Russian troops pounded the vital port of Odesa, Ukrainian officials said Tuesday, an apparent effort to disrupt the supply lines and Western weapons shipments critical to Kyiv’s defense.

Ukraine’s ability to stymie a larger, better-armed Russian military has surprised many who had anticipated a much quicker conflict. With the war now in its 11th week and Kyiv bogging Russian forces down and even staging a counteroffensive, Ukraine’s foreign minister appeared to suggest the country could expand its aims beyond merely pushing Russia back to areas it or its allies held on the day of the Feb. 24 invasion.

One of the most dramatic examples of Ukraine’s ability to deny Moscow easy victories has been Mariupol, where Ukrainian fighters remained holed up at a steel plant, denying Russia’s full control of the city. The regiment defending the plant said Tuesday that Russian warplanes continued pounding it.

It’s a refrain that former Sen. David Perdue has made a centerpiece of his campaign for governor in Georgia.

“The election in 2020 was rigged and stolen,” Perdue asserted at a recent debate.
Perdue’s former Senate GOP colleagues, however, are less than impressed.

“It’s absurd,” said Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, when asked about the remarks of Perdue, his former colleague. “I think the effort to try and overturn an election when there is, at this stage, no evidence of widespread fraud is detrimental to democracy and insulting to the American public.”

“Hell yes,” one of Perdue’s closest Senate friends told CNN when asked if he was surprised by his ex-colleague’s campaign transformation.

“I don’t know whether he believes it or not. I really don’t,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican. “But I’m sure it’s a political strategy.”

The son of the disgraced late Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos vowed on Tuesday to work for all people after his stunning election victory, and told the world to judge him by his presidency, not his family’s past.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr, better known as “Bongbong”, become the first candidate in recent history to win an outright majority in a Philippines presidential election, paving the way for a once unimaginable return to rule for the country’s most notorious political dynasty.

“Judge me not by my ancestors, but by my actions,” Marcos told the world, according to a statement by his spokesperson Vic Rodriguez.

Marcos fled into exile in Hawaii with his family during a 1986 “people power” uprising that ended his father’s autocratic 20-year rule, and has served in congress and the senate since his return to the Philippines in 1991.