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      Zelensky Removes Gen. Yurii Sodol Amid Criticism of Excessive Casualties

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      The announcement by Ukraine’s president on Monday came hours after a scathing social media post implicitly accused the general of “killing more Ukrainian soldiers than any Russian general.”President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine removed one of his top generals from his post on Monday amid public criticism that the commander’s decisions had led to excessive casualties.The dismissal of the general, Yurii Sodol, as commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces, was a clear indication that the discord that had rankled the army since Mr. Zelensky replaced his commanding general, Valery Zaluzhny, with Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky in February, continued to threaten military cohesion.Mr. Zelensky announced that he was replacing General Sodol with Brig. Gen. Andrii Hnatov.General Sodol was appointed by General Syrsky as part of a broader shake-up in February, and Mr. Zelensky did not say why he had dismissed the commander or what position he would now hold.But the president’s announcement came after Bohdan Krotevych, chief of staff of the Azov brigade — a regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard — wrote a letter to the State Bureau of Investigation calling for an investigation into the general’s conduct.Then, just hours before the general’s dismissal. Mr. Krotevych posted an unusually blunt and scathing open letter on social media, implicitly accusing the general of, through his poor leadership, “killing more Ukrainian soldiers than any Russian general.”While Mr. Krotevych did not name General Sodol directly in the public letter, he suggested that all of Ukraine’s forces knew to whom he was referring. “Everyone in the military understands because 99 percent of the military hate him for what he does,” he wrote.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Record Number of NATO Allies Hit Military Spending Targets

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      President Biden and the NATO secretary general sought to present a robust and united front against Russia as the alliance prepares for its annual meeting next month.President Biden and the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, announced on Monday that a record number of allies were meeting their military spending commitments as the two leaders sought to present a robust and unwavering response to Russia’s war in Ukraine.Mr. Biden and Mr. Stoltenberg met ahead of the annual NATO summit next month in Washington, where member countries are expected to discuss additional measures to help secure long-term security, funding and eventual membership for Ukraine. Mr. Stoltenberg announced on Monday that NATO was prepared to take on a larger role in Ukraine’s security in the meantime.“I expect that when we meet next month, we will agree to have a NATO role in providing security assistance and training,” Mr. Stoltenberg said. “This will reduce the burden on the United States and strengthen our support to Ukraine.”That is possible in part because the number of allies meeting their informal commitments to spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on their militaries has soared. When NATO allies made the pledge in 2014, only three members — including the United States — met that mark, Mr. Stoltenberg said. About five years ago, roughly 10 did, he said, and this year more than 20 of the alliance’s 32 members will.Mr. Stoltenberg also said allies have increased military spending this year by 18 percent — the biggest jump in decades.The reassurances from the two leaders come as questions have arisen anew about the alliance and the commitment to Ukraine. Russia has recently made advances on the front lines after a temporary delay in military aid to Ukraine caused by congressional gridlock. And Mr. Biden’s main rival in the November election, former President Donald J. Trump, has expressed skepticism toward assistance for Ukraine and the value of NATO itself.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israeli Defense Chief Rebuffs French Effort to End Israel-Hezbollah Fighting

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      The United States, France and other mediators have sought for months to reach an agreement that would stop the tit-for-tat missile strikes over Israel’s border with Lebanon.Israel’s defense minister on Friday rejected a diplomatic effort by France aimed at ending months of cross-border strikes between Israel and Hezbollah that have been intensifying this week and raising fears of a full-blown war.The United States, France and other mediators have sought for months to find a way to stop the tit-for-tat strikes between Israel and Hezbollah, a powerful militia and political faction backed by Iran, which has been launching rockets and drones into northern Israel from southern Lebanon.More than 150,000 people on both sides of the border have been displaced by the fighting. And Israel has warned that it is prepared to take stronger action to dislodge Hezbollah militants from southern Lebanon.This week, both sides ramped up their attacks, raising fears of another front in the war as Israel presses ahead with its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.On Thursday, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said France and the United States had agreed in principle to establish a trilateral group with Israel to “make progress” on a French proposal to end the violence.But Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who has called for Israel to take a harsher tack against Hezbollah, rebuffed Mr. Macron’s overture on Friday. It was not clear if Mr. Gallant was speaking for the Israeli government.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Other War: How Israel Scours Gaza for Clues About the Hostages

