KYIV, Ukraine: Pro-Kremlin authorities in Ukraine’s Kherson said Wednesday they will ask Russia to annex the region as Moscow seeks to shore up its gains in the increasingly drawn-out and bloody war.
Gas supplies to energy-starved Europe were also disrupted by a halt in Russian supplies flowing through Ukraine as the international shockwaves of the February 24 invasion continued.
The developments came as Ukraine said it was pushing Russian troops away from the country’s second city Kharkiv in the northeast but facing stiff resistance from the invading forces.
Russia has focused on eastern and southern Ukraine since it failed to take Kyiv in the first weeks after the February 24 invasion, and US intelligence has warned Putin is ready for a long war.
Kherson, the first major Ukrainian city to fall after the Russian invasion of its pro-Western neighbor, is north of Crimea, which itself was annexed by Moscow in 2014 after an internationally-condemned vote.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of Kherson’s Moscow-installed civilian and military administration, said there would be a “request to make Kherson region a full subject of the Russian Federation.”
Stremousov suggested the authorities would appeal directly to Putin without putting the move to a vote. But the Kremlin replied that it was up to the residents of Kherson to “determine their own fate.”
Kherson is just north of Crimea and essential for its water supplies. But Russia also appears set on creating a land bridge to Crimea from its own territory, with US intelligence suggesting it wants to go all the way across the southern coast to Moldova.
On the battlefield, Ukraine’s forces were boosted by what Kyiv says is the recapture of four villages around Kharkiv.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address Tuesday that he had “good news” from Kharkiv and praised the “superhuman strength” of Ukrainian defenders.
Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces said Wednesday that “occupiers continue to focus their efforts on preventing the further advance of our troops toward the state border of Ukraine” from Kharkiv.
But Ukraine is engaged in what appears to be an increasingly desperate effort to hold the Russian-speaking Donbas region in the east.
“They come in waves,” volunteer fighter Mykola said of the Russians’ repeated attempts to push south past a strategic river near a rural settlement called Bilogorivka.
Nearby, the casing of a cluster munition stood upright like a fence pole not far from a team of Ukrainian medics rushing a bleeding soldier from the eastern front.
One of the doctors reassured the wincing fighter that the tourniquet being squeezed just above his knee did not mean he was about to lose a part of his leg.
US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines on Tuesday said Putin was “preparing for prolonged conflict” and “still intends to achieve goals beyond the Donbas.”
The war in Ukraine has also fueled Europe’s growing energy crisis, with Kyiv pressing for an embargo on oil and gas imports from Russia.
Ukraine on Wednesday said Russia had halted gas supplies through a key transit hub in the east of the country, a day after the Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz said it was no longer responsible for gas coming through Russian-occupied territory.
Germany said inflows of Russian gas had as a result fallen by a quarter compared to a day before, although it was getting extra supplies from Norway and the Netherlands.
Germany is highly dependent on Russia for its gas supplies and has rejected an immediate full embargo on Russian gas, although it backs a halt on Russian oil that the EU is seeking.
Ukraine has been pushing Western countries for more support on all fronts, with Washington the latest to step up.
As President Joe Biden warned that Ukraine would within days likely run out of funds to keep fighting, the US House of Representatives voted late Tuesday to send a $40 billion aid package to the country.
“With this aid package, America sends a resounding message to the world of our unwavering determination to stand with the courageous people of Ukraine until victory is won,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
The United States views it as increasingly likely that Putin will mobilize his entire country, including ordering martial law, and is counting on his perseverance to wear down Western support for Ukraine.
As Russia cracks down internally, a member of the band Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina, said she had left Russia by disguising herself as a food delivery courier to escape police.
One of the key symbols of Ukrainian resistance has been the strategic port of Mariupol, where Ukraine says around 1,000 troops remain trapped in increasingly dire circumstances at the Azovstal steelworks.
The sprawling plant is the final bastion of Ukraine’s defiance in the devastated city, over which Russia now has almost complete control.
A sister plant of the Azovstal mill in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia has highlighted how the Mariupol facility has proven key to the Ukrainian resistance to the numerically superior Russian force.
“We can stay in the shelters for a long time,” said Zaporizhstal employee Ihor Buhlayev, 20, in his hooded silver safety gear as molten metal flowed and sparked behind him. “I think it will give us the chance to survive.”
