Ukraine

• The White House corroborated Ukraine's account that Russia is still "very far" from capturing Bakhmut, despite Wagner Group claims that the city had fallen.
• Ukraine said it intercepted 14 of the 17 Iranian-made Shahed drones Russia launched overnight near Odesa. The other three caused minimal damage and no casualties.

• UK intelligence says Moscow wants to "sponsor and develop alternative private military contractors (PMCs) to eventually replace the Wagner Group PMC in its significant combat role in Ukraine" because of Wagner's public bickering with the defense ministry.
• Moscow would prefer a more malleable private fighting force - but still wants to use a private force over its uniformed military for better optics and cost efficiency.
• Finland formally became the 31st member of NATO yesterday. Its accession more than doubles the length of NATO's borders with Russia to 1,584 miles (2,550 km), to Russia's displeasure. Russia said it would take "countermeasures."

• U.S. officials gave NBC some details about the Chinese spy balloon that traversed the country before it was shot down near South Carolina: it collected electronic signal intelligence from sensitive U.S. military sites - sometimes flying deliberate figure-eight patterns to make multiple passes over those sites - and transmitted data back to China in real time.
• Australia became the latest country to ban TikTok on government devices over concerns that Beijing could use the app to spy on users or influence their politics. TikTok is already banned from U.S., UK, and French government devices.

• The UN says the Taliban ordered it to ban all its female staff from working in Afghanistan. While the UN called the ban "unacceptable and, frankly, inconceivable," it asked female staff not to come to work for 48 hours while it disputes the ban with Taliban officials.

• Venezuela's new opposition representative in the U.S., Fernando Blasi, is taking a different approach to the "maximum pressure campaign" that failed to drive Pres. Maduro out of power: Blasi asked the U.S. to ease oil sanctions on Maduro and his government since Maduro is only using those sanctions to scapegoat the U.S. for Venezuela's problems.
• There's still significant support for maintaining sanctions, so they're unlikely to be relaxed soon.

• Israeli police raided the Al Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem yesterday, arresting at least 400 Palestinians. Tensions are already high and this raid stoked fears that militant groups will violently retaliate.