UKRAINE: A strike on Kharkiv’s TV tower, knocking it down, is part of Russia’s bid to intimidate the city and cut off communications, President Volodymyr Zelensky said today.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city, has come under increased bombardment in recent weeks, with Ukrainian leaders saying they believe Russia may soon seek to conquer it.

SPAIN: A probe into the use of Israeli Pegasus spyware to snoop on Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and three ministers has been reopened jointly with a French investigation into its use against President Emmanuel Macron.
It is not clear who was spying. Spain has itself admitted using Pegasus to spy on the phones of Catalan separatists.

RUSSIA: Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich will stay behind bars at least till June, as an attempt to get his pre-trial detention ended was turned down today by a Moscow court.
Mr Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023, accused of spying. He and his paper deny the charges, and the International Federation of Journalists says his detention is part of a crackdown on independent media.

CZECH REPUBLIC: A memorial to Roma victims of the Holocaust opened today in Lety, Bohemia. The Lety concentration camp largely detained Roma and Sinti prisoners, hundreds of whom were then sent to Auschwitz and murdered.
The memorial crowns a years-long project in which the government was convinced by public campaigning to buy a pig farm on the site so as to close it and erect a tribute to those imprisoned there.