Ukraine and Russia Agree to Extend Black Sea Grain Deal

A two-month extension of the agreement, which had been set to expire on Thursday, will permit Ukraine to continue exporting grain from its blockaded ports.

The Black Sea grain agreement was extended until July 18, Ukraine's infrastructure minister said.

Ukraine will not trade territory for peace, its foreign minister tells a Chinese envoy.

Britain and the Netherlands are the latest to call for F-16s for Ukraine.

‘That was very scary’: A nighttime Russian missile barrage jolts residents of Kyiv.

A Russian-controlled dam risks causing flooding in southern Ukraine.

Ukraine Diary: A rebuilding effort brings together Ukrainians from across generations.

The chief of Ukraine's Supreme Court has been detained and accused of taking a $2.7 million bribe.

Ukraine and Russia agreed on Wednesday to a two-month extension of a wartime agreement that allows Ukraine to ship its grain across the Black Sea, easing uncertainty over a deal seen as vital for preventing famine in other parts of the world.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey announced that the two sides had agreed to renew the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which was set to expire on Thursday, after talks in Istanbul brokered, like the agreement itself, by the United Nations and Turkey. Russian and Ukrainian officials also confirmed the extension.

The deal, which the parties agreed to last July, allows Ukraine, a major exporter of grain and other food crops, to transport cargo along a corridor past Russian naval vessels that have blocked Ukraine's ports, subject to inspection off Istanbul. The arrangement and subsequent extensions have been a rare example of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv in the wake of the launch of Russia's full-scale invasion 15 months ago.

However, several times over the past year, Russia has threatened to withdraw from the deal, arguing that provisions allowing its own agricultural products and fertilizers to be shipped to world markets were not being fulfilled. And Ukraine has complained in recent weeks that Russia has prevented required inspections of shipments and refused to approve the use of more vessels.

Ukraine's infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, confirmed the extension of the deal until July 18 in a Facebook post, but emphasized that more work needed to be done to address shipment delays that he blamed on Russian "sabotage."

"We hope that our partners will do their best to get the grain deal to fully work for the world's food security and that Russia will eventually stop using food as a weapon and blackmail," he wrote.

The spokeswoman for Russia's Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, suggested that the latest extension also did not address Russia's complaints. "The distortions in the implementation of the deal should be corrected as quickly as possible," she said during a news conference.

The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, said that discussions would be continuing on unresolved issues, which he did not specify. But he made a point of referring to exports from both Ukraine and Russia, saying that the hope was that their food and fertilizer exports reach global markets uninterrupted. "These agreements matter for global food security," he said. "Ukrainian and Russian products feed the world."

More than 30 million tons of corn, wheat and other produce have been shipped under the Black Sea initiative, according to data from the United Nations. But exports slowed in recent weeks as the expiration date approached, and international aid agencies said they feared a lapse in the deal would affect millions of people worldwide.

Since the full-scale invasion began and the Russian fleet took control of the Black Sea, Ukraine has explored ways to export more of its crops overland into Eastern and Central Europe. However, those routes can handle much smaller volumes — and have also provoked a backlash among farmers in some of those countries after the Ukrainian grain flooded their markets, driving down prices.

Ivan Nechepurenko and Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.

— Gulsin Harman and Matthew Mpoke Bigg

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine will make no territorial concessions in exchange for peace with Russia, Kyiv's foreign minister told a Chinese envoy who is on a European trip as part of Beijing's efforts to establish itself as a mediator in the 15-month war.

The foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, told the Chinese diplomat, Li Hui, on Wednesday that Kyiv "does not accept any proposals involving the loss of territory or the freezing of the conflict," according to a statement from the ministry. It added that Mr. Kuleba had suggested China support Ukraine's peace plan, which calls for Russia to withdraw from all Ukrainian territory.

The Ukrainian government, which is preparing for what is expected to be a major counteroffensive intended to push back Russian forces, has said it sees no immediate window for a diplomatic solution.

Ukraine has been skeptical of the Chinese efforts, viewing China as too closely aligned with Russia to effectively oversee talks to end the largest conflict in Europe since World War II.

Still, President Volodymyr Zelensky and China's leader, Xi Jinping, agreed in a telephone call last month to arrange the diplomatic visit to Kyiv. China's announcement of Mr. Li's trip last week said he would also visit Russia, as well as France, Germany and Poland.