One other rallying point for Ukrainians has become the Eurovision song contest, the world’s biggest live music event which takes place this weekend.
Ukraine’s rap folk band Kalush Orchestra is the favorite to win the camp celebration, and they progressed through Tuesday night’s semifinal to ensure they participate in Saturday’s grand final.
“We are here to show that Ukrainian music and Ukrainian culture exists,” frontman rapper Oleh Psiuk said.
Russia urged to annex Ukraine’s Kherson as battles rage
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Russia urged to annex Ukraine’s Kherson as battles rage
- Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of Kherson’s Moscow-installed administration, said there would be a ‘request to make Kherson region a full subject of the Russian Federation’
- President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address Tuesday that he had ‘good news’ from Kharkiv and praised the ‘superhuman strength’ of Ukrainian defenders
US has not stopped military aid to Ukraine, Zelensky says
- Trump had previously said Ukraine's President Zelensky should have made a deal with Putin to avoid the conflict
- But he recently threatened to impose stiff tariffs and sanctions on Russia if an agreement isn’t reached to end the fighting in Ukraine
KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday the US has not stopped military aid to Ukraine after newly sworn in US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he would pause foreign aid grants for 90 days.
Zelensky did not clarify whether humanitarian aid had been paused. Ukraine relies on the US for 40 percent of its military needs. “I am focused on military aid; it has not been stopped, thank God,” he said at a press conference with Moldovan President Maia Sandu.
The two leaders met in Kyiv on Saturday to discuss the energy needs of Moldova’s Russian-occupied Transnistria region, which saw its natural gas supplies halted on Jan. 1 due to Ukraine’s decision to stop Russian gas transit. Ukraine has said it can offer coal to the Transnistrian authorities to make up for the shortfall.
The future of US aid to Ukraine remains uncertain as President Donald Trump begins his second term in office. The American leader has repeatedly said he wouldn’t have allowed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to start if he had been in office, although he was president as fighting grew in the east of the country between Kyiv’s forces and separatists aligned with Moscow, ahead of Putin sending in tens of thousands of troops in 2022.
On Thursday, Trump told Fox News that Zelensky should have made a deal with Putin to avoid the conflict. A day earlier, Trump also threatened to impose stiff tariffs and sanctions on Russia if an agreement isn’t reached to end the fighting in Ukraine.
Speaking in Kyiv on Saturday, Zelensky said he had enjoyed “good meetings and conversations with President Trump” and that he believed the US leader would succeed in his desire to end the war.
“This can only be done with Ukraine, and otherwise it simply will not work because Russia does not want to end the war, and Ukraine does,” Zelensky said.
Grinding eastern offensive
With Trump stressing the need to quickly broker a peace deal, both Moscow and Kyiv are seeking battlefield successes to strengthen their negotiating positions ahead of any prospective talks.
Opinion
This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)
For the past year, Russian forces have been waging an intense campaign to punch holes in Ukraine’s defenses in the Donetsk region and weaken Kyiv’s grip on the eastern parts of the country. The sustained and costly offensive has compelled Kyiv to give up a series of towns, villages and hamlets.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed Friday that Russian troops had fought their way into the center of the strategically important eastern of Velyka Novosilka, although it was not possible to independently confirm the claim.
Elsewhere, three civilians were killed Saturday in shelling in the Russian-occupied area of Ukraine’s Kherson region, Moscow-installed Gov. Vladimir Saldo said.
He urged the residents of Oleshky, which sits close to the frontline in southern Ukraine, to stay in their homes or in bomb shelters.
Russia also attacked Ukraine with two missiles and 61 Shahed drones overnight Saturday. Ukrainian air defenses shot down both missiles and 46 drones, a statement from the air force said. Another 15 drones failed to reach targets due to Ukrainian countermeasures.
The downed drones caused damage in the Kyiv, Cherkasy and Khmelnytskyi regions, with Ukrainian emergency services saying that five people had to be from a 9-story apartment block in the Ukrainian capital.
Russia also struck Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region with drones causing casualties and damage, local authorities said Saturday.
Drones targeted the city’s Shevchenkivskyi, Kyivskyi and Kholodnohirskyi districts, said Mayor Ihor Terekhov.
