Our daily trip around the world

🇺🇦 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fired the country’s top military general. Zelensky’s dismissal of Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy, the popular commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, marks the biggest shake-up of Ukrainian leadership since Russia invaded in February 2022. Zelensky appointed the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces – Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi (☝️ on the right) – to lead the army, which has been at a near stalemate with Russia for months.

🇨🇳 Over 100 websites posing as local news outlets across the world are spreading pro-China content. That’s per a new report from digital watchdog Citizen Lab, which said the influence campaign began in mid-2020 and has spread to 30 countries across Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The propaganda material is interspersed with aggregated news from local media to spread conspiracy theories about the US and its Western allies, and attack China’s critics.

🇫🇮🇷🇺 Finland extended its border closure with Russia until mid-April. Finland initially closed its border with Russia in December following a surge in migrants from the Middle East and Africa, whom Finland says were deliberately sent by Russia in retaliation for joining NATO (a charge the Kremlin denies). Finland says it opted to extend the border closure because Moscow hasn’t stopped funneling migrants toward the Nordic country.