It is not yet clear if this is the start of a major spring offensive by Vladimir Putin’s forces, of which Ukraine has been warning for some time. However, it appears to suggest the Russian leader is unconcerned about upsetting US President Donald Trump, who will make up his mind “in a matter of weeks” if the Kremlin is serious about peace, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, said last week.

Where is the current fighting?

For several months, some of the fiercest fighting has been taking place to the south of the town of Pokrovsk – a one-time key logistics hub for Ukraine’s armed forces in the Donetsk region.

Ukraine’s army has achieved several small tactical successes since the start of the year, pushing back some of the Russian advance towards Pokrovsk, which had bought it to within just a few kilometers of the town center.

But with Pokrovsk itself heavily defended and the military supplies previously situated there largely relocated, Russia’s main effort in the area could be to push westward, rather than north.

Social media posts by Ukrainian soldiers in the last few days describe fears of possible encirclement in one location and breach of a defensive line in another.

“The frontline in this area has entered an active phase. The Russians will not stop,” one Ukrainian with the call-sign Muchnoi wrote on Telegram.

The aim of the advance is a town called Novopavlivka, he said.

“They will enter the Dnipropetrovsk region – this is one of the key tasks set by the Russian command.”

Moving into Dnipropetrovsk would be a significant moment because it would be the first time Russian troops have set foot there. Indeed, it would be the first new Ukrainian region to come under part-Russian occupation since the earlyweeks of the full-scale invasion more than three years ago.

The Ukrainian mapping service DeepState puts Putin’s forces just six kilometers (3.7 miles) away from the region while people living along the border are already being evacuated, Dnipropetrovsk officials say.

For Putin – and quite possibly American negotiators as well – any Russian control over a part of Dnipropetrovsk could be seen as a useful bargaining chip in a future negotiation.

Surges along the front line?

Luhansk is Ukraine’s easternmost region and the one where Putin’s forces have most control – just a few pockets remain in Ukrainian hands. Here, too, Russian troops have made steady gains in recent weeks, particularly the north of the town of Lyman, a railway hub and rear support base for Ukraine’s troops.

“It’s hard, we need to work on stabilizing the front and methodically knocking out the enemy, otherwise the gangrene will spread,” one Ukrainian officer wrote on Telegram.

Before that date, the average number of daily clashes in March had been around 140 (excluding an outlier on March 11). Since then, while tallies have fluctuated, the average has been around 180 clashes per day, an increase of about 30%.

The data includes the Kursk region in Russia, where Ukraine is now holding on to just a few villages along the border, after a slow but successful Russian rollback of Kyiv’s surprise gains last summer. The ground advances are also seeing Russia make inroads into Ukraine’s neighbouring Sumy region, creating small grey zones where neither side is in complete control.

Further complicating the picture along the northern border is Ukraine’s incursion into a slither of Russia’s Belgorod region, confirmed by Kyiv for the first time on Monday.

How are the Russians fighting?

Ukrainian soldiers report a variety of Russian tactics in recent weeks.

In the south of Donetsk region, a Ukrainian officer with the call sign Alex described Russian troops moving forward in columns consisting of both armored and soft-skin vehicles– about four to five infantry fighting vehicles and tanks, while “the rest are trucks, cars and golf carts.”

He did not hide his scepticism at the prospects for major Russian advances if current maneuvers reveal a real shortage of armor.

“Yes, they have a lot of manpower, several times more than we do, but whatever one says, in a war in the 21st century, it is impossible to build on any successes and launch a rapid offensive without mechanized means of delivering and supporting infantry,” Alex wrote on Telegram.

Also writing on Telegram, Ukrainian commander Stanislav Buniatov said Russian forces there were suffering heavy losses but continued undeterred. “One unit in this area loses ten to 50 Russians per day,” he said.

“The Russians are operating in small tactical groups of five to seven men, maximum 10 people. As soon as it’s foggy or rainy, they start advancing using bad weather as cover from our drones.”

As spring progresses and the weather turns drier, tactics will change, the drone commander says.

“They can’t use heavy vehicles at the moment. It’s too wet, they will get stuck. As soon as the land dries up, they will make a move; it’s not in doubt, they will charge for sure.”

Reality checks

Despite the downbeat assessments, it is important to keep some perspective. The amount of territory Russia is capturing remains small. For instance, its forces southwest of Pokrovsk, bearing down on Dnipropetrovsk region, are only about 45 kilometers (28 miles) further advanced than they were one year ago.

In fact, Britain’s Ministry of Defence, in common with other analysts, assesses Russia’s rate of advance to have been in steady decline for six months, from about 730 square kilometers captured in November last year to just 143 last month.

