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Day of action
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Corey Booker Highlights (video)
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Trump officials shared war planning in unclassified chat with journalist
The Atlantic reported that its top editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, was accidentally added to a group chat where Trump’s national security team plotted an attack on Houthi militants in Yemen.
White House national security adviser Michael Waltz, left, confers with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during an Oval Office meeting in late February. (Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images) Top officials in the Trump administration discussed highly sensitive military planning using an unclassified chat application that mistakenly included a journalist, the White House acknowledged Monday, a development that swiftly drew criticism from Democrats and Washington’s national security establishment.
Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said the message thread revealed in an extraordinary report by the Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, “appears to be authentic,” and that administration officials were “reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”
The “inadvertent number” belonged to Goldberg, whose article details a robust policy discussion that occurred in the lead-up to a March 15 military operation targeting Yemen’s Houthi militants. Goldbergreported being added to the group chat, which occurred on the encrypted messaging platform Signal, by President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz. Other participants appeared to include Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and several other senior aides, the Atlantic article says.
Hughes, the National Security Council spokesman, characterized the discussion as “a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials” executing Trump’s national security strategy. But the disclosure immediately raised questions about how the administration has discussed classified national security matters and whether anyone will be disciplined.
Senior Trump administration officials have warned in recent days that they will investigate unauthorized leaks to journalists, citing reporting in a number of publications. Several of them also for years criticized the handling of classified information by Democrats in other cases.
Trump, who did not appear to be included in the group chat, distanced himself from the imbroglio, saying after the article’s publication “I don’t know anything about it” and “I’m not a big fan of the Atlantic.” Goldberg invoked Trump’s ire during the president’s first term in office, when the publication reported in 2020 that he had privately disparaged U.S. service members who died in wartime
Hegseth, who according to the Atlantic’s report disclosed to the group how the Yemen strike would take shape before it occurred, forcefully denied any wrongdoing and attacked Goldberg in personal terms — calling him a “deceitful” journalist who “peddles in garbage.”
“Nobody was texting war plans,” Hegseth told reporters after landing in Hawaii late Monday, “and that’s all I have to say about that.”
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce dismissed questions about the group chat. “I have two very short things to say to you. First is that we will not comment on the secretary’s deliberative conversations; and secondly, that you should contact the White House,” she told reporters at the State Department.
The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to requests for comment.
Monday’s revelation was greeted by Democrats with exasperation and anger, with at least one lawmaker, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (Mississippi), demanding an FBI investigation. The Justice Department declined to comment.
“If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen,” Sen. Jack Reed (Rhode Island), the Senate Armed Services Committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement. “Military operations need to be handled with utmost discretion, using approved, secure lines of communication, because American lives are on the line. The carelessness shown by President Trump’s cabinet is stunning and dangerous.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and other Republicans most loyal to Trump downplayed those claims, with the House leader asserting that the leak showed “top-level officials doing their job” and “no one was jeopardized because of it.” The administration had “acknowledged it was a mistake, and they’ll tighten up and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Johnson added. GOP lawmakers withnational security oversight responsibilities acknowledged being concerned about the Atlantic report but said they would reserve judgment until more details become available.
Goldberg reported that he received an invitation to connect on Signal on March 11 from an account identified as belonging to Waltz. Goldberg, who uses his initials “JG” on the messaging platform, wrote in his article that while he assumed it was the president’s national security adviser, he also wondered whether the unsolicited outreach might be someone else pretending to be him.
Two days later, Goldberg wrote, he received a notification through Signal that he was to be included in a group chat titled “Houthi PC small group,” an apparent reference to a principals committee meeting that typically includes Cabinet members and other senior national security officials. Several of the accounts appeared to designate subordinates as their representatives, including Andy Baker, Vance’s national security adviser, and Dan Caldwell, a senior aide to Hegseth.
Vance, according to the Atlantic article, said in the group chat that he thought the Trump administration was “making a mistake” by launching what U.S. military officials have since declared an open-ended operation against the Houthis. The vice president noted that about 3 percent of U.S. trade runs through the Suez Canal, where the Houthis have concentrated attacks on commercial shipping transiting the Red Sea, and that there is “real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary.”
Hegseth, according to the Atlantic’s report, responded a short time later that he understood Vance’s concerns and fully supported the vice president raising them with Trump. The defense secretary then added that the “messaging is going to be tough no matter what” because “nobody knows who the Houthis are,” and so those who will announce the operation should aim to convince the American public that “1) Biden failed & 2) Iran funded.” Those were apparent references to the Biden administration not being able to stop Houthi attacks, which the militant group began in response to Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, and Tehran’s long-standing backing of the group.
