Russia is expanding its military presence on the eastern border of Ukraine, according to the United Kingdom’s Defense Ministry, as Moscow targets the Donbas region.

“Russia’s military presence on Ukraine’s eastern border continues to build, while fighting in the Donbas is intensifying as Russian forces seek to break through Ukrainian Defenses,” the U.K. Defense Ministry wrote in an intelligence update on Twitter.

The British military intelligence said Russian air activity in northern Ukraine will likely remain at low levels since Moscow shifted its focus away from taking control of Kyiv. Russia tried to seize Kyiv earlier in its invasion but its forces were ultimately met with heavy opposition from Ukrainians, prompting Moscow to shift its focus to the east.

A little-known federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump found herself in the national spotlight on Monday after striking down the Biden administration’s public transportation mask mandate.

US District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle has been serving as a federal judge in Florida for more than a year. Notably, the Senate vote confirming her to the lifetime appointment came in mid-November 2020, after the presidential election. She had been given a “not qualified” rating by the American Bar Association, based on her limited amount of experience post-law school.

Born in Lakeland, Florida, in 1987, Mizelle graduated in 2012 with a law degree from University of Florida Levin College of Law, after earning her undergraduate degree at Covenant College, a Christian liberal arts college in Georgia.

Before becoming a judge, she was an associate with the law firm Jones Day in Washington, DC, and an adjunct law professor at her alma mater. Mizelle held four federal clerkships throughout her career, including one with US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas from 2018 to 2019.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday told a 12-year-old girl that Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine was sparked by the “tragedy” in the Donbas, a region in Ukraine’s east.

The episode gives a glimpse of how the Russian leader is selling the war to the Russian public amid heavy sanctions on Moscow, widespread criticism that Moscow has committed war crimes in Ukraine and a series of military disappointments — most notably the sinking of the Moskva by Ukrainian missiles.

Russia has also taken a number of steps to crack down on independent media within its borders as it seeks to craft a false narrative that it invaded Ukraine to put down “Nazis.

The episode with the 12-year-old girl and Putin came during a meeting of the Supervisory Board of the Russia – Country of Opportunities platform. It is unclear whether it was staged. The incident was reported by the Russian state news agency Tass.

Russia’s new offensive in the Donbas region could prove to be extremely significant and decisive in the war, analysts warn, and could determine how the country’s territorial boundaries look in weeks and years to come.

“The Russian war machine in the east could prove to be a very painful threat for Ukraine quickly,” Maximilian Hess, fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told CNBC Tuesday.

“It’s quite clear that Russia’s war aims remain quite extensive,” Hess added, saying that how the battle for Donbas proceeds “will determine how much of Ukraine east of the Dnipro (a river that bisects Ukraine) that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin carves away.”

“I think it’s pretty clear annexation is Putin’s long term goal, how much annexation is the question,” Hess added.

I absolutely hate wearing a mask on long flights. I’m also appalled that masks are no longer required for air travel and on other forms of public transit.

On Monday, a federal judge in Florida ruled that the Biden administration’s public transportation mask mandate was unenforceable. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle held, overstepped its authority in issuing the directive requiring masks on airplanes and other forms of mass transit.

This decision is particularly disastrous for older adults, the ill and the immunocompromised, who still face a much higher chance of being hospitalized or even dying if they contract Covid-19 (so do the voluntarily unvaccinated, but they’ve made the decision to assume that risk for themselves). For most people, going to work or the grocery store is not optional, and many people need to take public transport to get there. Forcing those who have done everything right except had the bad luck to be sick or old to assume the risk of contracting a potentially fatal illness, just so that people who find masks uncomfortable – myself among them – don’t have to take basic precautions, is an appalling level of disregard for the lives and well-being of our fellow human beings.