The discussions in Kyiv highlighted some of the common interests shared by China and Ukraine in trade and investment that have been on hold during the war.

Mr. Kuleba and Mr. Li discussed the Black Sea grain deal, which was extended again on Wednesday, allowing Ukraine to continue exporting grain despite a Russian naval blockade.

China has been a major importer of Ukrainian agricultural products and was seen before Russia's invasion as a potential investor in Ukrainian agribusinesses.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry statement said Mr. Kuleba had also discussed nuclear safety, though it provided no details.

Early in the war, Russian forces seized the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power complex — Europe's largest — in southern Ukraine, and fighting has periodically flared nearby, posing risks of a meltdown or radiation release.

— Andrew E. Kramer

More European allies — including one of America's closest partners, Britain — are pushing to provide Ukraine with U.S.-made fighter jets but, for now at least, the United States still appears to be pumping the brakes.

A day after Britain and the Netherlands announced a new coalition that aims to help Ukraine procure F-16s from other allied nations, a senior European diplomat said on Wednesday that the Biden administration and its allies remain locked in a slow-moving and "difficult discussion" on whether the United States will allow the transfer of even those aging jets.

Washington must approve the transfers because the jets are manufactured in and exported from the United States. The Biden administration has declined to do so, citing concerns about costs, lengthy training time for pilots and the possibility that Russia would view the provision of the jets as an escalation.

For months, Ukrainian officials have asked for F-16s, saying the planes would help improve their air defenses and potentially protect against Russia's superior air forces. This week, their appeals received a boost from Britain, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announcing a new package of military aid that includes training Ukrainian pilots related to F-16s beginning this summer.

After the British announcement, a senior U.S. official said in an interview that the United States had not changed its opposition to supplying the F-16s to Ukraine. On Wednesday, Britain's defense minister, Ben Wallace, emphasized that Britain does not use F-16s in combat and that its "practical support to it is minimal," while underscoring that it was "up to the White House to decide whether it wants to release that technology."

Still, speaking alongside his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, at a news conference in Berlin, Mr. Wallace said that "what's really important here is to signal to Russia that we as nations have no philosophical or principle objection to supplying Ukraine capabilities that it needs, depending on what is going on the battlefield."

On Tuesday — the same day the Netherlands and Britain announced the new coalition — U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with his Dutch counterpart, Wopke Hoekstra, to discuss issues including Ukraine.

The Netherlands is among four European countries that are willing to send used F-16s to Ukraine, the others being Denmark, Belgium and Norway, a senior Ukrainian official familiar with the talks said on Wednesday. Those four states currently have at least 125 combat-ready F-16s in their arsenals, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think tank that assesses military stockpiles globally.

The senior Ukrainian official said Kyiv believes that, for now at least, it needs 24 to 36 of the jets.

The debate over supplying F-16 jets to Ukraine mirrors previous negotiations over other weaponry, including the advanced tanks that Kyiv's Western allies agreed to supply earlier this year. But even as it has steadily provided more powerful weapons to Ukraine, the Biden administration has for months declined to donate F-16s, largely citing the risk of escalation. Costs are another issue, Pentagon officials say, as the administration spends its current authorization of aid to Ukraine, without immediate plans to ask Congress for more.

But Britain's push to supply Ukraine with F-16s and train Ukrainian pilots was striking, analysts said, because it suggests that the Biden administration's opposition to Ukraine obtaining the jets may not be absolute.

"I would be surprised if the allies who are involved in this kind of notional coalition had got out this far without at least some kind of tacit nod and a wink from Washington that this was going to be OK," said Douglas Barrie, an I.I.S.S. military expert.

Steven Erlanger, Eric Schmitt and Christopher F. Schuetze contributed reporting

— Lara Jakes

Shattering booms. Flashes. Falling debris. Residents of the Ukrainian capital said on Wednesday that the latest Russian missile barrage jolted them out of sleep and any complacency about the reality of the conflict.

Alarms across the capital sounded at 2:25 a.m. on Tuesday and just 30 minutes later Russian missiles streaked above Kyiv. Ukrainian air defense teams raced to track the incoming salvo and fired surface-to-air missiles to intercept it.

Millions of people in Kyiv have become accustomed to sometimes hearing explosions in the sky. But they had little chance to prepare this time because of Russia's use, according to Ukrainian and American officials, of six Kinzhal missiles — among the most sophisticated in its arsenal — along with three land-based ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones. The explosions as the attacks were intercepted were also louder than many had heard before.

