It's Wednesday the 19th of March. Welcome to the P.D.B. Afternoon bulletin. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage.

All right, let's get briefed.

First, President Trump's much discussed and anticipated 30-day partial ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine, which was supposed to halt strikes on energy infrastructure, is already

collapsing.

We'll look at what happened just hours after the call

between Trump and Russian President Putin. Later in the show, China is looking to scuttle the sale

of two critical ports in the Panama Canal to the U.S. asset firm BlackRock, jeopardizing President

Trump's plans to regain control of the strategic waterway

from the Chinese Communist Party.

But first, today's afternoon spotlight.

It appears that the Trump administration's hopes for a limited ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine

are already at risk of collapsing, as Moscow and Kiev accuse each other of launching air attacks on

civilian targets and energy infrastructure. Less than 24 hours after Trump's lengthy phone call

with Putin, where this Russian strongman reportedly agreed to cease attacks on Ukrainian energy

infrastructure for 30 days, Ukrainian President Zelensky said that Russia launched a massive drone and missile attack,

striking civilian buildings and energy sites.

The overnight bombardment involved roughly 145 Russian drones, four cruise missiles and two ballistic

missiles, which struck two hospitals in Sumi in

northeastern Ukraine, as well as a power substation in the Eastern Denezk region, that's according

to a report from the Wall Street Journal. Zelensky condemned what he described as a deliberate

provocation and said Ukraine will be forced to respond in kind. He also held the strikes

up as clear evidence that Putin is not acting in good faith, well, there's a shock,

...