The Russian flag has been raised in several parts of the eastern town of Avdiivka in Donetsk, hours after Ukrainian forces beat a hasty retreat from the ruins of a town they’ve been defending for a decade.

But Ukraine’s army is under pressure at several other points along the frontline that meanders for some 1,000 kilometers from the border with Russia in the north to the Black Sea.

The Russian military may have sensed a window of vulnerability in its adversary. Ukraine’s better units are exhausted after two years of combat; there is a new commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi; and Ukrainian troops are short of shells and vulnerable to relentless air strikes.

While the goal of President Volodymyr Zelensky and the armed forces is to recover all illegally occupied territory, the Ukrainians are now struggling to prevent the Russians from adding to the approximately 18% of Ukrainian territory they already hold.

President Vladimir Putin’s declared aim is to seize all of the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, but few believe he will stop there if there are further opportunities.

The Russians launched a determined drive to seize Avdiivka in October. But they are also on the attack near Bakhmut and Mariinka (also in Donetsk), and towards Kupiansk in the north.

On the southern front, in Zaporizhzhia, Russian and Ukrainian sources speak of a massive Russian build-up in the area where the Ukrainians tried to launch their counter-offensive last summer. According to some analysts a force of 50,000 men has been assembled.

The daily update from the Ukrainian military provides a glimpse of the firepower now being brought to bear by the Russians. On Saturday alone, according to the General Staff,  there were 82 combat engagements. “The enemy launched a total of 13 missile and 104 air strikes, firing 169 times from multiple launch rocket systems at Ukrainian military positions and residential areas.”

The update is full of words like “repelled” and “held back,” as Ukrainian units in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions cling to their defensive positions.

Ivan Tymochko, Chairman of the Reservists Council of Ukrainian Land Forces, said Saturday that “despite the fact that our attention is focused on Avdiivka, in fact, very intense fighting is ongoing in the Lyman-Kupiansk sector, [and] near Bakhmut. The enemy has sharply amassed forces in the area of Robotyne,” another flashpoint area on the southern front.

The Ukrainians are trying to establish new defensive positions north of Avdiivka on higher ground. Analysts do not expect an immediate Russian assault on these lines, as troops regroup, but they may take some outlying villages.

The destruction caused by Russian artillery and air strikes over several months in Avdiivka essentially left the Ukrainians with no cover. The same Russian approach – to obliterate everything in the way – eventually worked in 2022 in the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.

One soldier in the area, Yehor Firsov, told Ukrainian TV on Saturday: “Just think: what is our [small] FPV drone against a 500 kg or a huge 1-tonne bomb that hits a building and destroys it? This is how the enemy gained the advantage, destroying everything and advancing in the city.”

Having taken what remains of the town, the Russians may release some units to reinforce attacks on the ruins of nearby Mariinka. In recent days they have made ground to the south of the town, and Ukrainian defenses in the direction of Vuhledar are now under intense pressure. The Ukrainian military reported Sunday that over the previous day, the Russians “made 23 attempts to break through our defenses.”

The Russian goal to the west and north-west of Bakhmut is the small town of Chasiv Yar, which sits on commanding heights within artillery range of the towns of Kramatorsk and Kostiantynivka. Last week, the spokesman for the Ukrainian military in that area, Illia Yevlash, said that on one day, the Russians had shelled Ukrainian positions more than 600 times.

“We need more shells, thousands and thousands of shells, especially 155 mm ones,” Yevlash said. “The enemy is trying to attack from the flanks. They are using small assault groups, as heavy equipment cannot move across the fields due to icy conditions and impassable roads.”

Ukraine still holds nearly half of the Donetsk region, whose seizure has been a consistent goal of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion. It took the Russians months to capture just 30 square kilometers in and around Avdiivka.

In the south, the first Russian probing of Ukrainian lines has already begun. According to the Ukrainian military, three Russian tanks were destroyed Saturday and dozens of soldiers killed amid a Russian offensive that “involved 30 pieces of equipment and a fairly large number of enemy personnel,” in more than a dozen attempts to break through Ukrainian lines.

“There were no losses of positions in the Zaporizhzhia sector. The enemy suffered significant losses. We are holding back the enemy’s offensive.”

But Russian military bloggers had a different take, saying that Russian 42nd and 76th divisions had advanced some two kilometers near the village Robotyne, which the Ukrainians took last summer, and had pummelled Ukrainian defensive positions with artillery and air strikes.

Here as elsewhere, the Russians have vastly increased their use of 500-kilogram glide bombs from aircraft against which Ukrainian front-line troops have little protection.

One Russian blogger, ‘Archangel Special Forces Z’, claimed that “airborne troops are conducting a powerful artillery preparation in Zaporizhzhia direction! There are already assault operations underway in some areas.”

Amid what is a tough outlook for Ukrainian troops on the frontlines, the Russians are losing an extraordinary number of men killed or wounded.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that in Avdiivka, seven Russians were being killed for every Ukrainian soldier lost.

The Ukrainian military command claimed that it had inflicted “losses of 20,018 personnel, 199 tanks, and 481 armored combat vehicles” in the region from Avdiivka through western Zaporizhzhia between January 1 and February 15.

While that cannot be confirmed, US officials have previously said that the Russians were suffering heavy losses because of poor tactics.

But the Russian way of war has long been to send thousands more into battle, regardless of losses, and their reservoir of military manpower is much greater than the Ukrainians’.

At present, with Ukraine short of weapons and munitions because of the US Congress’ not passing a $60 billion package of aid, the Russians are also making their very substantial advantage in artillery, armor and airpower felt.

As war in Ukraine grinds toward its third year and fighting in Gaza inflames a broader crisis across the Middle East, global security observers are keeping a close watch on another part of the world – North Korea, where Kim Jong Un’s latest provocations are raising questions about his military intentions.