"When the alarm sounds, I’m not the guy who is panicking or running," said Sam Memedov, 32, an account manager who lives at the top of a five-story apartment building in the center of the city. "But that was very scary. My house was shaking."

The strikes reflect an apparent escalation, after weeks in March and April when there were no attacks on the capital and residents had learned to all but ignore air alarms.

This time, Mr. Memedov said, he thought about going to spend the night in one of Kyiv's deep metro stations. He decided against it, but the following night, as a precaution, he did.

Maria Tomak, a senior government official, said that on the night of the strikes she slept in the bathroom of her 18th-floor apartment. The missile threat, she said, has led her to view her living space in a new way.

A windowless bathroom, once a gloomy space, now offers protection. But, as she crouched on the floor, she realized the bathroom mirror, once an asset, could shatter.

Oleksandr Pedan, a TV and social media star, said that he and his partner had not been scared by the explosions, and they opted to stay at home rather than going to the metro, but they faced an additional concern — how to reassure their child.

"Our 6-year-old son woke up and asked ‘What's going on?’ We said: ‘It's OK. Sleep. Sleep.’ We understood that if we were nervous it would be worse," Mr. Pedan said.

On Tuesday, one video posted on Twitter showed a mother giving her daughter a whistle she could use to alert rescue workers if their building were to collapse and she should find herself trapped. The video shows the child asking what the whistle is for; the mother says, through tears, that she cannot explain for fear of alarming her daughter.

On Tuesday morning, rush-hour traffic was noticeably light, two residents said, adding that they were grateful to the country's military and to allies in NATO who had supplied air defenses.

A statement from Ukraine's Air Force did not specify whether a new Western-donated Patriot system had been involved in shooting down the Russian missiles. But President Volodymyr Zelensky called the downing of the Kinzhals "a historical act."

"We were told such missiles would bring a guaranteed death because they are supposedly impossible to shoot down," he said late Tuesday.

Two U.S. officials confirmed that a Patriot system had been damaged, though they said it was still operational against all threats.

Some residents said that what had happened reminded them that other parts of the country had been through similar disruptions regularly. Anna Ivanova, a freelance translator and photographer who normally lives in the western city of Lviv but was in Kyiv this week, said that she expected more such attacks as Ukraine prepared to launch a counteroffensive.

She described the attacks as "mind games" by Moscow. "You relax a little bit and then they do something," she said. "People around me don't look scared. People have adapted."

Yurii Shyvala and Marc Santora contributed reporting.

— Matthew Mpoke Bigg

Water levels at a reservoir that supplies southern Ukraine with drinking water have reached a 30-year high, increasing the possibility of flooding in the area and signaling a lack of regulation. The sudden increase in levels at the Kakhovka reservoir appears in altimetry data — which uses satellites to measure height — published on Friday by Theia, a French earth data provider.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service has not recorded water levels that high at the dam since at least 1992, when the service began publishing data. Russian forces control the dam and the nearby power plant, which are vital to managing water levels in the reservoir.

A New York Times analysis of satellite imagery over a period of several months also showed that the water level has risen significantly, and now covers sandbars that line the waterway. In recent days, the reservoir has reached more concerning levels, appearing to actually crest over the top of the dam.

The development is a dramatic turnabout, coming only a few months after water levels in the reservoir had reached a historic low. At the time, Ukrainian officials raised concerns about a lack of water for drinking, agriculture and the cooling of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant nearby. By the end of February, the water level was sitting at nearly two meters below its usual average.

Recent videos and satellite imagery from late last year show that at least three of the gates that control the flow of water through the dam were opened — apparently by Russian forces in control of the Kakhovka power plant. That, in turn, allowed water to rush through at an alarming rate over the winter, despite relatively little water entering the reservoir from upstream.

It is unclear exactly how the water level rose so significantly since then. But David Helms, a former U.S. Air Force and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist who researches the dam, said that Russian forces seem to have kept too few gates open to control the flow of winter snowmelt and spring rains. Likening the effect to a leaky bucket, Mr. Helms said that too much water has been entering the reservoir.

"What the river is doing is dumping a lot of water in," Mr. Helms said. "And it's far exceeding the discharge rate."

