War continues to rage in Ukraine as NATO meets

By Stefan J. Bos

The National Resistance Center of Ukraine, a branch of the Ukrainian armed forces, said the strike targeted a meeting in the village of Yuvileyne.

It added that before the strike, it had received information about the officials' whereabouts from what it called "underground" resistance and concerned residents."

There was no immediate response from Moscow, but the attack came after Ukraine said it had repelled 21 out of 21 overnight drone attacks.

However, Ukraine also suffered causalities, with authorities confirming that Russian shells struck homes on Tuesday, killing four people and injuring at least five in the southern town of Nikopol.

Heavy metals

Additionally, Marianna Budanova, the wife of Ukraine's intelligence head, Kyrylo Budanov, was reportedly poisoned and received treatment in hospital.

Officials say she fell ill reportedly after eating food laced with "heavy metals," the latest in a series of such cases blamed on Russia. However, Moscow has not confirmed the allegations.

And as the war enters its 22nd month, fighting has been hampered by expected tornados following Black Sea area storms that killed at least 14 people and left more than 2 million people without electricity in Russia and Ukraine.

Yet despite hundreds of thousands of people being killed or injured, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Ukraine's allies: “You know we have to continue. We have to keep fighting. You know Ukraine is not going to back down. Our strategic goal is our territorial integrity within international recognized borders.”

He spoke in Brussels at a foreign ministers meeting of the NATO military alliance that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described as historic. “Especially today when we are going to have a historic meeting, a meeting of the NATO Ukrainian council at the foreign ministerial level. And this meeting demonstrates that Ukraine is moving closer and closer to NATO. And at the meeting we are going to discuss how we can support your path towards NATO membership,” he told the Ukrainian minister.

He added that Ukraine had pushed back the Russian black fleet, opening routes for grain experts and bolstering global food security.

And there was some excellent cultural news for Ukraine, too: After a years-long legal dispute, hundreds of Crimean artifacts stuck in a Dutch museum were returned to Ukraine. They had been stuck in limbo following Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.