In recent weeks, the leader has brushed aside decades of his country’s policy toward South Korea – now proclaiming that North Korea would no longer seek reconciliation and reunification with the South and calling for it to be classified as their “permanent enemy.”

North Korea “does not want war, but will not avoid it,” Kim declared at a political gathering last month, according to state outlet KCNA.

If war came, the country’s goal would be “occupying, suppressing and reclaiming the Republic of Korea and subjugating it into the territory of the republic,” he said, referring to South Korea by its official name.

The sweeping policy shift in the nuclear-capable country has come alongside a volley of weapons tests, the shelling of a maritime buffer zone, and calls from Kim for North Korea to accelerate war preparations in response to “confrontation moves” by the US.

Together the developments are drawing international concern – and debate among seasoned observers – about the intentions of the leader at the heart of the country’s secretive regime.

“We do not know when or how Kim plans to pull the trigger, but the danger is already far beyond the routine warnings in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo about Pyongyang’s ‘provocations,’” prominent experts Robert Carlin and Siegfried Hecker wrote in North Korea-focused publication 38 North last month. Kim, they suggest, has “made a strategic decision to go to war.”

Many other observers disagree – arguing that the 40-year-old leader knows well that any major military move against South Korea and its ally the United States could hasten the demise of his own regime.

But those observers too are bracing for a year of ramped up aggression – and express concern about the risk of North Korea’s escalated hostilities leading to some kind of military engagement on the Korean Peninsula, raising the risk, however remote, of nuclear conflict.

“The situation on the Korean Peninsula has entered a very critical phase,” said Eul-Chul Lim, director of the North Korea Research Center at Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES) in Seoul.

“Given the high level of mutual tension, there is a possibility of accidental conflict due to misunderstandings, misjudgments, and misperceptions” – even if Kim likely sees “little political or economic benefit” in war, he added.

Kim is known for his provocations and has signaled in recent years a coming policy shift on South Korea.

But experts say the changes now are likely driven by Kim’s mounting concerns as South Korea and the United States ramp up military drills and coordination – and his newfound confidence in a shifting geopolitical climate that has drawn Pyongyang closer to a key partner, Russia.

The changes also coincide with an election year in the US, where President Joe Biden seeks a second term while managing multiple global crises. Kim is likely watching carefully – and may be keen to see him replaced by predecessor and candidate Donald Trump.

A major shift

For decades, governments on both sides of the divided Korean Peninsula have maintained they were members of the same family with the ultimate goal of peacefully reunifying. The two sides have been cut off from each other since 1953, when an armistice ended the Korean War, and remain technically at war.

“(Kim Jong Un) is now saying that South Korea is no longer viewed as another Korea. South Korea is viewed as a completely foreign power,” said Edward Howell, a lecturer in politics at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, who focuses on the Korean Peninsula.

Reclassifying South Korea as an enemy state, experts say, allows Kim to justify the continued build-up of his nuclear and missile arsenal – and hold it over Seoul, which has adopted a harder line against Pyongyang under President Yoon Suk Yeol.

Despite heavy international sanctions, Kim has continued to build that arsenal in recent years, focused on developing weapons able to strike not just South Korea and Japan but the US territory of Guam and the American mainland – capabilities he sees as essential to deterring a potential attack and ensuring the survival of his regime.

Since 2022 Kim has reiterated that the principle point of his nuclear arsenal is “to deter war,” but also raised the potential for nuclear weapons to be used to counter efforts to violate the North’s “fundamental interests.”

He’s also become increasingly alarmed by strengthened ties between the US and South Korea.

Yoon and Biden have sharpened their countries’ deterrence plans and coordination in the face of North Korea’s threats and weapons development. That’s included expanding joint drills in the region and security cooperation, including with Japan – all of which Kim sees as a threat to his regime.

The “progress” by South Korea and the United States on deterrence “is one of the major reasons that Kim Jong Un feels very frustrated,” according to Won Gon Park, a professor in the department of North Korean studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

Kim has been explicit about these concerns. Last month he said that “instability of the regional situation is soaring due to the US-led escalation of military tensions,” and that while Pyongyang doesn’t want war the “danger” of its outbreak “has considerably aggravated,” according to KCNA.

Kim’s policy shift on South Korea may also be linked to a view that negotiations with the US are no longer a viable path to meet goals of being recognized as a nuclear state and receiving sanctions relief.

Pyongyang has rebuffed outreach from Washington in the wake of a failed 2019 summit between Kim and then-US President Trump, according to the US.

The North Korean leader may also see scrapping a policy of reunification not as a step toward war but a necessary defense, some say.

Kim has indicated as much in his own public statements, saying last month the country is cultivating its “strength” not for a “preemptive attack” to realize reunification by force, but instead for “legitimate self-defense.”

Kim is “particularly wary of (North Korea’s) absorption by the South (and) believes that it is impossible to establish normal relations with the South without developing the North Korean economy,” according to IFES’s Lim, pointing to the country’s economic weakness relative to the South.

Instead of “empty reunification talk,” Kim wants to focus resources on building his arsenal and economy – and working with new partners for economic benefit, he added.

If anything, some analysts believe, North Korea’s public statements signal that North Korea is abandoning its reunification policy in pursuit of peace on the peninsula.

Kim’s “No. 1 priority is the sustainment of his regime,” a senior defense official said. “That’s not a shift — that’s been a strategic priority of his entire family since the Korean War.”

An ‘emboldened’ Kim

The North Korean leader may also feel more confident about his arsenal and his options as he watches a shifting global landscape.

From his view, experts say, Kim sees a US whose waning influence is being tested in conflicts from Ukraine to the Middle East – and an ascendant China surrounded by a burgeoning coalition of countries, including Russia and Iran, all at odds with the West.