The dam, which lies along the front line, has been a point of tension throughout the war. In August, a Ukrainian artillery strike targeted a bridge along the dam, though the dam avoided sustaining any damage. Then, in November, Russian forces deliberately destroyed part of the road directly above the dam's gates, carrying out an explosion dangerously close to vital dam infrastructure.

— Riley Mellen and Haley Willis

This is one in an occasional series of dispatches about life amid the war in Ukraine.

LUKASHIVKA, Ukraine — The young, mostly urban youth came to clear rubble and rebuild the destroyed homes of villagers, many of them in their 70s and 80s. In turn, the elders hosted the volunteers in their temporary shelters, and cooked them meals as they worked.

Repair Together, a volunteer organization, has been helping civilians rebuild since areas in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions were retaken from Russian forces last year. The group says that 120 houses in over a dozen villages have been cleared of debris over the past year, and with the weather warming, the pace has picked up.

The effort has brought together Ukrainians from different generations who, under normal circumstances, would rarely interact with each other. They said they have grown closer in their shared experiences during the war.

In addition to its core work, the organization also hosts DJs, as well as holding cultural events with local residents of the villages where they work.

As the sun beat down on Saturday in Lukashivka, the aroma of savory pastries and soup filled the area, near where cinder blocks were stacked up, ready to become walls for Olga Varenyk's new home. She called over about a half-dozen volunteers to take a lunch break. Bowl after bowl of food came out of her temporary kitchen, and she busily ensured they all sat down and ate.

Tamara Kryvopala, 66, was watching over a pot of stew and washing dishes as she recalled how her daughter-in-law was so terrified by the shelling last year as they sheltered in the cellar that she was not able to breastfeed her 8-day-old son. Ms. Kryvopala said they had to sneak out to get cows’ milk, which they would mix with water, to keep the child alive. She said she was grateful that her new house was nearly completed, and for the company of the volunteers.

In Baklanova Muraviika, a village near Lukashivka, Zeena Mezin, 73, climbed up a rickety set of stairs into where she was living temporarily, and made a large bucketful of cherry compote — a sweet beverage made from cooked cherries, water, and sugar to give to the helpers clearing rubble from the lot where her house once stood.

Ms. Mezin had been sheltering in the basement with her husband last March when a shell hit their house, setting the roof on fire and destroying everything they had.

"I’m very thankful to all these children, it's very hard work," she said.

— Nicole Tung

The chair of Ukraine's Supreme Court was removed from his post after being arrested in a bribery investigation, two anti-corruption bodies said on Tuesday.

The agencies did not identify the chair by name, but said it was the Supreme Court chief. On Tuesday, Vsevolod Knyazev was dismissed as chief justice after an overwhelming majority of the court's judges voted to strip him of the position, according to local news reports.

The authorities accused the justice of accepting $2.7 million in bribes.

"This is a dark day in the history of the court," the court's judges said in a joint statement. "We must be worthy and withstand such a blow."

The judges added that they would fully cooperate with investigations, and that the court must "act on the principle of self-purification, taking all necessary measures."

Mr. Knyazev remains a Supreme Court judge; a separate body, the High Council of Justice, has the power to remove him, according to Ukrinform, a state news agency.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine posted photos on Facebook that included piles of American dollars stacked on a table and a sofa. The agency's chief, Semen Kryvonos, said a bribe was paid for ruling in favor of the Finance and Credit financial group, which is owned by a prominent businessman, according to Reuters.

The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office said on Telegram that it and the bureau had "caught the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and a lawyer red-handed while receiving an illegal benefit."

Corruption, and Ukraine's long struggle against it, had mostly receded in the public's attention after the Russian invasion last February, as Ukrainians rallied around the army and government at a time of national peril.

But this year, President Volodymyr Zelensky has retrained his focus on fighting corruption, aimed at maintaining Ukrainians’ trust in the wartime government after several officials were fired in January amid a major corruption scandal.

And as Ukraine seeks fast-track entry to the European Union, the country's inability to suppress graft and corruption has concerned its Western allies.

Anastasia Kuznietsova and Matt Surman contributed reporting.

— Daniel Victor

Ukraine's first lady, Olena Zelenska, met with President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea on Tuesday to request nonlethal military aid, using a visit to Seoul to stress the need for "something more radical" than just humanitarian support to end Russia's invasion of her country.