Part of this may well be down to the challenges of warfighting in winter, though the US military’s senior commander in Europe, Gen. Christopher Cavoli, in an upbeat testimony to Congress last week, said Kyiv’s forces had “assumed very strong defensive positions,” and were “well dug in.”

“It is very hard to envision Ukraine collapsing and losing that conflict,” Cavoli concluded.

Even so, land warfare analyst Nick Reynolds, of the Royal United Services Institute in London, cautions against thinking that because Russia has not taken much territory, it is not achieving anything.

Russia’s territorial claims, he says, will not be achieved through military advance, tree line by tree line, village by village.

“The aim is attrition, and the goal is not immediate. The goal is to kill people, to destroy equipment, to suck in resources, to bankrupt the Ukrainian state and to break its will to fight.”

Even weak Russian offensives, he says, need some defense by Ukraine, which in turn allows for better mapping of Ukrainian defensive positions, providing targets for artillery or glide bomb attacks.

Prognosis

Even in a best-case scenario, Europe’s stepped-up efforts to re-arm Ukraine, amid doubts over US military support, will likely take a few years to come to fruition. While Ukraine’s own defense industry has made great strides, it remains more economically dependent on its allies than Russia’s, analysts say.

Under pressure from Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky remains publicly committed to an end to the war, as long as any peace agreement is just and secure and does not allow Russia to resume fighting later.

For its part, the Kremlin says it wants peace too, but only if the “root causes” of the conflict are addressed, which in essence means Ukraine must fall back unequivocally into Moscow’s sphere of influence.

But Putin’s announcement last week of the largest conscription round in more than 10 years, and his stated ambition to build an army with 1.5 million active servicemen, along with an aerial onslaught that shows no signs of slowing, point more to a campaign of attrition than any intention to stop.

For fighters on the front lines, even high-ranking officers, peace talks mean little.

Victoria Butenko contributed reporting.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday the Panama Canal faces ongoing threats from China but that together the United States and Panama will keep it secure.

Hegseth’s remarks triggered a fiery response from the Chinese government, which said: “Who represents the real threat to the Canal? People will make their own judgement.”

Speaking at a ribbon cutting for a new US-financed dock at the Vasco Nuñez de Balboa Naval Base after a meeting with Panama President José Raúl Mulino, Hegseth said the US will not allow China or any other country to threaten the canal’s operation.

“To this end, the United States and Panama have done more in recent weeks to strengthen our defense and security cooperation than we have in decades,” he said.

Hegseth alluded to ports at either end of the canal that are controlled by a Hong Kong consortium, which is in the process of selling its controlling stake to another consortium including BlackRock Inc.

“China-based companies continue to control critical infrastructure in the canal area,” Hegseth said. “That gives China the potential to conduct surveillance activities across Panama. This makes Panama and the United States less secure, less prosperous and less sovereign. And as President Donald Trump has pointed out, that situation is not acceptable.”

Hegseth met with Mulino for two hours Tuesday morning before heading to the naval base that previously had been the US Rodman Naval Station.

On the way, Hegseth posted a photo on X of the two men laughing and said it was an honor speaking with Mulino. “You and your country’s hard work is making a difference. Increased security cooperation will make both our nations safer, stronger and more prosperous,” he wrote.

Late Tuesday, Mulino and Hegseth released a joint statement.

A vaguely worded portion of the statement suggested the two had discussed the tolls the United States pays for its ships crossing the canal. It said that within the canal’s framework, “the Republic of Panama and the United States of America will work, as established, on a mechanism to compensate for the payment of tolls and charges.”

Panama’s Foreign Relations Ministry did not immediately answer a request for clarification.

But the Spanish and English versions had at least one significant discrepancy. The Spanish version included that “Secretary Hegseth recognized the leadership and inalienable sovereignty of Panama over the Panama Canal and its adjacent areas.” That sentence appeared nowhere in the English version.

The visit comes amid tensions over Trump’s repeated assertions that the US is being overcharged to use the Panama Canal and that China has influence over its operations — allegations that Panama has denied.

Shortly after the meeting, the Chinese Embassy in Panama slammed the American government in a statement on X, saying the US has used “blackmail” to further its own interests and that who Panama carries out business with is a “sovereign decision of Panama … and something the US doesn’t have the right to interfere in.”

“The US has carried out a sensationalistic campaign about the ‘theoretical Chinese threat’ in an attempt to sabotage Chinese-Panamanian cooperation, which is all just rooted in the United State’s own geopolitical interests,” the embassy wrote.

