what we’re watching.
Elon Musk interviewed Donald Trump
Donald Trump was interviewed on X by Elon Musk, the platform’s owner and the world’s richest man, in a conversation that offered little new information about Trump’s views. Earlier in the day, the former president made his first posts on the platform in almost a year. Here’s the latest.
The appearance, which lasted more than an hour and a half, was part of Trump’s effort to regain the momentum he has lost since President Biden ended his re-election campaign and threw the reins to Vice President Kamala Harris. She is looking to ride a wave of Democratic enthusiasm into her party’s national convention, which opens on Monday in Chicago.
The villa once owned by Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, is too expensive to keep and perilous to sell. No one knows quite what to do with it, but keeping it mothballed costs Germany 280,000 euros, or nearly $306,000, a year.
Missing pieces of an ancient epic
Generations of researchers have tried to piece together a complete version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, which was written more than 3,000 years ago. Fragments of the story have been found on clay tablets in archaeological digs, in museum store rooms and on the black market. But because there are so few experts in the ancient cuneiform script, many of these writings are unread and many more are unpublished.
Now, an artificial intelligence project called Fragmentarium is helping to fill some of those gaps. The team uses machine learning to piece together digitized tablet fragments. So far, it has helped researchers discover new segments of the epic, as well as hundreds of missing words and lines from other works.
