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Moscow’s influence over the company was found to pose a significant risk, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said.

The Biden administration on Thursday announced plans to bar the sale of antivirus software made by Russia’s Kaspersky Lab in the United States, citing the firm’s large U.S. customers, including critical infrastructure providers and state and local governments.

Russia’s northern offensive isn’t going well.

Ukrainian forces have captured dozens of Russian troops in the embattled town of Vovchansk, just south of the Russia-Ukraine border, dealing a major setback to Russia’s faltering northern offensive.

In heavy fighting over the weekend, Ukrainian troops surrounded as many as 400 Russians in and around a chemical plant in central Vovchansk. Thirty Russians surrendered after repeated attempts to rescue them failed, the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies reported.

On May 10, a force of tens of thousands of Russian troops opened a new front in Russia’s 28-month wider war on Ukraine. Attacking south across the Russia-Ukraine border, Russian battalions quickly captured a chain of lightly defended border villages—and then advanced on Vovchansk, the first big town between the border and the city of Kharkiv, 25 miles to the south.

It was there in Vovchansk that the Ukrainians chose to stand fight. Elements of several Ukrainian brigades—including the elite 82nd Air Assault Brigade—rushed north and, in several weeks of hard fighting, blocked the Russian advance just north of the Vovcha River, which threads from east to west through central Vovchansk.

The Russians rallied. The equivalent of at least two battalions with hundreds of infantry stormed the PJSC Volchansky chemical plant, on the Vovcha River’s right bank. Factories and other industrial facilities are often the locus of the fighting in Ukraine, as their big sturdy buildings can shelter troops and protect them from artillery and drones.

The Russians’ plan was apparently to capture the chemical plant and then, from there, launch a river-crossing operation in order to force their way into southern Vovchansk.

The plan failed when Ukrainian troops—perhaps from the 9th Rifle Battalion, Russian Volunteer Corps or 36th Marine Brigade—attacked west of the chemical plant and advanced several blocks to the north, cutting off the Russians in the plant from their comrades to the west.

“The Russians are surrounded here with zero chances of evacuation or reinforcements,” one Ukrainian drone operator crowed. “A bunch of dead and wounded orcs,” they added, using a slang term for Russian soldiers.

The Portuguese centre-left party (S&D) and the Liberal party (Renew) were the winners of Sunday’s European elections in Portugal, which, unlike most other EU countries, saw the defeat of the far-right Chega party (ID).

While the Portuguese electorate voted for the Socialist Party, taking 11 of the 18 districts and outperforming the Democratic Alliance (PSD-CDS-PPM, EPP), which won the general elections three months ago, the party won eight of Portugal’s 21 MEP seats, losing one seat compared to 2019 despite winning more votes overall.

However, the Socialists won by the narrowest of margins over the AD (less than 40,000 votes and one percentage point), which does not give them any hope of returning to power in the short term following a hypothetical political crisis caused by the rejection of the state budget for 2025.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken will push for a breakthrough on President Joe Biden’s cease-fire proposal when he returns to the Middle East next week on his eighth diplomatic mission to the region since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began in October, the State Department said Friday.

Blinken, who is currently in France accompanying Biden on a state visit timed to the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion during World War II, will fly from Paris to Cairo on Monday to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and other officials before traveling to Israel, Jordan and Qatar, the department said. Blinken will then go to Italy to join Biden at the summit for the Group of Seven advanced economies.

In all of his meetings, Blinken “will emphasize the importance of Hamas accepting the proposal on the table, which is nearly identical to one Hamas endorsed last month” and “discuss how the cease-fire proposal would benefit both Israelis and Palestinians,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

“He will underscore that it would alleviate suffering in Gaza, enable a massive surge in humanitarian assistance, and allow Palestinians to return to their neighborhoods,” he said in a statement. “It would unlock the possibility of achieving calm along Israel’s northern border — so both displaced Israeli and Lebanese families can return to their homes — and set the conditions for further integration between Israel and its Arab neighbors, strengthening Israel’s long-term security and improving stability across the region.”

In Israel, Blinken will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials. In Jordan, he will participate in an emergency international conference on aid to Gaza, and in Qatar he will meet with officials who are attempting to mediate the cease-fire deal.

The lightning tour comes as the Biden administration is pushing hard for Hamas to accept a three-phase cease-fire proposal that would include the release of hostages taken from Israel and held by the militant group and potentially pave the way for an end to the conflict and the reconstruction of Gaza.

NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday was formally elected leader of the National Democratic Alliance coalition, which won the most seats in the national election after his political party failed to win a majority on its own.

The 73-year-old leader, who will be sworn in as prime minister on Sunday for a rare third term, will now form a coalition government.

Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has governed India as part of the NDA coalition over the past decade, but this is the first time under his leadership that the party has needed support from its regional allies to form a government.

“This alliance of ours reflects India’s spirit in its true sense,” Modi said after the BJP and coalition members backed him as their prime ministerial candidate. “We were neither defeated nor are we defeated ... it was an NDA government in the past, still is and will be,” he added.

Full results from India’s marathon election, which began in mid-April, were released Wednesday. The BJP won 240 seats, well below the 272 needed for a majority in a stunning outcome. Together, the parties in the NDA coalition bagged 293 seats in the 543-member lower house of parliament.