After Hegseth and Mulino spoke by phone in February, the US State Department said that an agreement had been reached to not charge US warships to pass through the canal. Mulino publicly denied there was any such deal.

Trump has gone so far as to suggest the US never should have turned the canal over to Panama and that maybe that it should take the canal back.

The China concern was provoked by the Hong Kong consortium holding a 25-year lease on ports at either end of the canal. The Panamanian government announced that lease was being audited and late Monday concluded that there were irregularities.

The Hong Kong consortium, however, has already announced that CK Hutchison would be selling its controlling stake in the ports to a consortium including BlackRock Inc., effectively putting the ports under American control once the sale is complete.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Mulino during a visit in February that Trump believes China’s presence in the canal area may violate a treaty that led the US to turn the waterway over to Panama in 1999. That treaty calls for the permanent neutrality of the American-built canal.

Mulino has denied that China has any influence in the operations of the canal. In February, he expressed frustration at the persistence of the narrative. “We aren’t going to speak about what is not reality, but rather those issues that interest both countries,” he said.

The US built the canal in the early 1900s as it looked for ways to facilitate the transit of commercial and military vessels between its coasts. Washington relinquished control of the waterway to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999, under a treaty signed in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter.

“I want to be very clear, China did not build this canal,” Hegseth said Tuesday. “China does not operate this canal and China will not weaponize this canal. Together with Panama in the lead, we will keep the canal secure and available for all nations through the deterrent power of the strongest, most effective and most lethal fighting force in the world.”

In late November, a gaggle of open-water swimmers set out from Sydney’s Bondi Beach. About 500 meters (1,600 feet) from shore, they stopped and formed a line 150 meters (about 500 feet) long, treading water above the length of the beach’s shark net.

They hoped to demonstrate that the length of the net paled in comparison to that of the world-famous kilometer-long beach. And that if they could easily bypass the net, sharks can too.

Miller was out of town the day of the protest, but she’s among a growing group of swimmers, surfers, animal welfare advocates, and others vocally opposed to shark nets, which have been used at Sydney’s beaches every summer since 1937.

Opponents of the nets – which are installed at 51 beaches between Newcastle and Wollongong – argue they are ineffective, outdated, and harmful to the ocean ecosystem. They say nets provide swimmers with a false sense of security. Some academic studies back up claims that the nets are not effective at keeping people safe.

From September 2023 to April 2024, 255 marine creatures were entangled in shark nets in New South Wales (NSW). But only 15 of those animals were “target species” like great white, tiger and bull sharks. The rest were rays, turtles, dolphins, fish like longtail tuna, and sharks not considered dangerous.

This year, amid growing opposition to the nets, they were removed on March 31, a month earlier than normal, due to increased turtle activity in April.

And in recent months, in response to a survey sent out by the NSW government, asking local authorities to vote on the use of shark nets, none of the eight councils where shark nets are used elected to continue their use next season, according to Humane World for Animals.

Now, the state government is set to decide if shark nets have a future in NSW.

Politics over nets

Going to the beach is a popular pastime in Australia, where almost 90% of the population lives within 50 kilometers (30 miles) of the coast. The country’s shoreline is also home to several species of sharks, including tiger, bull, and great white sharks, that are most frequently involved in serious injuries to humans.

NSW has a comprehensive shark management program to try to keep beachgoers safe.

In addition to nets, authorities use technologies like SMART drumlines, which consist of a buoy and a baited hook. When an animal is caught, authorities are alerted. Non-target animals are released, and sharks of target species are tagged and released farther out to sea. Later, if a tagged shark swims close to shore, the public is alerted via an app and updates to an X account. Drone patrols are also a common sight over the state’s beaches.

“It’s not something that we considered flippantly, it’s not something that’s a response to special interests,” he added. “It is something that is based on science.”

Over the last 10 years there were, on average, 2.8 annual fatalities from shark incidents nationally, 20 cases a year where people were injured, and seven a year where the person was uninjured, according to the Taronga Conservation Society Australia, which works on the Australian Shark-Incident Database.

For comparison, in 2023, 125 people drowned in the ocean, according to Surf Life Saving Australia, and there were 1,266 fatalities on Australian roads over the same period, according to official data.

Since the meshing program began in 1937, there has only been one fatal shark incident at a netted beach, and that was back in 1951, says Green, of NSW DPIRD. He points to a 1997 study that says when they were first introduced, shark nets in NSW, Queensland and South Africa reduced the rate of shark incidents by about 90%.

He added that to date, there has not been a shark bite while drones have been monitoring a beach. (Officials have been trialing the use of drones to detect sharks at NSW beaches since 2017).

