With Bakhmut in ruins, Ukraine is shifting focus
Ukraine has tacitly acknowledged that Russia has seized Bakhmut: A Ukrainian official today said Russian troops are engaged in “clearance operations” to clear remaining Ukrainian soldiers in the city – even as Kiev tries to shift focus from the apparent loss to the battle for the outskirts of the city.
The recent comments signaled a shift in Ukraine’s portrayal of the deadliest campaign of the war. For months, even as its hold on Bakhmut shrank to a few blocks, Ukraine would emphasize heavy fighting to prevent the Russians from capturing the city. Officials now appear to recognize that their focus is shifting from defending Bakhmut to making it difficult for the Russians to hold it.
But Bakhmut himself is destroyed. Drone footage captured by The Times shows the once peaceful city, known for its salt mines and sparkling wine, reduced to ashes.
“By the time Russia declared victory over the ruins, it was clear that the city was all but lost,” said our colleague Marc Santora, reporting from the Bakhmut region last week. “At the same time, another battle is unfolding around the city – this one for the high ground taken by Russian troops during the winter.”
In a statement, the Cyberspace Administration of China said Micron’s products raised “relatively serious cybersecurity vulnerabilities” that could threaten national security.
Background: The move, which took place on Sunday, is the latest step in an ongoing technical battle between the US and China. Many analysts saw it as retaliation for Washington’s attempts to cut off China’s access to high-end chips.
Analysis: The ban creates a space in the market that Chinese chipmakers could fill. It could also become a wedge between the US and its allies, whose companies could make billions of dollars if they stepped in and picked up business that Micron could lose.
Mexico’s top rights official targeted by spyware
Alejandro Encinas, the Secretary of State for Human Rights, was targeted by Pegasus, the world’s most notorious spyware, during the investigation into armed forces abuses, our colleagues Natalie Kitroeff and Ronen Bergman report.
While there is no evidence of who hacked into Encinas’ phone, the military is the only entity in Mexico with access to the spyware, according to five people familiar with the contracts.
The previously unreported spyware attacks on Encinas seriously undermine President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s pledge to end what he has called the “illegal” espionage of the past.
Context: Mexico has long been rocked by espionage scandals. But this is the first confirmed case of such a senior member of a government controlled by Pegasus in more than a decade of the country’s use of the spy tool.
THE LAST NEWS
Asia Pacific
For the past 16 years, South Korean poet Hwang In-suk has been feeding cats on her nightly walks around Seoul, luring the animals—her favorite muses—from their hiding places with a gentle psst.
Hwang said her nightly cat-feeding routine has allowed her to “discover worlds I would never have found,” informing her work, which explores loneliness and transience in the South Korean capital.
ART AND IDEAS
Rice in danger
Half of humanity eats it. And climate change is destroying it.
In China, extreme rainfall has reduced rice yields over the past 20 years. In Pakistan, heat and floods have destroyed crops. And in California, a drought has caused many farmers to set their rice fields fallow.
Farmers had to get creative by shifting their planting calendars or deliberately letting their fields dry out in areas where water was running low. Plant breeders also use old varieties of the grain to create new seeds that can withstand high temperatures, salty soils and other climate hazards.
“We are at a fundamentally different time,” said one climate expert. “It is a matter of producing more with less.”