“Kim Jong Un has been emboldened … not simply by the divide between the US and China and the US and Russia, but more importantly, a fragmented world where US leadership has been weakened considerably and there are no meaningful consequences for aggression,” said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a nonresident fellow with the 38 North Program at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington.

His policy shift on South Korea is part of a “broader, fundamental shift in foreign policy, namely giving up normalization of relations with the US through denuclearization and pivoting to China and Russia,” she said.

That pivot got a major boost in September, when Vladimir Putin welcomed the North Korean leader to Russia for a rare overseas trip – a meeting Western officials say was fueled by the Russian President’s need to bolster dwindling munitions in his war on Ukraine.

Russia has since fired North Korean-supplied short-range ballistic missiles in its war, according to the White House, which called it a “concerning escalation” of Pyongyang’s support. Analysts have speculated that Russia has reciprocated with aid for North Korea’s spy satellite program. More cooperation with Moscow could also potentially help Kim address chronic food and fuel shortages and build North Korea’s economy.

China, by far North Korea’s most important economic lifeline, remains wary of any moves from Pyongyang that could destabilize or draw more US forces to the region.

However, amid rising friction with Washington, Beijing has in recent years blocked US-backed efforts in the United Nations Security Council to censure North Korea, and will look to stay engaged with Pyongyang, especially as it draws closer to Moscow.

Kim’s regime may also see the expanding conflict in the Middle East as an opportunity to criticize the West and garner income, according to Howell at Oxford, pointing to how Iran has long played the role of middleman for North Korea to supply weapons to militant groups like Hamas.

“(One) thing that’s changed is North Korea’s ability to exploit the broader global crises to its advantage,” he said.

What’s next?

Experts warn that North Korea’s ratcheting up of tensions is likely to continue this year, as Washington continues to boost drills and collaboration with its regional partners to deter Kim.

How to dial down those tensions is open to debate, with some policy experts stressing that this show of strength remains the best deterrence for North Korean aggression.

Others argue that the coalition needs to find ways to minimize the potential for Kim to feel his regime is threatened by their activities – and prevent Pyongyang from drawing closer to Moscow and Beijing as a result.

“Kim Jong Un is wary of a full-scale provocation by the South Korean military disguised as a military exercise and has vowed to occupy South Korean territory without hesitation,” said Lim in Seoul.

“Therefore, if the US, South Korea, and Japan fail to de-escalate the threat from North Korea during joint military exercises, a military conflict could occur on the Korean Peninsula,” he said.

Lee in Washington agreed “an emboldened Kim Jong Un may be more inclined to take military action against what he perceives to be the slightest threat to North Korea, such as joint US-South Korea military exercises.”

In the months ahead, Kim will also be closely watching the upcoming US presidential elections as Trump seeks to win back office.

It’s unclear whether Kim would engage with the former president again were he to be reelected. But experts say Kim is likely hopeful that a newly elected Trump, who has long been dismissive of overseas alliances, would roll back America’s security cooperation with South Korea and Japan – and the North Korean leader could even seek to impact election dynamics with an aggressive move.

One potential could be for Kim to launch Pyongyang’s seventh nuclear test, in what would be the first since 2017, according to Park of Ewha Womans University.

“If North Korea conducts a seventh nuclear test it means a total failure of the Biden administration and gives a very good attack point for Trump (to call Biden) ineffective in dealing with the North Korean leader,” he said.

Further ahead, despite the sweeping changes Kim has now made to his country’s policy toward South Korea, if the North Korean leader sees an opening to advance his larger goals by sitting back down with the South and the US, he could change tack “anytime” – to reverse these changes, Park added.

“This is the kind of behavior (one can expect from) North Korea,” he said.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the location of Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies.

Alexey Navalny once represented an alternative future for Russia: an optimistic, forward-looking place, free of the one-man rule of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

With the death of the opposition leader in a prison north of the Arctic Circle, Russia’s bleak political landscape is now many shades darker.

It would be hard to overstate how profoundly Navalny symbolized Putin’s relentless drive to erase the last remnants of political opposition from Russia. During his many years of activism, Navalny and his supporters saw their protest rallies shut down by riot police; their offices raided; and countless arrests that landed activists in jail, or forced out of the country.

Navalny himself paid an extraordinarily high price for his activism. Under constant surveillance by Putin’s security services, Navalny survived a near-lethal poisoning by the nerve agent Novichok, yet defiantly returned to Russia instead of remaining in comfortable exile. He was immediately arrested on his return to Moscow.

What followed was a parody of criminal justice, as Russian prosecutors heaped on charges against Navalny, who continued to rail against Putin. In one court appearance by video link, a gaunt Navalny – emaciated by a hunger strike – heaped scorn on the president, saying, “I would like to say that your king is naked, and more than one little boy is shouting about it – it is now millions of people who are already shouting about it. It is quite obvious. Twenty years of incompetent rule have come to this: there is a crown sliding from his ears,” Navalny said.

“Your naked king wants to rule until the end, he doesn’t care about the country, he is clung to power and wants to rule indefinitely.”

But even during a brutal tour of Russia’s penal system, Navalny maintained his composure – and his extraordinary sense of humor. In a post on Telegram in January, he joked about the ghastly music of the pro-war pop-star Shaman being blared over prison loudspeakers at the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp in the Yamal-Nenets region.

“Imagine the picture: Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug,” he wrote. “Polar night. In the barracks for punishment in a special regime colony, A. Navalny, sentenced to 19 years in prison, whom Kremlin propaganda has been rinsing for years for participating in Russian protests, has to do exercises to the song ‘I am Russian,’ which is played for him as educational work for the purpose of correction.

“To be honest, I’m still not sure that I correctly understand what post-irony and meta-irony are. But if this isn’t it, then what is it?”

More touchingly, Navalny posted a photo of himself with his wife Yulia on Valentine’s Day, his last post on Telegram.

