The latest news report from the ongoing Russia invasion of Ukraine, is that a third party in the name of Belarus, may be looking to join forces with Putin in the invasion.
According to the report by AP, a senior U.S. intelligence official who revealed this said that Belarus is expected to send troops into Ukraine as soon as Monday to fight alongside Russian forces that invaded Ukraine last week.
Belarus has been providing support for Russia’s war effort, but so far has not taken a direct part in the conflict.
The American official has direct knowledge of current U.S. intelligence assessments and says the decision by Belarus’ leader on whether to bring Belarus further into the war depends on talks between Russia and Ukraine happening in the coming days. The official spoke anonymously to discuss the sensitive information.
Russian forces have encountered strong resistance from Ukraine defenders, and U.S. officials say they believe the invasion has been more difficult, and slower, than the Kremlin envisioned, though that could change as Moscow adapts.
Russia has apparently rendered Facebook largely unusable across leading Russian telecommunications providers amid rising friction between Moscow and the social media platform.
The London-based internet monitor NetBlocks reports that Facebook’s network of content-distribution servers in Russia was so badly restricted Sunday that “content no longer loads, or loads extremely slowly making the platforms unusable.”
Russian telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor on Friday announced plans to “partially restrict” access to Facebook. That same day, Facebook’s head of security policy had said the company was barring Russian state media from running ads or otherwise profiting on its platform anywhere in the world.
Facebook says it has also refused a request by the Kremlin not to run fact checks related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the platform for users inside Russia.
Also, authorities in Ukraine as being reported by AFP, are saying that “The Russian occupiers have slowed the pace of the offensive, but are still trying to achieve success in some areas,” the Ukrainian general staff was quoted to have said in a statement.
Ukraine’s military said on Monday that Moscow had “slowed down the pace of the offensive” on the fifth day of its invasion of the country, as talks are expected in Belarus.