U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is in Brussels on Thursday to host a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a gathering of leaders from dozens of countries assisting Kyiv’s war efforts.
In the lead-up to the talks, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office spoke with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s national security adviser about the Ukrainian army’s need for “equipment, weapons and ammunition.”
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
Zaporizhzhia steel plant refuses to bend to Russian attacks: Workers at a steel plant near the front lines of a counteroffensive in southeastern Ukraine aren’t cowed by the air raid sirens that regularly sound as they’re working with the molten metal at temperatures up to 1,100 degrees Celsius, reports Adam Taylor.
“People just adapted,” said 29-year-old Oleksii Klashnik. He and other steelworkers wore protective vests along with their heatproof outfits. The plant has never been hit, Klashnik added, but “you can definitely hear the explosions in the city.”