“Baby, everything is like in a song with you: between us there are cities, the take-off lights of airfields, blue snowstorms and thousands of kilometers,” he wrote. “But I feel that you are near every second, and I love you more and more.”

Navalny’s death comes as Putin, who has been in power since New Year’s Eve 1999, heads for a fifth term in office. The March presidential election will be an act of political theater: Boris Nadezhdin, the sole candidate opposed to Putin’s war on Ukraine, has been barred from running, and the vote will send a message to Russians and to the world: The Russian people are behind Putin, and behind the war on Ukraine. There is no room for giving air to Navalny on state media in the run-up to the election carnival.

The opposition leader’s death also marks the end of an era for Russia. Navalny had emerged as the most prominent leader of the Russian opposition following the assassination of outspoken Putin critic Boris Nemtsov in 2015, in plain view of the Kremlin. That killing also shook Russian society profoundly, but it was a very different time. At the time of his murder, Nemtsov and his team were investigating the deployment of Russian troops to the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, something the Russian government officially denied.

Now that war is in the open, following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. And Russia has introduced draconian new laws that make it illegal to criticize the military. The massive anti-corruption protests that Navalny once managed to mobilize before the invasion now seem unlikely to reprise in Putin’s lifetime. The investigative articles and videos Navalny and his team once published online – reaching millions of Russians – face ever-more stifling digital censorship.

The Kremlin’s response to the death of Navalny, then, will be telling. Putin famously refused to utter Navalny’s name, hinting at the deep unease about the legitimacy Navalny commanded as opposition leader.

Asked in a 2017 press conference about why his government was afraid of competition from Navalny, Putin again refused to utter Navalny’s name, dancing around the matter by referring to “the figures you mentioned” and “those you named.” And he made it clear that he saw Russia’s democratic opposition as an existential threat. In his warped retelling, Putin said Navalny was the equivalent of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili – or the equivalent of Ukrainians who rallied in Kyiv’s Maidan Square to oppose Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, who fled the country in early 2014.

“About the figures you mentioned,” he said. “A question about Ukraine was already asked. Do you want dozens of people like Saakashvili running around here? Those you named are a Russian version of Saakashvilis. Do you want such Saakashvilis to destabilise your country? Do you want us to live from one Maidan to the next? To survive attempted coups? We have been through this already. Do you want all this to return?”

Navalny’s response, again, showed his potent sense of humor. “To my collection of ‘words used not to say Navalny’ is added ‘those you named,’” he joked on Twitter.

Alexey Navalny once represented an alternative future for Russia: an optimistic, forward-looking place, free of the one-man rule of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

With the death of the opposition leader in a prison north of the Arctic Circle, Russia’s bleak political landscape is now many shades darker.

It would be hard to overstate how profoundly Navalny symbolized Putin’s relentless drive to erase the last remnants of political opposition from Russia. During his many years of activism, Navalny and his supporters saw their protest rallies shut down by riot police; their offices raided; and countless arrests that landed activists in jail, or forced out of the country.

Navalny himself paid an extraordinarily high price for his activism. Under constant surveillance by Putin’s security services, Navalny survived a near-lethal poisoning by the nerve agent Novichok, yet defiantly returned to Russia instead of remaining in comfortable exile. He was immediately arrested on his return to Moscow.

What followed was a parody of criminal justice, as Russian prosecutors heaped on charges against Navalny, who continued to rail against Putin. In one court appearance by video link, a gaunt Navalny – emaciated by a hunger strike – heaped scorn on the president, saying, “I would like to say that your king is naked, and more than one little boy is shouting about it – it is now millions of people who are already shouting about it. It is quite obvious. Twenty years of incompetent rule have come to this: there is a crown sliding from his ears,” Navalny said.

“Your naked king wants to rule until the end, he doesn’t care about the country, he is clung to power and wants to rule indefinitely.”

But even during a brutal tour of Russia’s penal system, Navalny maintained his composure – and his extraordinary sense of humor. In a post on Telegram in January, he joked about the ghastly music of the pro-war pop-star Shaman being blared over prison loudspeakers at the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp in the Yamal-Nenets region.

“Imagine the picture: Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug,” he wrote. “Polar night. In the barracks for punishment in a special regime colony, A. Navalny, sentenced to 19 years in prison, whom Kremlin propaganda has been rinsing for years for participating in Russian protests, has to do exercises to the song ‘I am Russian,’ which is played for him as educational work for the purpose of correction.

“To be honest, I’m still not sure that I correctly understand what post-irony and meta-irony are. But if this isn’t it, then what is it?”

More touchingly, Navalny posted a photo of himself with his wife Yulia on Valentine’s Day, his last post on Telegram.

“Baby, everything is like in a song with you: between us there are cities, the take-off lights of airfields, blue snowstorms and thousands of kilometers,” he wrote. “But I feel that you are near every second, and I love you more and more.”

Navalny’s death comes as Putin, who has been in power since New Year’s Eve 1999, heads for a fifth term in office. The March presidential election will be an act of political theater: Boris Nadezhdin, the sole candidate opposed to Putin’s war on Ukraine, has been barred from running, and the vote will send a message to Russians and to the world: The Russian people are behind Putin, and behind the war on Ukraine. There is no room for giving air to Navalny on state media in the run-up to the election carnival.

The opposition leader’s death also marks the end of an era for Russia. Navalny had emerged as the most prominent leader of the Russian opposition following the assassination of outspoken Putin critic Boris Nemtsov in 2015, in plain view of the Kremlin. That killing also shook Russian society profoundly, but it was a very different time. At the time of his murder, Nemtsov and his team were investigating the deployment of Russian troops to the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, something the Russian government officially denied.

Now that war is in the open, following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. And Russia has introduced draconian new laws that make it illegal to criticize the military. The massive anti-corruption protests that Navalny once managed to mobilize before the invasion now seem unlikely to reprise in Putin’s lifetime. The investigative articles and videos Navalny and his team once published online – reaching millions of Russians – face ever-more stifling digital censorship.