The tensions over the future of shark nets were on full display in late February at a local council meeting in Randwick, home to Coogee, another popular Sydney beach, just a few kilometers south of Bondi.

“They do not form a barrier, deter, deflect, or stop sharks from swimming at beaches,” Lauren Sandeman, a PhD researcher in human and shark interactions, told the council. “Their goal is to entangle and kill whatever swims into the net.”

For others, the risk of changing tack is too great. “If these shark nets were removed and some person is getting mauled by a shark and being killed, I couldn’t face that person’s partner or parent,” said councilor Noel D’Souza, before casting his vote to keep the nets in the water.

In the end, eight councilors voted to do away with shark nets, beating out the seven councilors who want them to stay.

Saving Norman

The population of grey nurse sharks on Australia’s East coast has dwindled to about 2,000 animals making them critically endangered. The sharks, which can grow over to over three meters (almost 10 feet) in length and have long, scraggly teeth visible even when their mouths are closed, are not considered a threat to divers and swimmers.

“They have this ferocious look about them, and yet they’re these cute, cuddly Labradors,” says Sarah Han-de-Beaux, a Sydney-based free- and scuba diver, who frequently spots the sharks on her outings.

Several years ago, Han-de-Beaux and others started “Saving Norman,” a campaign to advocate for the removal of the nets. (Many Sydney residents refer to grey nurse sharks as “Norman,” a name coined by a local drone photographer).

In recent months, she’s given up most of her weekends to campaign for the removal of the nets, manning booths at local beaches to educate the public.

“People think they stretch the whole beach,” she says, but all shark nets in NSW span 150 meters (about 500 feet) and are just six meters tall.

Han-de-Beaux says that it’s been a year of progress. This summer, the frequency of net inspections went up to every two days from every three days, to increase the possibility of releasing entangled animals alive. (The previous summer, only 36% of the 255 creatures caught in the nets were released alive).

Other measures to protect accidental catch, like installing lights on the nets to deter turtles, were trialed. And in recent weeks, local officials have been posting signs warning the public of the early removal of the nets.

Now, a decision is expected from the New South Wales government on if the nets will go back in next September. Pepin-Neff estimates that the decision might be clear when the next state budget is announced, generally around June.

The government will consider feedback from the surveys it sent out to coastal councils, and other data as it develops its shark management program for the 2025 to 2026 season, according to Green. “Our program is evidence-based after many years of trials and research,” he added.

In the meantime, swimmers like Miller plan to keep taking to the water, nets or not, accepting the risk of entering a shark’s natural habitat.

“Every time I get in the ocean, I assume that there are sharks in there. It’s where they live,” she says. “We’d have to be super unlucky for something to go terribly wrong.”

New images have emerged of one of China’s futuristic fighter jets, a three-engine, tailless flying wing aircraft that Western analysts have dubbed the J-36.

It’s unclear when the images, which are taken from a video, were shot, but they appeared on Chinese social media sites on Monday and show the aircraft flying over a highway near the runway of Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group, the factory in Sichuan province where the new jet is believed to have been made.

Images of the J-36 first appeared on Chinese social media late last year, quickly capturing the attention of aircraft enthusiasts and military analysts. More appeared online last month.

The jet is thought to be a sixth-generation aircraft, incorporating the latest stealth technology, avionics and powerplant and airframe engineering.

Military aviation expert David Cenciotti, a former Italian Air Force officer, said on his website, The Aviationist, that the six-second video gives a close look at the design of the J-36.

“The trijet engine arrangement, with two engine intakes under the wings and a dorsally-mounted intake behind the cockpit, is a departure from conventional twin-engine setups seen in many contemporary fighters. This configuration may offer advantages in terms of thrust and redundancy,” Cenciotti wrote.

He said space on the aircraft’s belly shows room for internal weapons bays that could enable it to carry long-range strike missiles.

The J-36 could see China pull even with, or possibly ahead of, the United States in the race to field a sixth-generation fighter.

The US military’s fifth-generation jets – the twin-engine F-22 and single-engine F-35 – are generally regarded as the world’s best at the moment, though China also has two fifth-generation models, the J-20 and J-35. Neither of those Chinese jets has proven combat experience and effectiveness like the two US fighters, however.

US President Donald Trump announced last month that a contract for the US Air Force’s sixth-generation fighter – dubbed the F-47 – had been awarded to Boeing. Trump said a prototype of the jet had been flying for five years.

But a US Air Force announcement of the Boeing contract for the F-47 did not give a timeline for when the jets would be deployable, saying only the contract awarded on March 21 covered “the engineering and manufacturing development phase” as well as funds for “a small number of test aircraft for evaluation.”

