Athletes compete in basketball tourney

Ukraine’s air force says that nine Russian warplanes were destroyed in massive explosions at an air base in Crimea amid speculation they were the result of a Ukrainian attack. That would represent a significant escalation in the war. Russia denied any aircraft were damaged in Tuesday’s blasts — or that any attack took place. Ukrainian officials have stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility for the explosions, while poking fun at Russia’s explanation that munitions at the Saki air base caught fire and blew up. They have underscored the importance of the peninsula that Moscow annexed eight years ago. In his nightly video address several hours after the blasts, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to retake Crimea.

China has reaffirmed its threat to use military force to bring self-governing Taiwan under its control. The lengthy policy statement issued by the Cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office and its news department Wednesday followed almost a week of threatening Chinese military exercises near the island that have disrupted flights and shipping in a region crucial to global supply chains. China says the threatening moves were prompted by a visit to Taiwan last week by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but Taiwan says China used that merely as a pretext to up its threats. Beijing extended the ongoing exercises without announcing when they will end, although they appear to have run their course for the time being.

French authorities say a beluga whale stranded for several days in the Seine River has had to be euthanized after it was successfully removed from the French waterway. The whale was being prepared for transfer to a saltwater pool in Normandy. A veterinarian said Wednesday that the dangerously thin white mammal began to have breathing difficulties while on the way to the coast, and so experts decided the most humane thing to do was to euthanize the creature. Conservation group Sea Shepherd France said veterinary exams after the beluga’s removal from the river showed it has no digestive activity. The whale was first spotted last week having accidentally veered off its normal path to the Arctic.