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      The rescue of four Israelis in Gaza in a ferocious assault over the weekend offered a glimpse into an ambitious intelligence operation aimed at bringing home those held by Hamas.The hostages in Gaza are being moved around, with Hamas shuttling some from one apartment to another to obscure their whereabouts, while others are believed to be in tunnels underground.All the while, at a “fusion cell” quietly formed in Israel last fall, American and Israeli intelligence and military analysts share imagery from drones and satellites, along with communications intercepts and any other information that comes their way that might offer a hint to the hostages’ locations.More than one war is being waged in the Gaza Strip.For the most part, the world sees the airstrikes and the ground invasion, which Israel says are aimed at dismantling Hamas and have reduced much of the territory to rubble, setting off a humanitarian crisis. But the rescue on Saturday of four hostages was a reminder that Israel and Hamas are engaged in another, less visible battle:The militants are determined to hold on to the hostages they seized during their deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, for use as human bargaining chips. The Israelis are determined to bring them home.For more than eight months, the militants have had the upper hand.Israeli and American officials say they do not know where many hostages are being held. And even when they do, in many cases, a rescue mission is simply not possible.To date, Israel has rescued a total of seven hostages, but the stark reality is that since the war began, more hostages have died, either in the fighting or at the hands of Hamas. Israel has recovered far more bodies than living hostages.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Have Wine for Breakfast, Put On a 51-Pound Suit and Get to the Battlefield

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      One by one, Greek soldiers, bellies full from a breakfast of red wine and dry bread, armed and clad themselves in a bulky, buglike suit of armor as they prepared for battle.They aimed their spears at wooden targets, and their chariot was connected to a treadmill motor, but for 11 hours, these elite soldiers from the Hellenic Armed Forces pretended to fight as if it was the 15th century B.C.They had been recruited for a study to determine if the Dendra panoply, a suit of armor from 3,500 years ago considered to be one of the oldest known from the Bronze Age in Europe, could be worn in battle. Or if it was only ceremonial, as some scholars have previously argued.The soldiers wore a replica of the suit, and scientists tracked their blood-glucose levels, heart rates and other physiological measures, finding that the men’s bodies could handle the strain of the armor, according to a paper published in the journal PLOS One on May 22.Andreas Flouris, the lead author of the paper and the director of the FAME Lab at the University of Thessaly in Volos, Greece, where the battles took place, said that the simulated combat, as well as other research components, showed that the armor would have been “a very advanced piece of military technology” at the time.“If you’re carrying a piece of wood or a stone or maybe something with a bit of bronze in the front, like a spear, somebody wearing this armor looks like a giant robot in front of you,” said Dr. Flouris, a professor of physiology at the University of Thessaly.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Blinken Hints U.S. May Allow Ukraine Greater Latitude to Strike in Russia