Contrary to Vance, Hegseth advocated taking action soon, saying there was a risk the Trump administration’s plans to attack could leak publicly or that Israel could attack the militants first, leaving the administration unable to “start this on our own terms,” Goldberg recounted in his article.
As the plan to conduct an attack on the Houthis moved ahead, Hegseth shared details that Goldberg said he believed could put at risk the safety of U.S. troops or intelligence officials, especially those deployed in the Middle East. Those details, the Atlantic article says, allegedly included the specific weapons to be used and in which sequence the Houthi targets would be hit.
Hegseth, a National Guard veteran and former Fox News personality who has not previously held senior positions in government, has said repeatedly that he will bring accountability back to the Pentagon. Before joining the Trump administration, he skewered Justice Department officials in 2023 for not doing more to scrutinize Joe Biden’s handling of classified information when he was vice president, saying that “if at the very top there is no accountability,” there are “two tiers of justice that exist.”
Signal’s encryption is quite strong, but the platform is not suitable for highly sensitive, classified conversations for two reasons, said Matt Blaze, a professor of computer science and law at Georgetown University. First, he said, Signal runs on “fundamentally insecure devices” — smartphones and laptop computers attached to the internet that may be “subject to all sorts of attacks against the devices that have nothing to do with the security of the software.”
“If the device is compromised, everything that uses the device is compromised,” Blaze said.
Second, Signal has a feature allowing stored messages to disappear after a time specified by the user — from minutes to weeks. A foreign intelligence service or another skilled agency, should they obtain a phone involved in a sensitive conversation, may be able to access the stored messages, Blaze said.
“Signal does as much as it can to delete messages when disappearing messages expire, but it’s still running on a fundamentally vulnerable platform,” he said.
The seriousness of the issue should not be dismissed, said Kevin Carroll, a lawyer who specializes in national security cases and previously worked as a CIA officer. Presuming the Trump officials did disclose and discuss classified material while weighing the Yemen operation, as the Atlantic article suggests, the Signal group chat would appear to violate federal laws governing the handling of secret information, Carroll said.
“I have defended service members accused of violating the Espionage Act through gross negligence for far, far less,” Carroll said. “If these people were junior uniformed personnel, they would be court-martialed.”
Larry Pfeiffer, a former senior CIA and NSA official, said top administration officials like those involved in the group chat have U.S. government-approved communications with them 24 hours a day, even when traveling.
“Back in my time, it would have included secure phone, computer and video teleconference. In the office and at home,” said Pfeiffer, who also was senior director of the White House Situation Room. “And there was a travel kit that would be with them on the road and in the air.”
Among those who weighed in Monday was Hillary Clinton, whose use of an unclassified email server upended her presidential campaign against Trump in 2016. Sharing the story on social media, she said: “You have got to be kidding me.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), a member of the Senate Armed Services committee, urged his Republican colleagues to treat the issue with the “high degree of seriousness it warrants.” He added: “It seems so appallingly fundamental. I’m searching for words to describe how staggering it is.”
Sen. Mark R. Warner (Virginia), the Senate Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, wrote on X that the Trump administration is “playing fast and loose with our nation’s most classified info, and it makes all Americans less safe.”
On Tuesday, the committee will hear testimony from at least two of the officials implicated in the Signal leak — Gabbard and Ratcliffe — who are scheduled to appear on Capitol Hill to offer their assessments of the top national security threats facing the United States. “Expect this to come up in tomorrow’s hearing,” a Warner spokeswoman said.
Reactions from Republicans were more muted, but some also voiced concerns.
Sen. Tom Cotton (Arkansas), chairman of the Intelligence Committee, declined to comment when asked whether he is concerned by the administration’s apparent use of Signal to communicate about military operations and whether Congress should investigate the matter.
Rep. Michael Lawler (R-New York) said on X: “Classified information should not be transmitted on unsecured channels — and certainly not to those without security clearances, including reporters. Period.”
“Safeguards must be put in place,” he added, “to ensure this never happens again.”
Mariana Alfaro, Liz Goodwin, Missy Ryan, John Hudson and Perry Stein contributed to this report.
