Russia’s buildup of troops at Ukraine’s borders has persisted, despite Moscow’s claims of a drawdown, but the number of Russian forces remains insufficient for an invasion, according to a Ukrainian intelligence report shared exclusively with CNN.
The total number of Russian troops at the border has increased in recent days to more than 148,000, including more than 126,000 ground troops, the report says, echoing US intelligence about the build-up. A Ukrainian presidential spokesperson affirmed the reporting in comments to CNN ahead of an address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was sending some of its troops at the border back to base after completing exercises. On Wednesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg rejected Putin’s claim and said the military buildup was continuing, describing it as “the most serious crisis in decades.”

he White House dispatched two officials to Saudi Arabia this week to press the kingdom to pump more oil as fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine cause energy prices to rise, a potentiality President Joe Biden warned about in a speech on Tuesday could get worse if Russia attacks.
National Security Council Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk and the State Department’s energy envoy, Amos Hochstein, were in Riyadh on Wednesday, a senior US official confirmed to CNN, attempting to shore up the relationship more broadly but also to discuss with Saudi officials how to stabilize markets amid soaring gas prices and fears of a Russian invasion.
The Saudis have been resistant to any changes in production because of their commitments to OPEC+, a consortium of oil-producing countries that includes Russia, the official said. The officials’ trip to Saudi Arabia follows a phone call between Biden and Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud last week, in which they discussed “ensuring the stability of global energy supplies,” according to a White House readout of the call.

David Perdue kicked off his campaign for governor of Georgia with an emphatic endorsement from former President Donald Trump.
But since then, his primary challenge to unseat Brian Kemp — the Republican governor Trump loves to hate — has been a big flop.
Perdue, a former US senator, has so far raised a fraction of what Kemp has in his campaign war chest. Very few Republican elected officials, operatives, donors and activists in Georgia have abandoned Kemp in favor of Perdue. And limited public polling hasn’t been promising, either.
“I think Perdue is on life support and knows it,” said one neutral GOP operative who requested anonymity to speak freely. “The Kemp momentum is palpable.”
The Perdue campaign is drawing attention from around the country, in part as a test case on the GOP’s tolerance for Trump’s vendettas. The former President remains exceedingly popular within the party, but his relentless focus on the 2020 election may have put him a beat behind Republicans who have moved on to other issues such as school mask mandates and the economy.

WASHINGTON — As President Joe Biden makes a final diplomatic push to stave off a Russian invasion of Ukraine, he is faced with looming political consequences at home that could have long-lasting effects on the Democratic Party’s ability to maintain its power in Washington.

A Russian invasion of Ukraine, which White House officials have said could occur as early as this week, would be likely to drive up gas prices amid the highest inflation in decades, wipe out significant gains in the stock market and give Republicans a new line of attack to argue against Biden’s foreign policy acumen — putting an already unpopular presidency on even shakier ground with voters heading into the fall midterm elections, Democratic strategists and pollsters said.

The White House “needs to prepare the American people for what might happen in Ukraine if Putin invades and how that war impacts American national interests,” said Michael McFaul, who was the U.S. ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We can pretend that wars far away don’t affect us, but history, especially World War I and World War II, shows they tend to eventually influence our security.”

Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva listed two legal substances used to improve heart function on an anti-doping control form she filled out before her drug case at the Olympics erupted, according to documents submitted in her case.

The World Anti-Doping Agency filed a brief in the Valieva case stating that the existence of L-carnitine and Hypoxen, though both legal, undercuts the argument that a banned substance, trimetazidine, might have entered the skater’s system accidentally.

Hypoxen, a drug designed to increase oxygen flow to the heart, was a substance the US Anti-Doping Agency recently tried, without success, to get placed on the banned list. L-carnitine, another oxygen-boosting performance enhancer, is banned if injected above certain thresholds. The supplement was the focal point of the doping case involving track coach Alberto Salazar.