Ms. Zelenska thanked Mr. Yoon for the humanitarian and economic help that South Korea has already provided and asked for nonlethal military equipment, including tools for mine detection and removal, a spokesman for Mr. Yoon's office, Lee Do-woon, told reporters.

Ms. Zelenska said on Telegram that she and other Ukrainian officials, including the first deputy prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, also discussed Ukraine's need for stronger air-defense systems.

Mr. Yoon vowed that South Korea would coordinate with NATO and other nations to "actively support the Ukrainian people," his spokesman said, but did not offer specific details on what that would entail.

On Wednesday, South Korea agreed to provide $130 million in low-interest loans to Ukraine through the country's economic development fund, the Finance Ministry said.

While it was not the military assistance that Ms. Zelenska had asked for, the fund is meant to support economic and social infrastructure projects abroad. Choo Kyung-ho, South Korea's deputy prime minister, said that South Korea wished to help Ukraine rebuild after the war, signing the agreement during a meeting with Ms. Svyrydenko on Wednesday.

Previously, South Korea pledged $100 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine last year. In February, it said it would provide an additional $130 million in financial aid to be used to help remove mines, restore the power grid and support reconstruction projects.

Seoul has so far resisted calls to send its artillery shells to Ukrainian forces, who need more ammunition ahead of a long-awaited counteroffensive intended to retake Russian-occupied territory. Mr. Yoon indicated for the first time only last month that Seoul might be willing to consider sending military aid to Kyiv, telling Reuters that it would be difficult to insist exclusively on humanitarian or financial support in the event of a large-scale attack on civilians.

The South Korean president's shift on the matter was "a wise decision," Ms. Zelenska told the Yonhap News Agency in an interview published Tuesday.

"Indeed, when there is a criminal in the house, the owners clearly need not only humanitarian aid, food and medicine, but something more radical to drive the criminal out," she said, adding that peace was possible only through a Ukrainian victory, not through negotiations with a "murderer who has no regrets."

Ms. Zelenska has become a prominent emissary for her husband's administration since becoming a wartime first lady, championing mental health recovery and children's welfare while traveling aboard to advocate for support from Kyiv's allies. Earlier this month, she met with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain in London before attending the coronation of King Charles III.

— Anushka Patil

Rocket launchers, precision-guided missiles and billions of dollars’ worth of other advanced American weapons have given Ukraine a fighting chance against Russia ahead of a counteroffensive. But if even a few of the arms wind up on the black market instead of the battlefield, a Ukrainian lawmaker gloomily predicted, "We’re done."

The lawmaker, Oleksandra Ustinova, a former anti-corruption activist who now monitors foreign arms transfers to Ukraine, does not believe there is widespread smuggling among the priciest and most sophisticated weapons donated by the United States over the past year.

"We’ve literally had people die because stuff was left behind, and they came back to get it, and were killed," she said of Ukrainian troops’ efforts to make sure weapons were not stolen or lost.

But in Washington, against a looming government debt crisis and growing skepticism about financial support for Ukraine, an increasingly skeptical Congress is demanding tight accountability for "every weapon, every round of ammunition that we send to Ukraine," as Representative Rob Wittman, Republican of Virginia, said last month.

By law, U.S. officials must monitor the use, transfer and security of American weapons and defense systems that are sold or otherwise given to foreign partners to make sure they are being deployed as intended. In December, for security reasons, the Biden administration largely shifted responsibility to Kyiv for monitoring the American weapons shipments at the front, despite Ukraine's long history of corruption and arms smuggling.

Yet the sheer volume of arms delivered — including tens of thousands of shoulder-fired Javelin and Stinger missiles, portable launchers and rockets — creates a virtually insurmountable challenge to tracking each item, officials and experts caution.

All of which has heightened anxieties among Ukrainian officials responsible for ensuring weapons get to the battlefield.

Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed reporting.

— Lara Jakes

The journalist Masha Gessen has resigned from the board of the free expression group PEN America, after a panel at the organization's World Voices Festival featuring Russian writers was canceled in response to objections by Ukrainian writers.

The concerns were raised by Artem Chapeye and Artem Chekh, Ukrainian writers who are also active-duty soldiers in the Ukrainian army and who were set to appear on a panel about writers as combatants on May 13. After arriving in New York last week, the Ukrainians noticed that a separate panel — about writers in exile, to be moderated by Gessen — included two Russians.