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Relocation anxieties
New homes come with costs residents can’t afford
By 2026, when most New Isle residents will begin paying their own homeowners’ insurance, the state Office of Community Development estimates that the average policy there will be $4,078. Wallace ‘Johnny’ Tamplet’s is estimated to be around $4,500.
BY ALEX LUBBEN | Staff writer NEW ISLE – Just over two years ago, Wallace ”Johnny” Tamplet moved into his new house with help from the government to escape the vanishing, flood-prone island where he’d lived for years.
Already, the 70-year-old retired carpenter worries he won’t be able to afford to stay.
”I’m getting ready to sell my truck so I can go down and get whole on my taxes and get everything up to date,” he said from his home in the newly built subdivision of New Isle, roughly 40 miles farther inland. ”The first of next year, I have no idea what I’m going to do.”
Tamplet’s relocation from Isle de Jean Charles in lower Terrebonne Parish was part of a first-of-its-kind government effort to help dozens of families move to higher ground from Louisiana’s disappearing coastline. Many of those families are members of the state-recognized Jean Charles Choctaw Nation.
The state hoped it would serve as a model for future relocation efforts, expected to become increasingly necessary as storms intensify and sea levels rise. But residents are finding that their new homes come with costs they’re not sure they can afford, raising serious questions over the program’s long-term viability.
State officials who have overseen the voluntary program say they are sympathetic, but there are limits to what they can do. They point out that the homes were provided free of charge and homeowners’ insurance is fully covered for five years.
They are hoping to hand the project over to a separate semi- governmental agency that could help address some of the concerns. But the families will eventually have to make it on their own, they say.
It may be a struggle due to their unique circumstances, and Tamplet is emblematic of the problem.
After contracting pneumonia in late 2023, which led to cascading health issues, he couldn’t afford his tax bill. His home was offered in a tax sale, and a Nebraskabased company bought a lien on the property last June.
If he can’t pay off the debt within three years, including fees and interest, he could lose his house. He owes around $4,000 in back taxes.
”If I can’t sell my truck, and I can’t bring my taxes up to date, at least for this year, the possibility is that next year, someone could take my house by paying the taxes,” said Tamplet. ”Then where am I going to be?”
‘Probably struggling’
Tamplet, who is not a tribe member, is among 37 households who have moved to New Isle since the program began in 2016. Built with a $48 million federal grant, it was part of a landmark pilot program to help a community relocate due to natural hazards exacerbated by climate change.
Of the $48 million, just under $1.4 million remained as of October.
Like much of coastal Louisiana, many lived on the island in homes their families had owned for generations, often paying nothing in property taxes thanks to state law exempting the first $75,000 in home value.
Tamplet also did not carry flood or home insurance; when something broke or was damaged in a storm, he and his neighbors fixed it themselves.
His new home is valued at more than $300,000 – far above the roughly $55,000 value of his old house. The state built it and granted it to Tamplet for no cost. He’ll own it outright if he lives in it for five years.
Others are facing similar difficulties. As the June deadline to pay property taxes approached last year, five households in New Isle were delinquent on their payments, according to parish tax records.
Utilities are also more expensive than they were on the island, Tamplet and his neighbors said.
”I’m not going to lie, most people are probably struggling right now,” said Erica Billiot, 42, who lives next door to Tamplet. ”We’re struggling and we have two incomes. If we put aside all of our extra activities, we probably could afford it. But then we wouldn’t have a life.”
Other costs will only grow in the coming years. Insurance bills loom large, as is the case for many Louisianans.
By 2026, when most New Isle residents will begin paying their own homeowners’ insurance, the state Office of Community Development estimates that the average policy there will be $4,078. Tamplet’s is estimated to be around $4,500.
”If it comes down to us making a choice about whether we’re going to eat or pay for insurance, I’m gonna eat,” said Chris Brunet, 59, sitting on the porch of his New Isle home. ”I told them that from the get-go.”
Next door, his neighbor’s home was already missing some of its wood paneling. It had been sheared off last year during Hurricane Francine, Brunet said. It was a poignant reminder that, while New Isle isn’t eroding like Isle de Jean Charles, its homes aren’t necessarily out of harm’s way.
A new player
Isle de Jean Charles was a haven for its residents before it lost much of its land to the combined effects of erosion, subsidence exacerbated by the digging of canals for oil and gas development, and climate changedriven sea level rise.
In the 1950s, it stretched over 35 square miles, surrounded by marsh and coastal prairie. It now makes up less than a single square mile.