Russia used a Molniya drone – an inexpensive weapon that has been developed and recently deployed by Russia – in the Shevchenkivskyi district, sparking a fire. The attacks disrupted the city’s water and electricity supplies, the mayor said.
Terekhov said the number of victims was still being determined, while Kharkiv’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said three people, two women and a man, were injured in the strikes.
US teacher put on leave after allegedly calling Palestinian child an extremist
- “I do not negotiate with terrorists,” the teacher reportedly remarked when a Palestinian American student asked for a seat change
- Recent incidents involving Palestinian American children include an attempt to drown a 3-year-old girl in Texas and the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old boy in Illinois
WASHINGTON: A public teacher in Pennsylvania was put on leave after allegedly calling a Palestinian American middle school student an extremist, the school district and a Muslim advocacy group said.
Why It’s Important
Human rights advocates say there has been a rise in anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian and antisemitic hate in the US since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza following an Oct. 7, 2023, attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Key Quotes
The Central Dauphin School District said on Saturday it had learned about the allegations that the teacher made the derogatory comment last week in an after-school program.
“The teacher involved in the alleged incident is on administrative leave pending our investigation,” the district said in a statement, adding it had no tolerance for racist speech.
The Council on American Islamic Relations said the allegation was that the teacher had remarked, “I do not negotiate with terrorists,” when the Palestinian American student asked for a seat change.
The district and CAIR did not name the teacher or the student. CAIR said it was in touch with the child’s parents.
Context
Recent US incidents involving children include the attempted drowning of a 3-year-old Palestinian American girl in Texas and the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy in Illinois.
Other incidents include the stabbing of a Palestinian American man in Texas, the beating of a Muslim man in New York, a violent mob attack on pro-Palestinian protesters in California and the shooting of three Palestinian American students in Vermont.
Incidents raising alarm over antisemitism include threats of violence against Jews at Cornell University that led to a conviction and sentencing, an unsuccessful plot to attack a New York City Jewish center and physical assaults against a Jewish man in Michigan, a rabbi in Maryland and two Jewish students at a Chicago university.
Rubio threatens bounties on Taliban leaders over detained Americans
- The new top US diplomat issued the harsh warning via social media, days after the Afghan Taliban government and the US swapped prisoners in one of the final acts of former president Joe Biden
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday threatened bounties on the heads of Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders, sharply escalating the tone as he said more Americans may be detained in the country than previously thought.
The threat comes days after the Afghan Taliban government and the United States swapped prisoners in one of the final acts of former president Joe Biden.
The new top US diplomat issued the harsh warning via social media, in a rhetorical style strikingly similar to his boss, President Donald Trump.
“Just hearing the Taliban is holding more American hostages than has been reported,” Rubio wrote on X.
“If this is true, we will have to immediately place a VERY BIG bounty on their top leaders, maybe even bigger than the one we had on bin Laden,” he said, referring to the Al-Qaeda leader killed by US forces in 2011.
Rubio did not describe who the other Americans may be, but there have long been accounts of missing Americans whose cases were not formally taken up by the US government as wrongful detentions.
In the deal with the Biden administration, the Taliban freed the best-known American detained in Afghanistan, Ryan Corbett, who had been living with his family in the country and was seized in August 2022.
Also freed was William McKenty, an American about whom little information has been released.
The United States in turn freed Khan Mohammed, who was serving a life sentence in a California prison.
Mohammed was convicted of trafficking heroin and opium into the United States and was accused of seeking rockets to kill US troops in Afghanistan.
The United States offered a bounty of $25 million for information leading to the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden shortly after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, with Congress later authorizing the secretary of state to offer up to $50 million.
No one is believed to have collected the bounty for bin Laden, who was killed in a US raid in Pakistan.
Trump is known for brandishing threats in his speeches and on social media. But he is also a critic of US military interventions overseas and in his second inaugural address Monday said he aspired to be a “peacemaker.”
In his first term, the Trump administration broke a then-taboo and negotiated directly with the Taliban — with Trump even proposing a summit with the then-insurgents at the Camp David presidential retreat — as he brokered a deal to pull US troops and end America’s longest war.
Biden carried out the agreement, with the Western-backed government swiftly collapsing and the Taliban retaking power in August 2021 just after US troops left.
The scenes of chaos in Kabul brought strong criticism of Biden, especially when 13 American troops and scores of Afghans died in a suicide bombing at the city’s airport.