The Ukrainians told organizers that they could not participate if that panel (which also included the Chinese novelist Murong Xuecun) went forward, citing prohibitions against Ukrainians appearing at events with Russians, according to Suzanne Nossel, the CEO of PEN America. After efforts to present the panel outside the festival failed, Nossel said, it was canceled.

Gessen, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, said in a text message that they remained committed to the work of PEN, but could no longer stay on the board, where they served as vice president.

"I very much believe in the mission of PEN, but I had to step down from leadership in order to not be implicated in what I think was a mistaken decision," Gessen said. Their resignation was first reported by The Atlantic.

Boycotts of Russian artists and culture have been a topic of debate across the cultural world since Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year. But Nossel, who has spoken out against such boycotts, said the question had yet to fully reach PEN until now.

At last spring's festival, she noted, Andrey Kurkov, a novelist and the president of PEN Ukraine, had given the annual Freedom to Write lecture, after which he had an onstage conversation with the Russian American novelist Gary Shteyngart. But there were no Russian writers in the festival, which was smaller than usual due to Covid concerns.

Ukrainian writers’ concerns about appearing with Russians had been raised earlier this year, Nossel said, when discussions about the festival began. But she said PEN did not realize until the Ukrainian delegation had arrived in New York that they would object to participating not just on a panel with Russians, but in a broader festival that included Russians in any of the nearly four dozen events.

Reached by email, Chapeye said he believed that "a Ukrainian soldier cannot be seen under the same ‘umbrella’ with Russian participants for political / public image reasons."

Asked about consequences for appearing, he said, "I think the only consequence would have been my guilt before all the people murdered and tortured by the Russian army."

Gessen, who immigrated from the former Soviet Union as a teenager in 1981 and holds both Russian and American citizenship, has been a prominent critical voice in Russia, where they returned in 1991 to work as a journalist. Their books include "The Man Without a Face," a 2012 biography of Vladimir Putin, and "The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia," which won the National Book Award in 2017. In 2013, Gessen moved back to the United States with their family, citing growing persecution of L.G.B.T.Q. people.

The two Russians on the canceled panel, Ilia Veniavkin and Anna Nemzer, left Russia shortly after the invasion of Ukraine. Both are collaborators on the Russian Independent Media Archive, a joint project by PEN America and Bard College, which preserves the past two decades of work by independent outlets, most of which have been shuttered or blocked by the Putin government. (Veniavkin and Nemzer could not immediately be reached for comment.)

In an interview, Nossel praised Gessen's "tremendous contributions" to PEN America, where they have been on the board for nine years. "It's a big loss," Nossel said. "But it felt like a no-win situation."

Gessen emphasized that they remained a member of PEN, and remained committed to the Russian Independent Media Archive, which they spearheaded. The decision to cancel the panel, Gessen said, "was a mistake, not a malicious act."

"My objection is not to the Ukrainian participants’ demand," Gessen said. "They are fighting a defensive war by all means available to them. My issue is solely with PEN's response."

— Jennifer Schuessler

Russian forces spent nearly a year carving a path of devastation and death in their bid to surround the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, and by March it seemed they were close to succeeding.

"The pincers are closing," said Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner mercenary group that spearheaded Russia's bloody drive.

He was wrong. The pincers never closed, and now Ukrainian forces have pried them farther open, taking back territory north and south of the ruined city in a few days that it took the Russians many weeks to capture.

Moscow's troops still hold most of Bakhmut itself, Ukraine's recent gains around the city are not large, and there is no guarantee that they will last. But for the first time in months, Ukrainian soldiers are on the offensive and the momentum in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war appears to have shifted their way — at least for now.

Continued Ukrainian advances would reverse the situation of a few months ago, putting the Russians inside Bakhmut at risk of being surrounded and trapped, and would demonstrate that the deep, fortified lines the Russians have built across Ukraine can be breached. Success around Bakhmut would also provide a major morale boost for Ukraine and a serious blow to Russia, denying it the only military achievement that for months had seemed within its grasp.

The possible reversal of fortunes comes as Ukraine is preparing to mount a broader counteroffensive, aiming for a dramatic breakthrough in a war that has settled into a grueling slugfest, with much blood spilled but little ground gained.

While the dynamics around Bakhmut are somewhat specific to that battle, Ukrainian commanders say they hope to build on the lessons learned there when they try to attack in other places along the 600-mile front line.

— Marc Santora