When the relocation effort kicked off in 2016 through a Barack Obamaera grant program, it garnered national attention. The New York Times called Isle de Jean Charles residents the U.S.’s first ”climate refugees.”
The project plan emphasized that it was a community relocation effort that the goal was to move residents together. The more people moved from the island to New Isle the better.
All but three households have now left the island, according to Deme Naquin, chief of the Jean Charles Choctaw Nation. Most relocated to New Isle.
By that standard, the state’s Office of Community Development, which led the project, considers the effort a success. They’re also aware that the relocation effort could fall apart if residents can’t afford their homes.
”We knew they were going to need assistance for some period of time,” said Pat Forbes, a former OCD executive director who spearheaded the project. ”If it was going to be sustainable, they would have to take on those costs themselves at some point.”
He emphasized that it was a pilot project, whose goal was to learn how to help people relocate effectively.
In Louisiana, around a fifth of all homes statewide – about 330,000 – are at risk of chronic flooding by 2045, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Nationally, homes that house 4.7 million people – equivalent to the entire population of Louisiana will likely flood repeatedly by the end of the century.
”This was a project where we learned some best practices and some things that need improvement,” Forbes said.
Gina Campo, OCD’s current executive director, stressed that helping the most vulnerable would require ”creative solutions,” which are being implemented at New Isle.
”Disaster recovery is no longer just fixing up someone’s house and moving on,” she said.
There are, however, limitations on federal housing funds under fair housing law. For example, the agency has said that it can’t help residents pay property taxes.
Now, the state is seeking to transfer the last $1.4 million to a semi-governmental nonprofit regional organization called the South Central Planning and Development Commission (SCPDC). It would be freer to use the funds to help residents with costs, according to the organization’s CEO Kevin Belanger.
To give those funds to the nonprofit, OCD needs federal approval, which it formally requested late last year. SCPDC plans to use the funds to develop additional affordable housing at New Isle, in addition to helping current residents with their costs of living.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has not yet approved the request, according to Campo. The federal agency did not respond to a request for comment. And last week, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration plans to drastically reduce staff at the HUD office tasked with approving that request.
Belanger said his organization is committed to helping residents stay in their new homes. He will be looking for ways to generate new revenue at New Isle that could help offset costs like insurance and taxes.
”Their whole mission was to use this as a pilot, to show the world what best management practices could be used to relocate people who are inundated by climate change,” Belanger said. ”The success of this is making sure that their way of life is still preserved while also giving them tools to be able to succeed in an area where … they haven’t lived before.”
Some ideas for helping with residents’ bills have fallen through. There was, at one point, a proposal to build a solar farm, but funds ran dry before it could be built.
If HUD approves, Belanger’s organization will also be responsible for maintaining the New Isle homeowner’s association and enforcing its regulations, which include basic maintenance. If houses aren’t maintained, the HOA can perform repairs and bill the homeowner.
”We don’t want it to be a hellhole,” Belanger said.
He stressed that New Isle residents hadn’t been part of an HOA before and would need guidance from SCPDC to get it off the ground.
”Look, I know the concern and I’ve heard it: that they want to be in control of their own destiny,” Belanger said. ”The only way they can do that is to show us they have the wherewithal to do that, by involving themselves in the HOA.”
Model program?
Even before the affordability concerns, the relocation effort had hit snags. In the view of the Jean Charles Choctaw Nation, the project was initially envisioned as a means to reunite their tribe.
The state said that it could not legally forbid people who were not tribe members from living in New Isle, and emphasized that not everyone who lived on Isle de Jean Charles was a tribal member.
The tribe’s concerns echoed in formal public comments on the proposal to give the project to SCPDC. To the tribe’s chief, Deme Naquin, the project has been an ordeal that he wouldn’t wish on any other community.
”Tribal leaders knew affordability and sustainability were key factors” in the project’s success, he said. He added that the state had not come up with ”a sound solution for long-term affordability.”
Tamplet feels that the state didn’t adequately take into account concerns he aired at public meetings about future affordability.
”What happens when we have to move half a million people out of south Miami because of the flooding?” Tamplet wonders. ”What is it going to cost? $1.3 million per family unit? That’s a lot of money.”
Email Alex Lubben at alex.lubben@theadvocate.com.
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Ukraine rejects initial Trump request for half its mineral wealth
Ukraine is hoping to reach a deal on a counteroffer, but the opening proposal rippled through European diplomatic circles not only for its audacity but because the war-ravaged country appears ready to play ball.
