Ukrainian officials said yesterday they believe Russian forces have lost momentum in the contested city of Bakhmut, signaling Ukraine may mount a counteroffensive along eastern battlefronts
| Ukrainian officials said yesterday they believe Russian forces have lost momentum in the contested city of Bakhmut, signaling Ukraine may mount a counteroffensive along eastern battlefronts as the region moves out of the winter season. Some on-the-ground reports supported claims that Russian efforts, particularly those led by the Wagner mercenary group, may be fatiguing. Analysts have described the battle for Bakhmut as more symbolic than strategic—the city had a prewar population of just 70,000, but the six-month fight has been one of the conflict’s longest and bloodiest. It sits in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk oblast, one of four claimed by Russian President Vladimir Putin as sovereign Russian territory in September. As of early March, reports suggested Wagner forces had captured the eastern half of the city, though the group has complained of a lack of support and supplies from the Kremlin. See a current map of occupied territory here. |
| Crypto Fugitive Arrested |
| Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Kwon Do-Hyung, also known as Do Kwon, was reportedly arrested yesterday by officials in Montenegro as he attempted to travel through the capital city of Podgorica’s airport with falsified documents. His detention comes almost one year after the company he cofounded, Terraform Labs, collapsed, leading to the loss of billions of dollars in digital currency markets last year. Among other products, Kwon’s company created a currency managed by an algorithm such that it maintained a one-to-one conversion with the US dollar (what are stablecoins?). Last May, a number of large withdrawals of the coin sparked the equivalent of a bank run, leading to many investors attempting to reclaim and exchange the coin simultaneously. An estimated $45B of value in the coin was wiped out in one week, beginning months of upheaval across the cryptocurrency industry. See a deep dive on the collapse of Terra coins here. |
| P. Aeruginosa |
| The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed two additional deaths linked to bacteria traced back to contaminated eye drops, bringing the total number of deaths to three, with several more severely injured. At least 68 cases have b |
