WESTERN PERSPECTIVE Russian forces intensify pressure on Ukraine's Avdiivka, Kherson Russian forces aiming to contain a four-month-old Ukrainian counteroffensive maintained unrelenting pressure on Sunday on the shattered town of Avdiivka in the east and intensified shelling in the southern area of Kherson. Russia has focused on the industrial east since pulling back from a failed advance on Kyiv at the start of the February 2022 invasion and its forces have tried to maintain positions in Kherson since abandoning the region's main town late last year. The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces, in its evening report, said Ukrainian forces repelled…

Egypt's border crossing opens to let a trickle of desperately needed aid into besieged Gaza The border crossing between Egypt and Gaza opened Saturday to let a trickle of desperately needed aid into the besieged Palestinian territory for the first time since Israel sealed it off and began pounding it with airstrikes following Hamas’ bloody rampage two weeks ago. Just 20 trucks were allowed in, an amount aid workers said was insufficient to address the unprecedented humanitarian crisis. More than 200 trucks carrying 3,000 tons of aid have been waiting nearby for days. Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, half of whom…

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE Ex-German leader reveals why Russia-Ukraine negotiations failed Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has argued in a newspaper interview that the US government didn’t “allow” any compromises that could have brought an end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict just weeks after Moscow’s military offensive began in February 2022. Speaking in an interview published by Germany’s Berliner Zeitungnewspaper on Friday, Schroeder said he was asked to help mediate the March 2022 peace negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian officials in Istanbul. He said that although representatives of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky were open to making concessions on such key issues as renouncing…

Israel says two Americans held hostage by Hamas, a mother and daughter, have been released Hamas on Friday freed an American woman and her teenage daughter who had been held hostage in Gaza, Israel said, the first such release from among the roughly 200 people the militant group abducted from Israel during its Oct. 7 rampage. Judith Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter, Natalie, were out of the Gaza Strip and in the hands of the Israeli military, an army spokesman said. Hamas said it released them for humanitarian reasons in an agreement with the Qatari government. The release comes amid…