Siobhán O’Grady and
MUNICH — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected a Trump administration request this past week that Kyiv hand over 50 percent of its mineral resources — an extraordinary demand that could significantly overshadow the value of aid that has been sent to Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials are working on a counterproposal that would still offer Washington more access to the country’s natural resources but would bolster U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine, seven people familiar with the discussions said.
Zelensky told reporters Saturday that he had not agreed to the Trump administration’s proposal “because it’s not ready yet.” He said that security guarantees were not part of the U.S. proposal, and that Ukraine needed that in any agreement with the United States.
“We can consider how to distribute profits when security guarantees are clear. So far, I have not seen that in the document,” he told reporters at an annual gathering of U.S. and European security elite.
The request came when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent visited Kyiv on Wednesday, becoming the first Trump Cabinet official to meet the Ukrainian leader,according to three senior Ukrainian officials, two European diplomats and two more people familiar with the situation. They and others spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly about the sensitive issue.
The offer and Ukraine’s consideration of it rippled through European diplomatic circles not only for its audacity but also because the war-ravaged country appeared to be seriously considering how to reach a deal in the hope of a commitment from the United States to help defend against Russia’s aggression.
One senior Ukrainian official joked that the country’s leaders would consider nearly anything to maintain U.S. support, including, the official said, a massive shipment of Ukrainian eggs. The country has an egg surplus, and leaders there are aware of their skyrocketing cost in the United States.
But another senior Ukrainian adviser described being taken aback by the scale of what the Trump administration demanded. The person compared it to Europeans carving up African colonies in the 18th century, and said it could also lead to the right to develop Ukraine’s resources being signed away for decades with no guarantees that investors would actually develop them.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump said earlier this past week that the U.S. was interested in securing access to Ukraine’s “rare earth” minerals. That comment set off some confusion both in the U.S. and in Kyiv, because, although that category of elements does exist in Ukraine, the country does not contain them in noteworthy quantities. “Rare earths” is the official category for a group of 17 elements used as magnets to power electric vehicles, cellphones and high-tech defense systems.
One Ukrainian adviser briefed on the matter said the U.S. was actually pushing for control over a wider range of materials, including rare metals and critical materials such as lithium, graphite and uranium, which can be sometimes confused with “rare earths.”
While Ukraine is not a dominant global producer of these materials either, their long-term value could spike as demand soars globally over the next decade or more. The adviser, citing internal estimates, suggested the total value of the country’s rare materials could reach as high as $5 trillion, although that number is highly uncertain. The exact list of Ukrainian resources that Trump wants control over is not known.
“Ukraine needs international cooperation in mining resources because this can make future peace just and long-lasting, and the deal should be profitable for all sides, not looking like a reparation,” said Volodymyr Landa, senior economist at the Center for Economic Strategy, a Kyiv-based think tank.
One of thesenior Ukrainian officials said that Kyiv received the proposed U.S. mineral deal just four hours before Bessent met with Zelensky in Kyiv on Wednesday. In that meeting, the treasury secretary “insisted” that Zelensky sign it immediately. Zelensky did not, the official said.
The Ukrainians continued to discuss the proposal on Friday, when Zelensky met with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Munich. Ukraine has told the Trump administration that it cannot legally sign away its mineral resources in the way proposed by Washington, but Ukrainians have continued to mull alternatives, two Ukrainian officials said.
The Friday meeting was delayed for several hours when Rubio’s plane experienced mechanical difficulties and had to turn around — buying the Ukrainians valuable time to come up with a counterproposal, one of the officials said.
Zelensky had only a few minutes to read the U.S. proposal before his Wednesday meeting with Bessent, said one person familiar with the discussions.
“Ukraine has theoretically agreed” to the concept of such a deal, but disagreed with the lack of U.S. security guarantees listed in the proposal, the person said. The document Zelensky declined to sign this week was more of a short memorandum of understanding “governed by New York law” than a major international agreement, the person said, adding that it would not have been enforceable. Ukraine would expect any such deal to last for decades to come and wants such an arrangement to be ratified by its parliament.
The idea appears at least partially inspired by Ukraine, which identified investments in its natural resources as a way to help develop its economy and pay for the war effort. Zelensky first suggested providing the United States with the materials during a meeting with Trump in September, prior to the election. The idea is also part of a “victory plan” Zelensky made public the following month.