The Kremlin’s response to the death of Navalny, then, will be telling. Putin famously refused to utter Navalny’s name, hinting at the deep unease about the legitimacy Navalny commanded as opposition leader.

Asked in a 2017 press conference about why his government was afraid of competition from Navalny, Putin again refused to utter Navalny’s name, dancing around the matter by referring to “the figures you mentioned” and “those you named.” And he made it clear that he saw Russia’s democratic opposition as an existential threat. In his warped retelling, Putin said Navalny was the equivalent of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili – or the equivalent of Ukrainians who rallied in Kyiv’s Maidan Square to oppose Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, who fled the country in early 2014.

“About the figures you mentioned,” he said. “A question about Ukraine was already asked. Do you want dozens of people like Saakashvili running around here? Those you named are a Russian version of Saakashvilis. Do you want such Saakashvilis to destabilise your country? Do you want us to live from one Maidan to the next? To survive attempted coups? We have been through this already. Do you want all this to return?”

Navalny’s response, again, showed his potent sense of humor. “To my collection of ‘words used not to say Navalny’ is added ‘those you named,’” he joked on Twitter.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pressed partner nations for more military assistance to Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference in Germany Saturday, amid signs of the war turning in Russia’s favour.

His plea came soon after Ukrainian forces announced their withdrawal from the key eastern town of Avdiivka.

A $60 billion US military aid package has been held up in Congress since December, with the passage of a supplemental funding bill blocked by Senate Republicans earlier this month. Europe is also struggling to send what it had pledged.

“Unfortunately keeping Ukraine in the artificial deficit of weapons, particularly in deficit of artillery and long-range capabilities, allows Putin to adapt to the current intensity of the war,” Zelensky said, adding the “self-weakening of democracy over time undermines our joint results.”

“If we have enough air defense systems, we can bring millions of Ukrainians home,” he said.

Zelensky said the situation in Avdiivka proved “exactly” that Ukraine’s actions are “limited only by the sufficiency and lengths of the range of our strength.”

“We expect what was promised, what we agreed on, that we will be able to unblock the sky, where the Russian Federation has the advantage,” Zelensky added.

“It is essential to unblock the sky…Where there are air defense systems, Russia immediately withdrew because they were losing aircraft. These systems will unlock the sky and enable our soldiers to move forward,” he continued.

Zelensky also said he was “ready to go” to the frontline with Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.

“I think if we are in dialogue on how to finish the war, we have to demonstrate [to] people who are decision makers, what does it mean: the real world. Not in Instagram. Real world,” Zelensky said.

Last year, Zelensky opened the Munich Security Conference with an impassioned video address pleading for faster weapons to repel Russian forces. This year, he attended in person for the first time since Russia’s full scale of invasion almost two years ago.

Later, after meeting US Vice President Kamala Harris, urging Congress to pass the funding.

“For us, this package is vital,” he said. “We do not currently look into alternatives because we are counting on the United States.”

“There is only plan A, which is to ensure that Ukraine receives what it needs,” Harris said.

“I will emphasize that an indication of where we can and frankly must be is that there is bipartisan support in both of our houses of Congress.”

The Israeli leader has repeatedly said that the war in Gaza will continue until Israel destroys Hamas’ leadership and rescues the hostages.

Hirsch, who works in Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office, said he has concerns that the Hamas political officials negotiating the hostage deal are not in contact with Hamas officials on the ground in Gaza. He suggested that, though Israel and Hamas had previously agreed on a deal to supply medication to Israeli hostages, the hostages did not receive this medication.

“We need proof that there is someone that can deliver,” Hirsch said. “Show us that the medical support that was sent to our hostages has arrived to its destination. This is very important because it will show us that there is someone there that can really deliver and release our hostages.”

On Friday, the IDF said “medicines were found with the names of Israeli hostages on them” during their operation at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. So far, Israel has not found any hostages in the medical complex despite saying they had evidence to the contrary. The IDF did not provide visual evidence of the found medication and Hamas said the IDF claims were “not true.”

“We are ready to stop warfare by ceasefires, not to stop the war,” Hirsch said. “The war won’t end. Hamas will be dismantled, but we would like very much to make a deal and to bring our hostages back home. This is very, very important to us.”

As well as believing that Hamas’s proposals are disconnected from reality, Hirsch said that he also believes the group is suggesting a deal that it is planning to break the terms of.

“They wanted very much to break the potential deal just as they did in the previous one,” he suggested. “Actually, they know that they have no authority to close the deal, probably, and they’re exaggerating in a way that is very, very far, far, far away from reality.”

In late 2023, Israel released 180 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange for 81 hostages held by Hamas.

When asked by Marquardt if the IDF would be willing to release Palestinian prisoners who have life sentences, or who carried out attacks in Israel, in exchange for Israeli hostages, Hirsch only said that he suggests Hamas bring proposals that are “close to reality.”

Asked about Israel’s potential plans for a ground offensive in Rafah, southern Gaza, where more than 1.3 million Palestinian civilians are seeking refuge, Hirsch said that “Rafah is next, of course.”

“In Rafah, there are many hostages and many, many terror groups – actually Hamas is still there,” Hirsch claimed. He said that the IDF has “morals and values” and that it is doing “everything we can to avoid possible damage,” but added that “Rafah must be next, because we must release the hostages.”

The UN has warned that displaced Palestinians in Rafah are reportedly fleeing towards northern Deir al Balah following intensified Israeli airstrikes. Aid agencies have warned there is no safe place to go in Gaza.

Israel released more details on Friday about the 12 employees of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) who it has accused of participating in the October 7 terrorist attacks and kidnappings, including their names, photos and alleged roles with Hamas.

