Monday Briefing: Russia pushes into northern Ukraine

May 13, 2024

	By Amelia Nierenberg

Good morning. We’re covering Russia’s renewed push into northern Ukraine and intense fighting in northern Gaza.

Plus, a tense British grammar fight.

a woman wearing a blue coat is lying down. hands appear to be reaching around her, as if they are going to pick her up on a stretcher.

Olha Melnichuk, an 85-year-old Ukrainian, was evacuated to Kharkiv on Saturday. Emile Ducke for The New York Times

Russia blazes into Ukraine’s north

In the past three days, Russian troops have poured across Ukraine’s northeastern border. They have taken more square miles per day than at almost any other point in the war — save the very beginning — and are moving near Kharkiv.

Russian forces launched a complex offensive on Friday. At least nine villages were seized. Now, some Ukrainian troops are retreating, and some commanders have taken the unusual step of blaming each other.

Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top military commander, conceded that the situation had “significantly worsened.” But he said that Russian attempts to break through Ukrainian defensive lines had been unsuccessful so far.

Thousands fled to Kharkiv, the nearest big city to the villages. About 20 miles from the border, it is safe — for the moment. “We could hear machine gun fire coming closer and closer,” one recently arrived woman said. The Russians were “about to break in.”

Toll: Villagers in the Kherson region slowly rebuilt their lives after Ukraine pushed Russia back. Now they’re braced for a fresh assault.

In Russia: President Vladimir Putin moved Sergei Shoigu, his minister of defense, to a position running the national security council. It was the first shake-up for his national security team since the invasion began.

In Belarus: Russia is upgrading a munitions depot, possibly to house nuclear weapons, a Times analysis of satellite imagery found.

An explosion is seen in a building at night.

A missile hit a building in northern Gaza on Saturday. Amir Cohen/Reuters

Fighting erupts in northern Gaza

Close-quarters ground combat between Hamas fighters and Israeli troops raged in Gaza City and nearby Jabaliya over the weekend, both sides said.

It fit a scenario now familiar: Israeli forces returning to an area where they had defeated Hamas earlier in the war — especially in the north — only to see the group fill the lawless power vacuum left behind.

Military analysts have said that Hamas may reconstitute itself in those areas because Israel has declined to administer them itself or to transfer them to non-Hamas Palestinian control. In Beit Lahia, another northern town, fighting over the weekend killed at least 12 people, according to Wafa, the official news agency of the Palestinian Authority.

Other updates:

Rafah: U.S. intelligence said that Yahya Sinwar, the top Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, was not hiding in Rafah. Such an assessment could undercut the Israeli rationale for major military operations in the city, from which a U.N. agency say that about 300,000 people had fled.
Aid: The flow of food and goods into Gaza has almost entirely dried up over the past week, according to the U.N.

a person stands in a doorway holding a staff, while another person bends over holding a shovel. they are looking out at a muddy street, with water still pooled.

Men shoveled mud in Afghanistan’s Baghlan Province on Saturday. Atif Aryan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Deadly floods in Afghanistan

Flash floods have killed more than 300 people, destroyed thousands of homes and engulfed entire villages, Afghan and U.N. officials said. The floods were set off by heavy seasonal rains in the northern province of Baghlan, which appears to have suffered the worst devastation, and in at least three other provinces.

MORE TOP NEWS

People gather around a badly damaged green and black bus.

The bus sped out of control on a downhill road and crashed into several vehicles. Timur Matahari/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Indonesia: At least 11 people were killed when a bus carrying students and teachers returning from a graduation celebration crashed on Saturday.
Donald Trump: Michael Cohen, whom prosecutors say that the former president reimbursed for paying the porn star Stormy Daniels hush money, is expected to testify today in Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial.

South Africa: The former president Jacob Zuma has founded a new party, which is quickly gaining support.
Burkina Faso: The military has repeatedly targeted civilians suspected of cooperating with — or simply living near — jihadists. In February, soldiers killed more than 223 people in two villages, a rights group said.
Medicine: The first person to receive a kidney from a genetically modified pig has died about two months after the procedure. The hospital said it had “no indication” that the death was the result of his recent transplant.
Olympics: Concerns are growing that the World Anti-Doping Agency is failing at its mission to keep sports free of illegal drugs, just months before the Summer Games are to begin in Paris.

Culture

Nemo wearing an orange outfit stands with feet apart and hands in the air.

Nemo won the high-camp contest for Sweden. Jessica Gow/TT/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Eurovision: Switzerland won. The night included pro-Palestinian protests near the arena and onstage fireworks.
K-pop: The producer of NewJeans, a popular band, is embroiled in a rare public dispute with her employer, Hybe, the firm behind BTS.

Business

Trade: The Biden administration plans to raise tariffs as high as 100 percent on Chinese electric vehicles to protect U.S. car makers.
Elon Musk: The tech mogul has pushed his politics and his business by courting right-wing leaders like India’s Narendra Modi.
Deep water: Minerals off the Cook Islands could be used to power electric cars. Mining could bring riches to the small country, but environmentalists are stiffly opposed.
Tech: Apple is revamping Siri to offer more sophisticated A.I. responses.

MORNING READ

A view of a green park with a lake and a vast cityscape behind it.

The park has become an escape for people in Bangkok, a city of 11 million. Lauren DeCicca for The New York Times

In Bangkok, the site of a factory that once churned out cigarettes has turned into an oasis for residents (and birds, bats and mosquito-eating dragonflies), bringing a breath of fresh air to the megacity’s congested, smoggy center.

The Australia Letter: Floods cut off the food supplies of remote Indigenous communities this year, requiring charter flights to stock shelves.

CONVERSATION STARTERS

A shot of the sky, with a roof and the tops of trees in the bottom. Pink and green colors ripple across the sky.

A time-lapse video shows the northern lights over Nashville. Matt Tyska, via Reuters

Aurora borealis: The lights appeared much farther from the poles than usual this weekend. See photos.
Mona Lisa: At least one mystery seems to have been solved: the location. She’s probably sitting in Lecco, Italy, a town near Lake Como.
Filling the silence: Talking to yourself is normal, experts say. It’s also useful.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times .

ARTS AND IDEAS

A white sign on a leafy suburban road with black text that reads: “St Marys Walk.” A black apostrophe was drawn in between the “y” and “s.”

Someone used a marker to draw in an apostrophe. Harry Satloka

Britons fight for their apostrophes

A British regional council caused quite a stir when it began removing apostrophes from street signs for thoroughfares like St. Mary’s Walk and King’s Road. In protest of the move, someone drew back an apostrophe.

Officials said that the decision would make the streets easier to search for in databases. And some grammarians said that the apostrophes served no real purpose; one linguist said they could be decorative and confusing, like the “fish forks” of punctuation.

But some proponents are furious. The chairman of the Apostrophe Protection Society, a tiny group in Britain, said that phasing out apostrophes was “cultural vandalism.”

“What’s next?” a former teacher said, adding, “We just use emojis?”

RECOMMENDATIONS

Three glasses with ice, a red-orange liquid and an orange slice in each.

Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Mix: An Aperol spritz is easy to make at home.

Browse: A new photography book from Corky Lee captures decades of Asian American life.

Watch: A-list stars and directors got their starts with the B-movie director Roger Corman. These are his best movies.

Compete: Take our newest history quiz.

Play: Spelling Bee, the Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku. Find all our games here.

That’s it for today. See you tomorrow. — Amelia

Email us at briefing@nytimes.com.

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