Ukraine Update…485 days into the Russian move on Ukraine…Slow Ukraine Offensive….

Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.

• Ukraine’s military said the Russian missiles were targeting an airfield in the Khmelnitskyi region before air defense systems intercepted them Friday. It said 13 Russian cruise missiles were destroyed, most of them in Khmelnitskyi.
• A Crimea official said the bridge known as the “Gate to Crimea” would be quickly restored to normal operations, after Russian officials accused Ukraine of a missile attack there Thursday, according to Russian news agencies. No casualties were reported, and Russian media shared images of a crater on the Chonhar bridge, which links Russian-held territory in Ukraine’s Kherson region to the annexed Crimean Peninsula. Kyiv has not confirmed any involvement in the attack, although a Ukrainian regional official in Kherson, Yuriy Sobolevsky, described the incident as a blow to Russian military logistics.
• Australian officials said reports of a Russian diplomat squatting on the site of Moscow’s proposed embassy would not stand in the way of the government’s bid to seize the site. A suspected Russian man appears to be squatting on the land after Australia scrapped Russia’s plan to build its new embassy there, citing security grounds due to its proximity to Parliament, Australian media reported. But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australian officials remain confident of their legal position: “A bloke standing in the cold on a blade of grass in Canberra is not a threat to our national security,” he was quoted as saying.

• A Ukrainian presidential adviser said the counteroffensive was not “a new season of a Netflix show.” Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted that Ukrainian forces were conducting offensive operations “in a number of areas” and that breaking the Russian front, including minefields and a deeply dug defense line, “requires a reasonable and balanced approach.” He made the comments Friday after media reports suggesting some Western officials saw the progress on the battlefield as slower than expected.
• “We all have to be patient and see the results,” Ukraine’s prime minister said earlier of the counteroffensive, which Kyiv launched in recent weeks. “It will take time, but we intend to move forward,” Shmyhal told reporters earlier at a war recovery conference in London on Thursday. He said he was optimistic despite the challenges.

• A court in Moscow has rejected U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich’s appeal against his continued detention,upholding an earlier decision to keep him in custody until August. Washington deemed the 31-year-old “wrongfully detained” after he was arrested during a reporting trip in Russia. He has been held for nearly three months on spying charges that his employer, the Wall Street Journal, and colleagues describe as bogus.
• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged NATO to prioritize Ukraine’s combat power. He said Thursday that Ukraine’s allies are working on “effective and long-term security guarantees,” after a Ukrainian official said Kyiv expects an invitation to NATO with “an open date” at a summit of the military alliance’s leaders next month.

Delivering mail in war-ravaged Ukraine: ‘There are still people living here’: A trio of Ukrainian postal workers, clad in bulletproof vests, make the perilous journey three times a month to Hulyaipole, a small city near the front line, Francesca Ebel and Kamila Hrabchuk report.

The mail carrier, driver and security guard “often make deliveries under fire, zigzagging along bumpy lanes in a small white-and-yellow van,” they report from Hulyaipole, which has lost most of its population…..

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image…A postal van on its mail route in Hulyaipole, Ukraine, on Wednesday. (Sasha Maslov for The Washington Post)