Ukraine

• Ukraine reported that Russian troops have been sneaking into the Donbas in small, disorganized incursions that so far aren't making much progress towards Russia's goal of capturing the entire region before the first anniversary of the start of the war on Feb. 24.
• Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin appeared to join the fray: he published an arrogant new video claiming that he'd just personally "bombed Bakhmut" and challenging Pres. Zelensky to an aerial duel.
• Ukraine counted 1,030 Russian troops killed in 24 hours - by far the most in a single day so far in the war. This probably reflects the fact that Russia is using poorly trained fresh recruits and ex-prisoners in this new offensive.

• Mali's junta expelled the head of the human rights section of its UN mission for pressing for junta leaders to be held accountable for alleged human rights violations and war crimes. The military government insists it's a defender of human rights but has dragged its feet about organizing elections to hand power back to civilians.

• Cynical analysts are criticizing Pres. Xi for misjudging how the U.S. would react to the spy balloons identified over the Americas over the past week. Xi had been poised to welcome SecState Blinken for a bond-building visit - but lost the opportunity when Blinken canceled because of the balloons.
• Chinese officials initially doubled down and implied that the U.S. was overreacting to the balloons; now they've realized relations were damaged and even issued a highly unusual expression of "regret."

• The earthquake that shook Turkey and Syria early yesterday morning was tied with the strongest ever recorded in tremor-prone Turkey at magnitude 7.8. Its death toll is already up to 5,000 - and the WHO warned that it could see another "eightfold increase."
• The International Red Cross called it "an emergency within an emergency" in war-torn Syria.