The Biden administration had low-level contacts with Taliban government representatives but made little headway.
Some members of Trump’s Republican Party criticized even the limited US engagements with the Taliban government and especially the humanitarian assistance authorized by the Biden administration, which insisted the money was for urgent needs in the impoverished country and never routed through the Taliban.
Rubio on Friday froze nearly all US aid around the world.
No country has officially recognized the Taliban government, which has imposed severe restrictions on women and girls under its ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam.
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor on Thursday said he was seeking arrest warrants for senior Taliban leaders over the persecution of women.
China tells Trump’s top diplomat to behave himself in veiled warning
- A China Foreign Ministry statement said FM Wang Yi issued the veiled warning in a phone call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio
- Rubio, a long-time vocal critic of China, earlier expressed “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan and in the South China Sea”
BEIJING: China’s veteran foreign minister has issued a veiled warning to America’s new secretary of state: Behave yourself.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi conveyed the message in a phone call Friday, their first conversation since Marco Rubio’s confirmation as President Donald Trump’s top diplomat four days earlier.
“I hope you will act accordingly,” Wang told Rubio, according to a Foreign Ministry statement, employing a Chinese phrase typically used by a teacher or a boss warning a student or employee to behave and be responsible for their actions.
The short phrase seemed aimed at Rubio’s vocal criticism of China and its human rights record when he was a US senator, which prompted the Chinese government to put sanctions on him twice in 2020.
It can be translated in various ways — in the past, the Foreign Ministry has used “make the right choice” and “be very prudent about what they say or do” rather than “act accordingly.”
The vagueness allows the phrase to express an expectation and deliver a veiled warning, while also maintaining the courtesy necessary for further diplomatic engagement, said Zichen Wang, a research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, a Chinese think tank.
“What could appear to be confusing is thus an intended effect originating from Chinese traditional wisdom and classic practice of speech,” said Wang, who is currently in a mid-career master’s program at Princeton University.
Rubio, during his confirmation hearing, cited the importance of referring to the original Chinese to understand the words of China’s leader Xi Jinping.
“Don’t read the English translation that they put out because the English translation is never right,” he said.
A US statement on the phone call didn’t mention the phrase. It said Rubio told Wang that the Trump administration would advance US interests in its relationship with China and expressed “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan and in the South China Sea.”
Wang was foreign minister in 2020 when China slapped sanctions on Rubio in July and August, first in response to US sanctions on Chinese officials for a crackdown on the Uyghur minority in the Xinjiang region and then over what it regarded as outside interference in Hong Kong.
The sanctions include a ban on travel to China, and while the Chinese government has indicated it will engage with Rubio as secretary of state, it has not explicitly said whether it would allow him to visit the country for talks.
He’s emboldened, he’s organized and he’s still Trump: Takeaways from the president’s opening days
- Within hours of being sworn in, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who were convicted or charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by his supporters
- In a matter of days he uprooted four years of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across the federal government
- He has acted to try to end civil service protections for many federal workers and overturn more than a century of law on birthright citizenship
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s first week in office isn’t over yet, but already it offers signals about how his next four years in the White House may unfold.
Some takeaways from the earliest days of his second term:
He’s emboldened like never before
Within hours of being sworn in, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who were convicted or charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by his supporters. Those pardoned include people who attacked, bloodied and beat police officers that day. The Republican president’s decision was at odds with earlier comments by his incoming vice president, JD Vance, and other senior aides that Trump would only let off those who weren’t violent.
The pardons were the first of many moves he made in his first week to reward allies and punish critics, in both significant and subtle ways. It signaled that without the need to worry about reelection — the Constitution bars a third term — or legal consequences after the Supreme Court granted presidents expansive immunity, the new president, backed by a Republican Congress, has little to restrain him.
Trump ended protective security details for Dr. Anthony Fauci, his former COVID-19 adviser, along with former national security adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his onetime deputy. The security protections had been regularly extended by the Biden administration over credible threats to the men’s lives.
Trump also revoked the security clearances of dozens of former government officials who had criticized him, including Bolton, and directed that the portrait of a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, retired Gen. Mark Milley be removed from the Pentagon walls.
He’s way more organized this time
In his first days in office, Trump demonstrated just how much he and his team had learned from four often-chaotic years in the White House and four more in political exile.