The additional details also included screengrabs of what Israel said were two UNWRA employees – a social worker and math teacher – in Israel on October 7. The defense ministry also provided ID photos of 10 other alleged Hamas members, their positions and alleged involvement in the deadly incursion, but did not provide any supporting evidence to back up their claims.

The surprise Hamas attacks left about 1,200 dead and saw more than 250 others taken hostage.

Israel’s bombardment and ground offensive in response has forcibly displaced at least 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza – most of whom are now crammed in Rafah, near the border with Egypt. Panic has grown in the city ahead of a looming Israeli ground offensive.

Meanwhile, in the nearby city of Khan Younis, Israeli forces Friday continued a deadly raid of Nasser Hospital, Gaza’s largest functioning medical facility.

Breakdown in relations

Israel’s relations with the United Nations have deteriorated in recent months, after the organization’s senior officials repeatedly condemned the country’s military approach to the war in Gaza.

Last month, Israel presented the United Nations, the United States, and other allies with a dossier that included allegations about these 12 UNRWA employees – out of 13,000 in Gaza – leading more than a dozen countries to suspend funding to the agency, which plays a central role in feeding and sheltering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the strip.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said a diplomat at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs briefed him on the dossier in mid-January, but said the agency had not been provided with a copy.

Lazzarini told reporters at a press conference in Jerusalem on February 9 that “I have seen a large dossier in the room that the person had, coming from their own internal intelligence, and he was reading this and translating for me.”

“There were strong allegations, with names and for each of the name[s] associated to a given activity on that day,” Lazzarini said.

UNRWA quickly fired 10 of the 12 staff members accused by Israel of involvement in the October 7 attacks and launched an investigation into the allegations, in hopes of keeping international funding to the agency flowing at a critical time. The UN said two of the 12 had died.

The Israeli government said the social worker was a Hamas operative involved in kidnapping an Israeli soldier from Be’eri and coordinating the transfer of weapons and trucks. It accused the math teacher of holding a “logistical position” in Hamas’s Deir el-Balah battalion and said he was involved in “receiving and holding hostages” and was “seen photographing a female hostage.”

Israel’s allegations against the other UNRWA employees ranged from being identified in Israel on October 7 to assisting in kidnapping Israelis.

“UNRWA has lost legitimacy and can no longer function as a UN body. I have instructed the defense establishment to begin transferring responsibilities related to the delivery of aid, to additional organizations,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told reporters during a briefing on Friday. “UNRWA is deeply embedded in terror activity. The world must see the pictures that I have shown here.”

An UNRWA spokesman said the United Nation’s highest investigative authority is investigating the matter, but declined to comment on the additional details provided by Israel on Friday.

“As long as the investigation is ongoing, UNRWA is not in a position to provide further information on the allegations in question,” the UNRWA spokesman said.

Gallant also alleged that 1,468 UNRWA workers – or about 12% of its Gaza staff – “are known to be active” members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, of which he said 185 are “active in the military branches of Hamas.” He did not provide any evidence to back up his claim.

The UNWRA spokesman said the agency annually shares the names, employee numbers and functions of all staff members with Israel. It said the names shared included the names of the 12 individuals identified by Israel in the dossier, and that Israel had not informed UNRWA of those staffers’ alleged involvement with Hamas prior to January.

An UNRWA spokesman said the agency screens its staff on a biannual basis against the UN Security Council’s sanctions list and said the fact that the October 7th attack went “undetected” by Israel’s intelligence services implies “that all involved, including people who allegedly work for UNRWA, participated illicitly in ways that UNRWA also would have been unable to detect.”

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has for years told his country its children are under attack from deviant sexualities and pedophilia. Now, his government is embroiled in a scandal after it emerged that its president had pardoned a man convicted of covering up sexual abuse at a children’s home.

President Katalin Novak, Orban’s loyal but largely impotent ally, resigned last Saturday amid public furor over her decision in April 2023 to pardon the deputy director of a children’s home who had helped to cover up the abuse of underaged boys. She said she made a “mistake” in “believing that the convict did not exploit the vulnerability of children whom he had overseen.”

Novak’s pardon was reportedly signed off by former Justice Minister Judit Varga, the ruling Fidesz party’s leading candidate for the European parliament election. Varga also resigned. Within days, the only two women to have served in Orban’s cabinet had stepped down. But their resignations have not stemmed the speculation swirling around his government.

Orban has long posed as a globetrotting defender of Christian values and an enemy of liberalism. Aided by state and private media outlets under his government’s control, he has campaigned against what he says is a wave of gender ideology, flowing mostly from the European Union, aiming to corrupt Hungary’s youth. His message has been echoed by politicians from Washington to Moscow.

But Orban’s critics say his carefully constructed image is a thin guise for a plutocratic mode of governance designed to enrich a small group of oligarchs.

While the scandal is unlikely to loosen Orban’s grip on power, it has dealt a blow to Fidesz’s image in revealing it tolerated crimes against children it swore to prevent. The scandal could also weaken Hungary’s bid to gain more influence in Brussels in the upcoming European elections.

Since the scandal was revealed last weekend by Hungarian news site 444.hu, “Orban has not made an appearance or said anything. It’s very unusual for him to be quiet for a whole week,” said Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of international affairs at Princeton University, who first met Orban in the 1990s, before the first of his four terms as prime minister that has made him Europe’s longest-serving leader.

Speculation that more ministers may be implicated in the scandal increased when Peter Magyar, Varga’s ex-husband, publicly accused senior Fidesz figures of allowing women to take the fall.

“I do not want to be part of a system for a minute longer where the real culprits hide behind women’s skirts,” Magyar said in a video interview with Hungarian outlet Partizan viewed by more than 2 million people.

Magyar said he used to believe in “an ideal, in a national, sovereign, civic Hungary” – the sort vaunted by Orban. “However, over the past few years and especially today, I have come to realize all this is indeed just a political product, a sugary coating that serves only two purposes: to conceal the operation of the power factory and to acquire enormous wealth.”