But Zelensky has said he wants European involvement and investment in developing his country’s resources, not just Washington’s.
Zelensky confessed Saturday to feeling stressed about the Trump administration’s approach to his country.
Asked after delivering a speech at a public forum in Munich whether he felt Trump and Vance understand the stakes of Ukraine’s fight against Russia, Zelensky said: “I’ll be honest. We have to work on it. All of us, not only me.”
The audience of ministers and diplomats erupted in shocked laughter at his frankness, since leaders in his position typically seek to smooth away disagreements.
Europeans have been infuriated by the Trump administration’s plan to handle talks with Putin, since they haven’t been offered a seat at the table even though they will likely be asked to contribute the bulk of any military deployments that would help secure a peace.
Pressed repeatedly by prime ministers and top diplomats at a Saturday event to make sure that Europeans have a place at the table, Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg declined to offer them a seat.
“This is about borders in Europe,” Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir told Kellogg at a public lunch.
A previous effort to achieve peace in Ukraine during the Obama administration that was led by France and Germany led to failure, Kellogg said.
“They failed miserably. So we’re not going to go down that path,” he said, while saying that he remained eager to hear Europe’s input.
Trump allies have expanded and seized on theminerals idea as a way to maintain the president’s support for Kyiv.
“Ukraine has value. Literally has value,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) said Saturday in Munich at an event sponsored by Politico.
“Trump now sees Ukraine differently,” he said. “These people are sitting on literally a gold mine … I showed him a map.”
If the United States is granted Ukraine’s mineral wealth, Graham said, “we will have something to defend. We will have an economic interest in Ukraine we’ve never had. And that’s a nightmare for Putin.”
Critics say that asking for 50 percent of the sector doesn’t match the level of assistance Kyiv has received. Ukraine has received about $66 billion in military aid from Washington since Russia’s full-scale invasion three years ago, according to the State Department, and about $50 billion in non-military aid, according to an estimate from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Ukraine received about $69 billion in military aid in the eight-year-stretch between Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the full-scale invasion.
“Investment now in the Ukrainian critical minerals sector could make a lot of sense. But President Trump’s initial offer seems unreasonable, exploitative and unlikely to help end the war. This is not a good way to promote American interests.” said Simon Johnson, an economist at MIT who has been involved in helping Ukraine with its economic planning.
“I expect the Ukrainian reaction to be dismay and disbelief,” he said.
O’Grady reported from Kyiv and Stein reported from Washington.
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Russian court orders U.S. citizen suspected of drug smuggling held
By The Associated Press
MOSCOW – A Moscow court has ordered a U.S. citizen suspected of drug smuggling held in pretrial detention for 30 days, the Moscow courts press service said Saturday, days after a Moscow- Washington prisoner swap that the White House called a diplomatic thaw and a step toward ending the fighting in Ukraine.
The U.S. citizen, whom Saturday’s statement named as Kalob Wayne Byers, was detained after airport customs officials found cannabis- laced marmalade in his baggage.
Russian police said the 28-year-old American had attempted to smuggle a ”significant amount” of drugs into the country, the Interfax agency reported, citing Russia’s Federal Customs Service. The agency said the American was detained at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport
after flying in from Istanbul on Feb. 7.
Mash, a Russian Telegram channel with links to the security services, said the U.S. citizen faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.
There was no immediate comment from the U.S. State Department.
Copyright © 2025 Capital City Press LLC All Rights Reserved 2/16/2025
Sunday, 02/16/2025 Page .A12Copyright © 2025 Capital City Press LLC All Rights Reserved 2/16/2025
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Zelenskyy calls for ‘armed forces of Europe’EU leaders bristle at new U.S. policies on Ukraine
BY JAMEY KEATEN, EMMA BURROWS and SUSIE BLANN
Associated Press
MUNICH – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that the time has come for the creation of an ”armed forces of Europe,” because the U.S. may no longer be counted on to support the continent.
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hit back at Americans for meddling in his country’s election after U.S. Vice President JD Vance scolded European leaders over their approach to democracy and met with the leader of a German farright party. Forceful speeches from Zelenskyy and Scholz on Day 2 of the Munich Security Conference underlined the impact of a blizzard of decisions by U.S. President Donald Trump that show a rapidly growing chasm in trans-Atlantic ties.
European leaders are reeling after Trump’s decision to upend years of U.S. policy by holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in hopes of ending the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia on Saturday all but ruled out that Europeans would be included in any Ukraine peace talks.