While China’s J-36 was dominating military aviation chatter this week, it’s not the only sixth-generation jet that Beijing seems to have in the works.

The same day that pictures emerged of the J-36 in December, photos were also posted of a new tailless, twin-engine jet, referred to by analysts as the J-XX and sometimes the J-50.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) hasn’t publicly acknowledged the existence of either the J-36 or J-50.

But the state-run tabloid Global Times last month ran a story quoting various Chinese military experts as saying the images of the two new aircraft “if authentic,” show China is making quick progress on sixth-generation fighter jets.

“From a development point of view, China appears to be determined to make explorations on next-generation aviation equipment,” Wang Ya’nan, chief editor of Aerospace Knowledge magazine, was quoted as saying.

It can take years for a fighter jet to go from concept to public introduction, let alone deployment.

China’s J-35 was first shown to the public at last November’s Airshow China in Zuhai, but it had been in development for 10 or more years, according to analysts.

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday said it has reached a preliminary agreement with Argentina on a $20 billion bailout, providing a welcome reprieve to President Javier Milei as he seeks to overturn the country’s old economic order.

As a staff-level agreement, the rescue package still requires final approval from the IMF’s executive board. The board will convene in the coming days, the IMF statement said.

The fund’s long-awaited announcement offered a lifeline to President Milei, who has cut inflation and stabilized Argentina’s troubled economy with a free-market austerity agenda. His policies have reversed the reckless borrowing of left-wing populist governments that had brought Argentina infamy for defaulting on its debts. The country has received more IMF bailouts than any other.

It came at a critical moment for South America’s second-biggest economy. Pressure had been mounting on Argentina’s rapidly depleting foreign exchange reserves as the government tightened rules on money-printing and burned through its scarce dollars to prop up the wobbly Argentine peso.

Fears grew that if the government failed to secure an IMF loan, hard-won austerity measures would veer off-track and leave Argentina, once again, unable to service its huge debts or pay its import bills.

The fresh cash gives Milei a serious shot at easing Argentina’s strict foreign exchange controls, which could help convince markets of his program’s sustainability. For the past six years, the capital restrictions have dissuaded investment, preventing companies from sending profits abroad and ensuring the central bank’s careful management of the peso, which is pegged to the dollar.

Racking up 22 IMF loans since 1958, Argentina owes the IMF more than $40 billion. Most IMF funds have been used to repay the IMF itself, giving the organization a fraught reputation among Argentines. Many blame the lender for the country’s historic economic implosion and debt default in 2001.

The IMF was wary of striking yet another deal with its largest debtor. But over the past 16 months, fund officials have praised Milei’s austerity — a diet harsher than even the fund’s typical prescription.

A former TV personality and self-proclaimed “anarcho-capitalist,” Milei came to power on a vow to shrink Argentina’s bloated bureaucracy, kill spiraling inflation, open the economy to international markets and woo foreign investors after years of isolation.

Unlike Argentine politicians in years past who sought to avoid enraging the masses with brutal austerity, Milei has taken his chainsaw to the state, firing tens of thousands of state employees, dissolving or downgrading a dozen ministries, gutting the education sector, cutting inflation adjustments for pensions, freezing public works projects, lifting price controls and slashing subsidies.

Critics note that the poor have paid the highest price for Argentina’s rosy macroeconomic indicators. Retirees have been protesting weekly against low pensions, with the decrease in payments accounting for the largest share of Milei’s budget cuts. Major labor unions announced a 36-hour general strike starting Wednesday in solidarity.

Still, Milei has maintained solid approval ratings, a surprise that analysts attribute to his success in driving down inflation, which dropped to 118% from 211% annually during his first year in office. Flipping budget deficits to surpluses has sent the local stock market booming and its country-risk rating, a pivotal barometer of investor confidence, tumbling.

“The agreement builds on the authorities’ impressive early progress in stabilizing the economy, underpinned by a strong fiscal anchor, that is delivering rapid disinflation,” the IMF said in announcing the agreement under a 48-month arrangement. “The program supports the next phase of Argentina’s homegrown stabilization and reform agenda.”

It remained unclear how much money Argentina would receive upfront — a key sticking point in the most recent negotiations over the deal’s details. Argentina is seeking a hefty payment upfront to replenish its reserves, even as IMF loans are usually disbursed over several years.

Milei shared the IMF statement on social media platform X, attaching a photo that showed him hugging Economy Minister Luis Caputo. “Vavos!” he wrote — apparently misspelling “Vamos!” or “Let’s go!” in his excitement.