Today's News: Just a smile and a cup of coffee

What a great smile! Olena is an officer in Ukraine's 128th Mountain Assault Brigade – the Transcarpathian Legion. Photo is from this tweet.

There's a tweeter in Kyiv, Yaroslava Antipina, who posts every morning as she sips her coffee, and she calls this #warcoffee. She is now joined by dozens of people in countries around the world: 

8:33 am in #Kyiv

Calm night & morning in the city.
Today in plans work & small preparations for our journey to relatives for Easter 🌞

Ready to have #warcoffee. Would you like to join with your cups? pic.twitter.com/YP9xFwbiAw

— Yaroslava Antipina (@strategywoman) April 21, 2022

Hi Yaroslava! @strategywoman I saw this & thought of you. People buying #warcoffee for Ukraine’s heroes! 💕☕️🇺🇦 https://t.co/XJ6Na5xKkX

— Diana (@dvelene) April 21, 2022

Putin is flexing again:

Russia releases video of the test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile known as "Satan II" by some American officials. Watch Pentagon correspondent @barbarastarrcnn's full report here: https://t.co/Hb8dYgkGDd

— CNN (@CNN) April 21, 2022

NEW: Ukraine is warning the White House that Putin is going to use May 9th - “Victory Day” over Germany to end WWII - to escalate the war

But the US believes it is more likely that Putin will instead claim some sort of dubious victory - and keep fighting https://t.co/uoOFeiRsCX

— Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) April 21, 2022

Biden flexed back:

Our unity at home and our unity with allies, partners, and the Ukrainian people is sending an unmistakable message to Putin: He will never succeed in dominating and occupying all of Ukraine. That will not happen.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 21, 2022

And I see Russia has given up on defeating Mariupol:

Putin cancels Russian plans to storm Mariupol steel plant, opts for blockade instead https://t.co/GPgnpKiTtk pic.twitter.com/C58HQQwOND

— Reuters (@Reuters) April 21, 2022

Regardless of how Putin frames it, Mariupol has actually defeated him. 

The Battle of Donbas isn't going very well for Russia either:

It is against this dropback of giant Putin failures that we must understand the Battle for Donbas. That the Kremlin has now explicitly changed the focus of their war to be "defense of Donbas" signals a major defeat in the overall war. 9/

— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) April 20, 2022

Two major Russian buildings burned today - a chemical plant and an aerospace research facility. Odd, eh?

Something seems to be wrong with the Russians bloody military/technology buildings today.https://t.co/wRnDmsDfu5https://t.co/8cr0njE2xb

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) April 21, 2022

Finally, Ukraine's bomb-sniffing dog is catching a quick nap:

https://t.co/tN2hnZd39u pic.twitter.com/WtcMnFMpWp

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) April 20, 2022