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      The U.S. secretary of state suggested that Ukraine’s use of American-supplied arms could expand beyond the current limitation to strikes in the Kharkiv area.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken left open the possibility on Friday that President Biden could allow Ukraine to use U.S.-made weapons to strike at a broader array of targets inside Russia, going beyond attacks he has approved on launch sites the Russians are using for their current assault on the Kharkiv area.“Going forward, we’ll continue to do what we’ve been doing, which is: As necessary, adapt and adjust,” Mr. Blinken said at a news conference in Prague at the end of a two-day meeting of top diplomats from member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.Mr. Blinken was responding to a reporter’s question on whether the United States might give permission for Ukraine to use U.S.-made weapons to strike deeper into Russia. The phrase “adapt and adjust” is one that Mr. Blinken used in a news conference on Wednesday in Chisinau, Moldova, to suggest that Mr. Biden was about to make a major policy shift and grant Ukraine permission to use the weapons to strike in Russia, as Ukrainian and European leaders had been urging for weeks.American officials then said on Thursday that Mr. Biden had made that decision in recent days and told the Ukrainians, but that the permission to strike in Russia was limited to sites the Russians were using for the assault on Kharkiv. U.S. officials said the ban on Ukraine using weapons for “long range” attacks in Russia had not changed.But Mr. Blinken’s remarks on Friday suggested the ban could change, depending on shifts in battlefield conditions and the direction of the war. He did say, though, that the United States was “proceeding deliberately as well as effectively.” That included ensuring Ukrainian soldiers had the necessary training to use new weapons systems and the capacity to maintain them, he said.American officials say the policy shift means Ukrainian attacks with U.S. weapons in Russia can be pre-emptive, but can only take place within Russian areas near Kharkiv that the Pentagon has designated and that U.S. military officials have communicated to their Ukrainian counterparts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Monday Briefing: Ukraine Fears a Russian Push Near Kharkiv

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      Also, Hamas fires missiles at central IsraelA hardware superstore was hit in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Saturday. Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesZelensky warned of a new Russian offensiveA day after at least 16 people were killed in what officials said was a Russian missile strike on a hardware superstore in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that Moscow’s forces were massing for a new ground offensive in the northeast.Zelensky said that Russia was “preparing for offensive actions” and gathering troops near the border. Kharkiv has seen a sharp escalation in the ferocity of aerial attacks this month, forcing many to flee. On Saturday, a second strike, which came just hours after the attack on the superstore, hit commercial infrastructure, wounding at least 25 people.Far from the front lines, U.S. and allied intelligence officials are tracking an increase in low-level sabotage operations in Europe that they say are part of a Russian campaign to undermine support for Ukraine.The covert operations have mostly been arsons or attempted arsons targeting a wide range of sites, including a warehouse in England, a paint factory in Poland, homes in Latvia and an Ikea store in Lithuania. People accused of being Russian operatives have also been arrested on charges of plotting attacks on U.S. military bases.Analysis: Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, this month changed defense ministers for the first time in more than a decade, and he recently allowed corruption arrests among top officials. It is most likely a sign that he has greater confidence about his battlefield prospects in Ukraine.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russia Bombs Hardware Superstore in Kharkiv, Killing 6, Ukraine Says

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      It was the latest attack in a sustained bombing campaign that has made life increasingly dangerous for civilians in the northeastern Ukrainian city.Russia bombed a hardware superstore in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Saturday afternoon, killing at least six people and injuring at least 40 others, Ukrainian officials said. The attack was the latest in a sustained bombing campaign against the city that has made life increasingly difficult and dangerous for civilians.Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the Kharkiv regional military administration, said that 16 people were still missing, suggesting that the death toll could rise. He added that another airstrike on Saturday, in the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, injured at least 14 people.“For the entire day, Kharkiv has been under Russian terrorist strikes. The air raid in the Kharkiv region has been ongoing for more than 12 hours,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media.Saturday’s attack, Mr. Zelensky added, underscored Ukraine’s recent calls on Western allies to provide it with air defense systems and other weapons capable of shooting down Russian missiles and the planes that launch the bombs. “If Ukraine had sufficient air defenses systems and modern combat aircraft, Russian strikes like this one would have been impossible,” he said.Videos and photos posted online by Ukrainian officials showed large plumes of black smoke billowing from the superstore, as firefighters scrambled to extinguish a blaze that the authorities said extended over 10,000 square meters.Kharkiv, currently home to 1.3 million people and located just 25 miles from the Russian border, has been increasingly targeted by Russian airstrikes in recent months, in what Ukrainian officials and military experts say is a tactic intended to intimidate residents and create panic.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More