Ramping up his desire for a more muscular Europe, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine’s nearly three-year fight against Russia’s fullscale invasion has proved that a foundation exists for the creation of a European army – an idea long discussed among some leaders on the continent.
”I really believe that time has come,” he said. ”The armed forces of Europe must be created.”
It’s unclear whether the idea will catch on with European leaders. Zelenskyy has sought greater military and economic support from the European Union for years and repeatedly warned that other parts of Europe could be vulnerable to Russia’s expansionist ambitions.
While the bloc – along with the United States – has been one of Kyiv’s strongest backers, pockets of political disagreement over its approach to Moscow and economic realities, including national debt levels that have crimped defense spending, have stood in the way of greater support.
Zelenskyy also told The Associated Press on Saturday that he ”didn’t let” his ministers sign an agreement with the U.S. on the extraction of minerals in the country, because ”it is not ready to protect us, our interest.” Ukraine is hoping to offer rare earth elements essential for many kinds of technology in exchange for continued military aid.
Earlier, Zelenskyy alluded to a phone conversation between Trump and Putin this week, after which Trump said that he and Putin would likely meet soon to negotiate a peace deal over Ukraine – breaking with the Biden administration’s harder line against Moscow over Russia’s all-out assault on Ukraine, which began on Feb. 24, 2022.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry and the U.S. State Department said Saturday that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken by phone. Rubio
reaffirmed Trump’s ”commitment to finding an end to the conflict in Ukraine. In addition, they discussed the opportunity to potentially work together on a number of other bilateral issues,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.
Trump previously assured Zelenskyy that he would have a seat at the table to end the war, and the Ukrainian leader insisted that Europe should also have one.
”Ukraine will never accept deals made behind our backs without our involvement, and the same rule should apply to all of Europe,” Zelenskyy said, adding that ”not once did (Trump) mention that America needs Europe at the table.”
”That says a lot,” he said. ”The old days are over when America supported Europe just because it always had.”
European leaders have been trying to make sense of a tough new line from Washington on issues including democracy and Ukraine’s future, as the Trump administration continues to upend trans-Atlantic conventions that have been in place since after World War II.
Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, all but cut Europeans out of any Ukraine-Russia talks, despite Zelenskyy’s call for Europe to take part.
”You can have the Ukrainians, the Russians, and clearly the Americans at the table talking,” Kellogg said at an event hosted by a Ukrainian tycoon. Pressed on whether that meant Europeans won’t be included, he said: ”I’m a school of realism. I think that’s not going to happen.”
”We need to ensure Ukrainian sovereignty,” he said, before adding: The ”European alliance … are going to be critical to this.”
At the conference, Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, described the new U.S. stance as a ”moment of truth” that requires European leaders to overcome their differences and unite for a meaningful peace in Ukraine.
”This is an existential moment. It’s a moment where Europe has to stand up,” she said. ”There won’t be any lasting peace, if it’s not a European-agreed peace.”
Iceland’s prime minister, Kristrún Frostadóttir, lamented a lack of clarity from Washington.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, right, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet for talks on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany.
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO BY SVEN HOPPE
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“NATO allies insist Ukraine and Europe must be in peace talks as Trump touts Putin meeting,” AP News, Feb. 13, 2025
My opinion: Ukraine MUST be in NATO and the US should live up to its duty and obligations. Link follows. I scraped the article from the AP.
BRUSSELS (AP) — Several NATO allies stressed on Thursday that Ukraine and Europe must not be cut out of any peace negotiations as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denied that the United States is betraying the war-ravaged country.
European governments are reeling after the Trump administration signaled that it is planning face-to-face talks with Russia on ending the Ukraine war without involving them, insisted that Kyiv should not join NATO, and said that it’s up to Europe to protect itself and Ukraine from whatever Russia might do next.
“There can be no negotiation about Ukraine without Ukraine. And Ukraine’s voice must be at the heart of any talks,” U.K. Defence Secretary John Healey told reporters at NATO headquarters, as the organization’s 32 defense ministers met for talks on Ukraine.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said: “For me, it’s clear … that Europe must be involved in the negotiations — and I think that’s very easy to understand,” particularly if Europe is ”supposed to play a central or the main role in the peace order.”