Despite offering scant public comment on the scandal, Orban swiftly proposed changing Hungary’s constitution to prevent future pardons from being granted to anyone convicted in connection with crimes against children. “For pedophile offenders, there is no mercy!” Orban said.

But the proposal has done little to dampen the anger directed against Orban’s government. Protests – a rarity in Hungary – have been staged throughout the past week, with more expected Saturday ahead of Orban’s annual State of the Union-style address. It remains to be seen how and if he will address the scandal.

A ‘thin’ ideology

How Orban came to be the self-proclaimed “defender” of Christian, and particularly Catholic, values, was not wholly by design. Orban was born a Calvinist. He is not known to attend church regularly, Scheppele said, like much of the Hungarian population. Just 14% of Hungarians say religion is very important in their lives, according to the 2018 Pew Global Attitudes Survey.

“It’s weird that you get somebody defending Christian Europe when the population is not following any religious rituals,” said Scheppele.

In a 2014 speech to Fidesz insiders thought to be secret, Orban famously said he aimed to turn Hungary into an “illiberal democracy.” After he was berated by the press and his European allies, he soon clarified that he meant “Christian democracy.”

“He said, ‘Oh, well, you know, by illiberal I just mean Christian. Christians are not liberal,’” said Scheppele. She argues that Orban’s supposed ideology is the product of his “laundering his dictatorship comments” into something more palatable.

Orban’s critics say his ideology is thin and malleable. Despite his rampant anti-immigration rhetoric, Hungary allows certain individuals to buy permanent residence, welcoming thousands of immigrants from China, Venezuela and other countries in return for cash. “The Christianity goes out the window when there’s something economic at stake,” said Scheppele.

Orban’s government has often accused its opponents of being sexually deviant. On the same day as Hungary’s parliamentary election in 2022, voters were also asked to take part in a referendum on whether they support promoting content to children relating to their sexual orientation.

The referendum included questions like: “Do you support the unrestricted exposure of minors to sexually explicit media content that may influence their development?” Critics said the questions were so leading that no reasonable person would answer “yes.”

Similar referendums have been held since. Fodor said Hungarians are used to seeing posters saying things like: “99% of people say no to gender ideology. Let’s not dance to the tune of Brussels.”

But since the scandal, the rhetoric weaponized by the government has been used against it by protesters. Some have held placards saying “99% of people say no to pedophilia. They [the government] support pedophilia (and they blame it on us).”

Wounded, not defeated

While the crisis is not likely to remove Orban from power, it may have derailed some of his future political plans. Varga was set to lead Hungary’s “anti-woke” crusade in Brussels ahead of the European elections in June, where Orban could secure a bigger say in European affairs if far-right parties perform well.

But Varga’s resignation means Orban’s project will require a new face. And while Novak’s role was mostly ceremonial, the parliamentary process of electing a new president means the effects of the scandal will not fade swiftly from public view.

Still, the government is demonstrating its skill in “turning the wrath of people away from Orban and finding a scapegoat,” said Fodor.

Much of the public’s anger, she said, has been directed at Zoltan Balog, a Calvinist bishop and former Fidesz cabinet minister who has been implicated in supporting the pardoning of those convicted of child abuse, for which Balog has apologized.

“The media is full of people calling for his resignation. And the fact that he hasn’t resigned is actually very good for Orban, because there’s a lot of public hatred gathering – and it is gathering against Balog,” said Fodor.

The endurance of Europe’s longest-serving leaders is often attributed to their ability to survive scandals. Mark Rutte, the outgoing prime minister of the Netherlands and Europe’s second-longest serving leader after Orban, has been nicknamed “Teflon Mark” for his knack of slipping through scandals which fail to stick to him. Does Orban have these same qualities?

“Teflon is not quite the right metaphor for Orban,” said Scheppele. “Orban engineers escape from tough situations… It’s not because stuff slides off, it’s because he’s got a whole thing operating under the surface to blunt the attack. I suspect that will happen again.”

The world is once again talking about a Palestinian state.

The issue has caused a deep rift between Israel and its closest ally, the United States. US President Joe Biden keeps pressing for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects any talk of an independent Palestine. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom said it would consider recognizing a Palestinian state, while Saudi Arabia insists that without a resolution to the statehood question, there can be no normalization of ties with Israel.

In all that back and forth about their future, the voice of the Palestinian people has been largely missing. Watching world leaders debate their fate, many Palestinians are not holding their breath. They’ve heard it all before.

Khalil Shikaki, the director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR), said that most Palestinians are beyond the point of putting their hopes into statements made by foreign leaders, regardless of how friendly they might sound.

“What they need to see is action on the ground,” he said. “They want to see Israeli occupation ending – and the two most important signs of Israeli occupation are the settlement construction and the control over land.”

Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza in the 1967 war. It later annexed East Jerusalem and withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza.

Under the Oslo Accords peace agreement, the West Bank has been split into three distinct areas, depending on who is in charge. The plan was for Israel to gradually hand over control over more and more areas, but that has never happened. Israel has full administrative and security control over 60% of the West Bank area, which it continues settling its citizens in.

More than 700,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land on which the Palestinians, along with the international community, want to establish a future Palestinian state, along with Gaza. The settlements are considered illegal under international law and are widely seen as one of the main obstacles to a two-state solution.

Netanyahu’s government, the most right-wing in Israel’s history, has been supportive of the settlements, offering tax breaks and other incentives to encourage more Jewish settlers to move to the West Bank. The state’s long-time position is that the settlements are not illegal and that the land isn’t occupied, because it was not a fully recognized part of a sovereign state before Israel took over in 1967.

And while the areas where settlements encroach on Palestinian land have always been prone to violence, settler attacks on Palestinians have spiraled out of control in recent months, raising the ire of the US.

