Your Monday Briefing

March 28, 2022

By Amelia Nierenberg

Writer, Briefings

Good morning. We're covering Russia's recalibration of its Ukrainian strategy, a landmark summit in Israel and economic turmoil in Sri Lanka.

Ukrainian soldiers with anti-tank weapons north of Kyiv on Thursday.Gleb Garanich/Reuters

Russia struggles to take Kyiv

As the war turns unpredictable, Russia may change tactics: Instead of capturing all of Ukraine, Moscow may try to split the country by consolidating territory in the east and south.

On Friday, as its advance stalled, Russia signaled a possible recalibration of its aims. Its military said that the "first stage" of its operation was mostly done and that it would focus on securing Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, where Russia-backed separatists have battled for years.

On Sunday, Ukraine said that Russian troops were withdrawing through Chernobyl to regroup in Belarus, though the forces continued to shell towns around Kyiv and encircled the city of Chernihiv, stranding thousands of civilians. Here are live updates.

Ukrainian forces mounted a counteroffensive in the Kyiv suburbs to block Russia's route to the capital. Ukraine has also prevented the Russian military from encircling Kharkiv, and it claimed on Sunday that its soldiers had won back two villages on the outskirts.

Images: Check out the portrait series "Citizens of Kyiv" and how it came together.

History: Read how President Vladimir Putin evolved from statesman to tyrant and a timeline of the tensions between Ukraine and Russia.

Diplomacy: President Biden declared that Putin "cannot remain in power." American officials scrambled to clarify the remark, which drew a mixed reaction in Europe.

Other updates:

Two rockets hit Lviv, suggesting that the western Ukrainian city may no longer be a haven from the worst of the fighting.
Here's a look at the harrowing journey out of Mariupol to safety.
With Russia distracted, Azerbaijan launched drone strikes against the army of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed region where it recently fought with Armenia.

Naftali Bennett visited Bahrain last month, a first for an Israeli prime minister.Ilan Ben Zion/Associated Press

Israel hosts a landmark summit

Top diplomats from Israel, Egypt, the U.A.E., Bahrain, Morocco and the U.S. met in the Negev desert on Sunday. The summit — the first with so many Arab, American and Israeli officials on Israeli soil — signifies a realignment of Middle Eastern powers.

Unimaginable half a decade ago, the high-level meeting reflects the new political reality created when Israel sealed landmark diplomatic agreements with the U.A.E., Bahrain and Morocco in 2020.

Polls suggest that many Arabs do not support normalizing ties with Israel. But the fate of Palestinians now seem of less immediate importance to key Arab governments than the threat of Iran.

Diplomacy: Washington helped Israel broker the normalization. Now, Israel is becoming a more public bridge between Arab governments and their longtime benefactor, the U.S.

Analysis: The countries are working to navigate the global realities of the Ukraine war. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will urge the five governments to increase their support of Ukraine. Israel and Morocco have avoided condemning Russia, and the U.A.E. has dodged American demands to increase its oil production in order to help American allies find alternatives to Russian gas.

A protest against economic conditions in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital, this month.Atul Loke for The New York Times

Economic crisis in Sri Lanka

Food and fuel are suddenly either unavailable or exorbitantly priced in Sri Lanka. The country's enormous debt load, the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Europe have kneecapped the economy.

Protests are now rising against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a hawkish leader with a reputation for brutality, and opposition leaders are eyeing an opportunity.

But Rajapaksa is fighting back. After people staged candlelight vigils to protest rampant blackouts, his government deployed troops to gas stations to quell unrest.

Background: This growing season, because of a poorly executed plan to reduce imports by going organic, Sri Lankan farmers were short of fertilizer. That resulted in a lack of rice, the country's staple food. Inflation soared to a record high of 17.5 percent in February.

Analysis: After a civil war that ended in 2009, Sri Lanka became an upper-middle-income nation with an economy built on tourism. Now, the country is increasingly dependent on foreign assistance, battering its sense of itself as a rising economic star.

Quotable: "The question on everyone's mind is: When is this going to absolutely crash?" one policy expert said. "Sri Lanka's economy is experiencing multiple organ failure, and sepsis has set in," another predicted.

Continue reading the main story

THE LATEST NEWS

Asia and the Pacific

A satellite image taken over East Antarctica on March 17 shows the largest fragment of the collapsed Conger ice shelf, an iceberg named C-38.U.S. National Ice Center, via Agence France-Presse —Getty Images

In a recorded first, an ice shelf collapsed in eastern Antarctica, a possible warning of more climate interruptions to come.
The Chinese authorities confirmed that no one survived the crash of a China Eastern flight with 132 people on board. Both flight recorders have now been found.
A leaked document has revealed that China and the Solomon Islands have drafted a secret security pact that could help China block strategic shipping lanes.
Yoon Suk-yeol, the South Korean president-elect, plans to relocate the presidential office and the Defense Ministry. The move could add security concerns as North Korea escalates missile tests.
Shanghai introduced a staggered lockdown in an effort to test the entire city for Covid-19.

U.S. News

The Biden administration plans to offer Americans ages 50 and older a second Covid booster.

Experts said that Justice Clarence Thomas had sufficient reason to recuse himself from cases related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Texts show how deeply his wife was embedded in the right wing's conspiratorial fringe.
"I just no longer felt comfortable with the programming at Fox," the veteran anchor Chris Wallace told The Times about his upcoming move to CNN.

What Else Is Happening

Prince William and Catherine touched the fingers of children stretched through a chain-link fence in Jamaica.Pool photo by Chris Jackson

As the Caribbean moves away from its colonial past, Prince William and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, had a turbulent tour, marred by miscues and awkward images.
Houthi rebels in Yemen attacked an oil storage facility in Saudi Arabia on Friday, igniting a huge fire that overshadowed a Formula One car race aimed at international spectators.
The British Museum will remove the Sackler name from its walls over the family's role in the opioid crisis.

A Morning Read

Samuel Aranda for The New York Times

Carlos San Juan de Laorden, a 78-year-old retired Spanish doctor, has Parkinson's disease, which makes it difficult for him to withdraw money from an A.T.M. He's now leading a campaign against banks closing branches and moving services online, one that resonates with a rapidly aging Spanish population.

Subscribe Today

We hope you've enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times with this special offer.

ARTS AND IDEAS

A preview of spring books

The arrival of spring means many new books to dig into. The Times Book Review put together a preview of exciting titles to look out for.

In the world of fiction, there are sprawling family sagas and tales of time travel.

Mieko Kawakami, a feminist voice in Japan, has a new book, "All the Lovers in the Night," coming out in translation. "Four Treasures of the Sky," a debut by Jenny Tinghui Zhang, follows a Chinese girl in the 1880s who reinvents herself to survive a string of tragedies. And in "The Fervor," Alma Katsu charts the eerie story of a mysterious disease spreading through a Japanese American internment camp during World War II.

For fans of nonfiction, the spring slate includes a memoir by Viola Davis and a biography of George Floyd by two Washington Post journalists.

There are also historical accounts, like "Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire," "Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong" and "River of the Gods," which delves into a yearslong journey in the 19th century to trace the Nile River to its source.