Europe “will have to live directly” with the consequences, he added.Hegseth denied that the U.S. has betrayed Ukraine by launching negotiations about its future without Kyiv’s full involvement. After talks with Putin and then Zelenskyy, Trump said on Wednesday he would “probably” meet in person with the Russian leader in the near term, possibly in Saudi Arabia.
“There is no betrayal there. There is a recognition that the whole world and the United States is invested and interested in peace. A negotiated peace,” Hegesth told reporters.The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, expressed surprise that Hegseth and Trump had listed what appeared to be concessions to Russia even before talks have begun in earnest.
“We shouldn’t take anything off the table before the negotiations have even started, because it plays to Russia’s court,” she said. “Why are we giving them everything that they want even before the negotiations have been started? It’s appeasement. It has never worked.”
Hegseth warned that the war in Ukraine must “be a wakeup call” for NATO’s European allies to spend more on their own defense budgets.
Twenty-three of the 32 member countries were forecast to have met the organization’s guideline of spending 2% of gross domestic product on their national defense budgets last year, but a third still do not.
But Hegseth’s French counterpart, Sébastien Lecornu, described the wrangling over greater defense spending as “a false debate,” saying that governments and parliaments across Europe are already approving more weapons purchases and bigger military budgets while helping Ukraine stave off an invasion.
Lecornu warned that the future of NATO itself is now in question.
“To say that it’s the biggest and most robust alliance in history is true, historically speaking. But the real question is will that still be the case in 10 or 15 years,” he said, after the U.S. — by far NATO’s biggest and most powerful member — signaled that its security priorities lie elsewhere, including in Asia.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who was chairing Thursday’s meeting, said that whatever agreement is struck between Russia and Ukraine, it is crucial that the “peace deal is enduring, that Putin knows that this is the end, that he can never again try to capture a piece of Ukraine.”
Touting Europe’s investment in Ukraine, Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson said European nations provided about 60% of the military support to Kyiv last year and must be involved, especially given U.S. demands that Europe take more responsibility for Ukraine’s security in the longer term.
His Estonian counterpart, Hanno Pevkur, underlined that the European Union has driven sanctions against Russia, has invested heavily in Ukraine’s defense, and will be asked to foot the bill for rebuilding the war-ravaged country.
“We have to be there. So there is no question about it. Otherwise this peace will not be long lasting,” Pevkur warned.
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“Trump announces first meeting with Putin to take place in Saudi Arabia” Thursday, February 13, The Kyiv Independent
My comment: Please read. I think dealing with Trump is a mistake. As everything he does, it is about him. Trump will settle this deal for his glory. Not the glory of Ukraine, nor the glory of Putin. This means he will give into whichever demands Putin makes at the quickest to the downfall of Ukraine. The guy is a snake. The rest is scraped from The Kyiv Independent. Link follows for confirmation.
https://kyivindependent.com/trump-announces-first-meeting-with-putin-to-take-place-in-saudi-arabia
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Feb. 12 that his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin will take place in Saudi Arabia as part of efforts to negotiate an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We’ll meet in Saudi Arabia,” Trump told reporters at the White House, according to AFP. His statement came just hours after he revealed that the two leaders had spoken by telephone and agreed to immediately begin peace talks regarding Ukraine.
Trump added that he did not believe Ukraine joining NATO was practical and doubted that the country would regain all of its territory. His remarks came as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Feb. 12 that expecting Ukraine to restore its 2014 borders in any negotiations with Moscow was unrealistic.
The announcement marks a significant shift in diplomatic relations between Washington and Moscow. The decision to hold negotiations without Ukraine’s direct involvement has raised concerns about Kyiv’s role in shaping its own future.
The extent of Ukrainian participation in the talks remains unclear.
Trump’s approach signals a renewed push to broker a resolution to the ongoing war; however, neither the Kremlin nor the White House has provided further details on the timing or agenda of the meeting.
In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump said that both he and Vladimir Putin agreed that “we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that the two leaders spoke for 90 minutes, during which Putin extended an invitation for Trump to visit Moscow.
Trump also announced that he had instructed a team, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, to lead the negotiations.
According to Trump, U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Rubio will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Feb. 14 to begin official peace negotiations.
“I just spoke to President Volodymyr Zelensky. The conversation went very well. He, like President Putin, wants to make peace. We discussed a variety of topics having to do with the war, but mostly, the meeting that is being set up on Friday in Munich, where Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will lead the delegation,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
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Judge temporarily pauses Trump administration’s federal worker buyout program
Feb. 7, 2025, Washington Post