This spike in settler violence against Palestinians – which has gone largely unpunished by Israeli authorities – has prompted the US to take a harder stance. Earlier this month, Biden issued an executive order imposing sanctions on four settlers accused of directly perpetrating violence or intimidation in the West Bank.

Diana Buttu, a Palestinian political analyst and human rights lawyer, who served as a legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team in the early 2000s, said the sanctions are a sign that the needle might be finally moving on Palestinian statehood.

“It’s slow, but it’s going in the right direction. And it’s going to pick up and it’s going to have a snowball effect and believe me, it’s already starting,” she said.

Buttu said the decision by South Africa to file a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the war in Gaza was a game changer. In late January, the ICJ found South Africa’s claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza to be “plausible” and ordered Israel to “take all measures” to limit the death and destruction caused by its military campaign, prevent and punish incitement to genocide, and ensure access to humanitarian aid. The ICJ’s decisions are binding, but it has no way of enforcing them.

“Israel will ignore (the ruling), but the world can’t,” Buttu said, pointing to large-scale demonstrations in support of Palestinians that have been taking place in cities across the world for months.

“We’re going to start seeing more action to hold Israel accountable. We’re going to start seeing more action to isolate Israel, to put sanctions on Israel, to not welcome Israel. It started already,” she said, referring to states that have put curbs on weapons sales to Israel.

But Shikaki said that while they are a powerful symbolic move, the sanctions against the four settlers won’t make most Palestinians believe the US is serious about a two-state solution.

“Unless the entire state of Israel is sanctioned, Palestinians will not see this as anything other than a simple token measure to deceive them,” he said. “The United States will have to take much more comprehensive measures against the entire settler population before Palestinians begin to see this as meaningful change.”

Sentiment on the streets echo Shikaki’s research. Rushing down the street in central Ramallah, just around the corner from a renowned falafel shop, 26-year old Sojoud paused to explain why she didn’t feel particularly hopeful.

That view is shared by many Palestinians. A survey conducted by the PCPSR in December showed that more than 60% of Palestinians want the Palestinian Authority (PA) – the interim government established by the Oslo Accords signed with Israel in the mid 1990s – to be dissolved. Meanwhile, support for the longtime PA President Mahmoud Abbas has collapsed.

“It has plummeted beyond what we have seen throughout his presidency. In the West Bank, 92% are now demanding his resignation,” Shikaki said. “Even within his own political party (Fatah), a clear majority wants him to resign.”

Endless cycle of promises and violence

Orient House in East Jerusalem, set in a lush garden just a short walk from the Old City, was once the unofficial headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The building was a powerful symbol of the Palestinians’ presence in Jerusalem and their aspiration for an independent state with the eastern sector of the city serving as its capital. It was largely here that the plans for a future Palestinian state and its institutions were drawn up.

Nearly 23 years ago, at the height of the Second Intifada, or uprising, Orient House was shuttered by the Israeli Police. The building now sits empty, the garden overgrown and a big rusting lock hanging on its ornamental gate.

Like many other Palestinian institutions and civil society organizations once based in this area, the tenants of Orient House have either been evicted or forced to relocated to the West Bank.

Just down the road from Orient House is PASSIA, or the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, one of the last remaining Palestinian think tanks in East Jerusalem.

Adnan Joulani, PASSIA’s executive director, said he believes the current calls for the Palestinian state are little more than an attempt by world leaders “to divert attention from the more pressing issue at the time, which is ending the fighting, ending the killing, ending the genocide of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”

“The reason that I dismiss the idea that this is a sincere call for a Palestinian state is because I’ve seen it many, many times in the past,” he said, pointing to the periods of the First Intifada and the Second Intifada, which led to failed peace talks.

“Everybody was talking about a path to peace, roadmap to peace… if only the violence would stop. Well, guess what? The violence (did) stop and (yet) the idea of resolving the conflict died with the stopping of the violence,” he said.

“Because if it is true, if this conflict has really awakened a sincere desire by the international community, by (British Foreign Secretary David) Cameron and Biden, for the establishment of a Palestinian state, then unfortunately, this is a validation and vindication of the path of resistance by Hamas.”

Japan’s space agency says it has successfully launched its flagship H3 space rocket, a year after its maiden attempt ended in failure.

The H3 left the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan at 9:22 a.m. local time on Saturday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said in a statement.

The space body said it had confirmed the combustion of the second-stage engine was complete, and the rocket had reached orbit as planned.

As the successor to Japan’s H-2A and H-2B rockets, the H3 is designed to be more economical by using commercial off-the-shelf products, rather than exclusive aerospace components, according to JAXA.

JAXA expects the H3 to be able to launch both government and commercial missions in the future and, if it is successful, the space agency has plans to launch it as often as six times a year for the next two decades.

H3’s maiden launch ended in failure last March when its second stage failed to ignite and its controllers issued a destruct command just 15 minutes after lift-off. That was just one of a string of problems for the maiden launch, which had already been postponed after ignition failures hit two of the rocket’s secondary booster engines.

Saturday’s successful launch is a second win for JAXA in as little as two months after its “moon sniper” robotic explorer landed on the lunar surface in January.

JAXA hailed that moment as “a significant achievement for future lunar and planetary exploration,” despite technical hiccups that had left the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, inoperable for days upon landing.

The spacecraft had touched down facing the wrong direction, preventing its solar cells from generating power. However, 10 days later it woke up.

JAXA had also used new precision technology to demonstrate a “pinpoint” landing within 100 meters of the SLIM’s target.

Japan is the fifth country to safely put a spacecraft on the moon, following India’s success with its Chandrayaan-3 last August. The United States, the former Soviet Union and China have also put spacecraft on the moon.

The new space race is partly driven by countries’ desire to access water trapped as ice in permanently shadowed regions of the lunar south pole. Experts say this could be used for drinking water or for fuel as humanity pushes the boundaries of space exploration in the future.