China

• Beijing confirmed the suspected spy balloon spotted over Latin America was indeed one of its devices, but maintained that it too was just a civilian meteorological balloon.
• Some analysts have pointed out that actual weather balloons typically blow apart within a few hours of being launched. They also don't generally float over sensitive U.S. military installations - like the one last week did - and they're usually much smaller than that 90-foot monster.
• China formally complained about the U.S. shooting down one of the balloons, saying that the decision to destroy it "seriously violated the spirit of international law."
• The NYT pointed out that the U.S. may have "failed to set a red line years ago about balloon surveillance" by not calling China out for previous balloon incursions.

• Pres. Zelensky is replacing his defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, as part of an ongoing corruption investigation. Military intel chief Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov will take over as defense minister.
• This is Ukraine's first senior military shakeup since the war began, and it's notable that Reznikov was removed for "financial impropriety" and not because of outcomes on the battlefield. Russia, by contrast, has rotated its military leadership each time a commander's strategy failed in battle.
• Former Israeli PM Naftali Bennett told an interviewer that Pres. Putin promised him he wouldn't try to assassinate Pres. Zelensky when Bennett and Putin spoke two weeks into the war last year. I think the bigger revelation here is that a world leader still took Putin at his word two weeks after he invaded his neighbor.

• Iran's opposition wasn't impressed by Ayatollah Khamenei's decision to pardon thousands of prisoners: the pardons specifically exclude anyone "affiliated with groups hostile to the Islamic Republic" - like the 10,000 political prisoners in Iranian jails.

• A UN helicopter came under fire over Beni in eastern DRC, killing a South African peacekeeper aboard. M23 rebels are active in the area and likely shot at the helicopter.

• A powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook Turkey and Syria, killing at least 1,300 people.