Your Friday Briefing: The U.S. Will Train More Ukraine Troops

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/briefing/us-china-trade-ukraine.html

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The Pentagon plans to train 600 to 800 Ukrainian troops — one battalion — each month in advanced battlefield tactics at a base in Germany, starting next year. That’s a major increase: Right now, the U.S. trains about 300 people each month.

President Biden approved the broader training effort this week, according to two U.S. officials. The Pentagon has already trained 610 Ukrainians to operate an advanced rocket launcher. The troops have used the system to devastating effect, hitting targets far behind Russian lines.

Next year, the U.S. will train bigger groups of Ukrainians on various strategies, such as coordinating ground infantry troops with artillery support. The decision to step up training comes as the administration is poised to send a Patriot antimissile battery, America’s most advanced ground-based air defense system, in response to urgent demands from Kyiv.

Other updates:

The U.S. announced new sanctions on prominent Russians.

A Ukrainian Army surveillance team is using infrared technology to try to locate and strike Russian positions.

Moscow’s propagandists are broadcasting clips from American cable news and Chinese media to spin a narrative that Russia is winning.

The U.S. restricted 36 companies and organizations from accessing American technology that could be used for military purposes, in its latest effort to impede China’s development of advanced semiconductors.

In October, the U.S. announced sweeping limits on semiconductor exports to China, both from American companies and those in other countries that use U.S. technology.

U.S. officials say that China has increasingly blurred the lines between its military and civilian industries. In response, Chinese diplomats said that the U.S. “has been stretching the concept of national security” and “abusing export control measures.”

Details: Yangtze Memory Technology Corporation, which was said to be in talks with Apple to potentially supply components for the iPhone 14, is on the list.

Related: Years of Covid restrictions have left behind a collective trauma, Li Yuan writes. Some now want the government to apologize for its hard-line approach, a quixotic hope.

British nurses went on strike yesterday for the first time in the 74-year history of the National Health Service.

The walkout is one of a series of labor actions taking place across Britain this month as sky-high inflation, rising interest rates and a recession put pressure on workers. Rail employees, airport baggage handlers and ambulance workers are also scheduled to stage walkouts over the next several weeks. The nurses are planning a second 12-hour strike next Tuesday.

The labor actions come at a time when the health service is in crisis: There have been record delays for ambulance responses and a major backlog for medical procedures, among many other problems.

Demands: The nurses are calling for a 19 percent pay increase and better working conditions, which they say will make the profession more attractive and help address staffing shortages. The government has said the pay demands are “unaffordable.”

Quotable: “We were out supposedly clapping for our nurses and all of our N.H.S. workers during the pandemic, and here we are treating them like trash,” one supporter said.

Four political leaders in Fiji said the country should stop vote counting after the results app experienced a glitch, The Associated Press reports.

India has successfully tested a long-range ballistic missile that could carry nuclear weapons, Al Jazeera reports.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the leader of the W.H.O., said that Eritrean forces had killed his uncle and 50 others in Tigray, despite a cease-fire.

The European Central Bank and the Bank of England both raised interest rates by half a percentage point, in an effort to fight stubborn inflation.

A U.N. peacekeeper from Ireland was shot and killed in southern Lebanon.

Boris Becker, the former German tennis champion, returned home after he was freed from a British prison. He hid his assets in a bankruptcy case.

The House passed a bill that would allow Puerto Ricans to vote on whether the island should be an independent country or a U.S. state.

Elon Musk said he had sold another $3.6 billion of Tesla’s stock, perhaps in an effort to prop up Twitter. He’s now sold $23 billion this year.

New York City will ban sales of dogs, cats and rabbits starting in 2024 in an effort to crack down on commercial breeders.

Claudine Gay will be the first Black person to lead Harvard.

In the latest episodes of “Harry & Meghan,” Harry blames a tabloid for Meghan’s miscarriage.

Adriano Pedrosa, who turned around São Paulo’s leading art museum, will oversee the 2024 Venice Biennale.

The famously private author Thomas Pynchon sold his archive. But there are no photographs of him in it.

Inmates in France picked a winner in an offshoot of the Goncourt, the country’s top literary prize.

“The Little Mermaid” will be added to the National Film Registry, along with two dozen other films.

Our Styles desk picked their best photos of 2022.

Falconry — one of Qatar’s oldest traditions — now involves modern training methods. Drones drag pigeons high into the sky, to teach the falcons to hunt.

France will play Argentina at 6 p.m. local time on Sunday in Qatar. (That’s 8:30 p.m. in Delhi, midnight in Seoul and 2 a.m. on Monday in Sydney.)

Argentina will rally behind Lionel Messi, who has never won a World Cup. Now, he has a final, glorious chance at soccer immortality. At 35, Messi is arguably the finest player of all time.

France, though, has his heir apparent: Kylian Mbappé, 23, who is the tournament’s leading scorer. France won the last World Cup, in 2018, and is now the first country in over 20 years to qualify for consecutive finals.

What else: Croatia and Morocco will play on Saturday for third place.

Make pancakes for breakfast this weekend.

“Eccentric Lives,” a collection of cheeky obituaries from Britain’s Daily Telegraph, includes one about a viscount who shot at a hot-air balloon.

“The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari” recounts an eruption off the coast of New Zealand that left several groups of tourists struggling to survive.

Do you really need to stretch?

In just a weekend in Seoul, you can hike fortress walls, bike along the Han River and taste mung bean pancakes at a covered market.

Play the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Space between (three letters).

Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.

You can find all our puzzles here.

That’s it for today’s briefing. Have a lovely weekend! I’ll be back on Monday. — Amelia

P.S. Sam Stejskal of The Athletic joined CNN to debate who’s the greatest soccer player ever.

“The Daily” is about Russia’s draft.

You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.