Zelenskiy says Russian war won’t become WWIII

Bloomberg

Ukraine will stop Russian aggression and the conflict won’t turn into World War III, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said as his forces battled to keep control of Soledar and Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region.
The Ukrainian president discussed the Ukrainian–Belarusian border and the Rivne nuclear power plant, according to a statement on his website. “We don’t see anything powerful there but we have to be ready both at the border and in the regions near Belarus,” Zelenskiy said.
The Kremlin had positioned the most experienced units from the Wagner military-contracting company near Soledar, according to Ukrainian operational command spokesman Serhiy Cherevatyi.
Founder of Russian military-contracting company Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed in a video published early Wednesday that his forces had taken Soledar in Donetsk region and surrounded a group of Ukrainian troops there.
The claims are “not true,” Suspilne News cited Ukraine military spokesman Serhiy Cherevatyi as saying.
The Pentagon said 90 to 100 Ukrainian soldiers will arrive at a US Army base in Oklahoma for training starting next week on operating and maintaining the Patriot air defense system that Washington is providing.
The US is working with the European Union and Ukraine to prevent the weapons pouring into Ukraine from being diverted into the international arms market, a State Department official told reporters.
While the US focuses its efforts on protecting portable and high-tech weapons, the EU is concentrating on small arms and light weapons, said the official, who briefed on condition of anonymity.
The official dismissed reports of large-scale diversions of western military equipment as Russian disinformation and said the US isn’t aware of any credible reports of weapons shipments going astray.
Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, and Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of Nato, said the EU and the military alliance were starting Wednesday a joint task force to protect critical infrastructure.
Experts from both organizations “will work hand-in-hand to identify key threats to our critical infrastructure” and focus initially on the transport, energy, digital and space sectors, von der Leyen told reporters. “We want to look together at how to make our critical infrastructure technology and supply chains more resilient to potential threats,” Stoltenberg said. Russian troops are still fighting to retake Soledar in the Donetsk region, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said after a Kremlin-backed mercenary group said its forces had conquered the town.