A president’s most valuable resource is time and Trump set out in his first hours to make his mark on the nation with executive orders, policy memoranda and government staffing shake-ups. It reflected a level of sophistication that eluded him in his first term and surpassed his Democratic predecessors in its scale and scope for their opening days in the Oval Office.
Feeling burned by the holdover of Obama administration appointees during his first go-around, Trump swiftly exiled Biden holdovers and moved to test new hires for their fealty to his agenda.
In a matter of days he uprooted four years of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across the federal government, sent federal troops to the US-Mexico border and erased Biden’s guardrails on artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency development.
In his first term, Trump’s early executive orders were more showpieces than substance and frequently were blocked by federal courts. This time, Trump is still confronting the limits of his constitutional authorities, but is also far more adept at controlling what is within them.
But Trump is still Trump
An hour after concluding a relatively sedate inaugural address in the Capitol Rotunda, Trump decided to let loose.
Speaking to an overflow crowd of governors, political supports and dignitaries in the Capitol Visitor Center’s Emancipation Hall, Trump ripped in to Biden, the Justice Department and other perceived rivals. He followed it up with an even longer speech to supporters at a downtown arena and in more than 50 minutes of remarks and questions and answers with reporters in the Oval Office.
For all of Trump’s experience and organization, he is still very much the same Donald Trump, and just as intent as before on dominating the center of the national conversation. If not more.
Courts may rein Trump in or give him expansive new powers
He has acted to try to end civil service protections for many federal workers and overturn more than a century of law on birthright citizenship. Such moves have been a magnet for legal challenges. In the case of the birthright citizenship order, it met swift criticism from US District Judge John Coughenour, who put a temporary stay on Trump’s plans.
“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is,” Coughenour, who was nominated by Republican President Ronald Reagan, told a Justice Department attorney. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”
How those court cases play out will determine not only the fate of some of Trump’s most controversial actions, but just how far any president can go in pushing an agenda.
Trump is betting that oil can grease the economy’s wheels and fix everything
The president likes to call it “liquid gold.”
His main economic assumption is that more oil production by the United States, OPEC would bring down prices. That would reduce overall inflation and cut down on the oil revenues that Russia is using to fund its war in Ukraine.
For Trump, oil is the answer.
He’s betting that fossil fuels are the future, despite the climate change risks.
“The United States has the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we’re going to use it,” Trump said in a Thursday speech. “Not only will this reduce the cost of virtually all goods and services, it’ll make the United States a manufacturing superpower and the world capital of artificial intelligence and crypto”
The problem with billionaires is they’re rivals, not super friends
Trump had the world’s wealthiest men behind him on the dais when he took the oath of office on Monday.
Tesla’s Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and LVMH’s Bernard Arnault were all there. SoftBank billionaire Masayoshi Son was in the audience. Later in the week, Oracle’s Larry Ellison and OpenAI’s Sam Altman appeared with Son at the White House to announce an artificial intelligence investment of up to $500 billion.
Musk, the Trump backer who is leading the president’s Department of Government Efficiency effort, posted on X that SoftBank didn’t have the money. Altman, a rival to to Musk on AI, responded over X that the funding was there.
By surrounding himself with the wealthiest people in tech, Trump is also stuck in their drama.
“The people in the deal are very, very smart people,” Trump said Thursday. “But Elon, one of the people, he happens to hate. But I have certain hatreds of people, too.”
Trump has a thing for William McKinley
America’s 25th president has a big fan in Trump. Trump likes the tariffs that were imposed during Republican William McKinley’s presidency and helped to fund the government. Trump has claimed the country was its wealthiest in the 1890s when McKinley was in office.
But McKinley might not be a great economic role model for the 21st century.
For starters, the Tax Foundation found that federal receipts were equal to just 3 percent of the overall economy in 1900, McKinley’s reelection year. Tax revenues are now equal to about 17 percent of the US economy and that’s still not enough to fund the government without running massive deficits. So it would be hard to go full McKinley without some chaos.
As Dartmouth College economist Douglas Irwin noted on X, the economic era defined by McKinley was not that great for many people.
“There was a little something called the Panic of 1893 and the unemployment rate was in double digits from 1894-98!!” Irwin wrote. “Not a great decade!”
