Russia rejoices at Trump-Putin call as Zelensky rejects talks without Ukraine present

Traditional Russian wooden nesting dolls, Matryoshka dolls, depicting Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R), US President Donald Trump and his wife Melania (L) are displayed for sale at a gift shop on the touristic Arbat street in downtown Moscow on February 13, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 14 February 2025
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Russia rejoices at Trump-Putin call as Zelensky rejects talks without Ukraine present

  • Trump’s change of tack seemed to identify Putin as the only player that matters in ending the fighting and looked set to sideline Zelensky, as well as European governments, in any peace talks
  • Zelensky said he would not accept any negotiations about Ukraine that do not include his country in the talks

Russian officials and state media took a triumphant tone Thursday after President Donald Trump jettisoned three years of US policy and announced he would likely meet soon with Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate a peace deal in the almost three-year war in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, said he would not accept any negotiations about Ukraine that do not include his country in the talks. European governments also demanded a seat at the table.
Trump’s change of tack seemed to identify Putin as the only player that matters in ending the fighting and looked set to sideline Zelensky, as well as European governments, in any peace talks. The Ukrainian leader recently described that prospect as “very dangerous.”
Putin has been ostracized by the West since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of its neighbor, and in 2023 the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader alleging war crimes.
Trump’s announcement created a major diplomatic upheaval that could herald a watershed moment for Ukraine and Europe.

 

Russia rejoices at Putin’s spotlight role
Russian officials and state-backed media sounded triumphant after Wednesday’s call between Trump and Putin that lasted more than an hour.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that the “position of the current (US) administration is much more appealing.”
The deputy chair of Russia’s National Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said in an online statement: “The presidents of Russia and the US have talked at last. This is very important in and of itself.”
Senior lawmaker Alexei Pushkov said the call “will go down in the history of world politics and diplomacy.”
“I am sure that in Kyiv, Brussels, Paris and London they are now reading Trump’s lengthy statement on his conversation with Putin with horror and cannot believe their eyes,” Pushkov wrote on his messaging app.




Screenshot showing an opinion column on Ria Novosti about the Trump-Putin call.

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said in an opinion column: “The US finally hurt Zelensky for real,” adding that Trump had found “common ground” with Putin.

“This means that the formula ‘nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine’ — a sacred cow for Zelensky, the European Union and the previous US administration — no longer exists. Moreover, the opinion of Kyiv and Brussels (the European Union) is of no interest to Trump at all,” it added.
The pro-Kremlin Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda went even further and published a column stating in the headline that “Trump signed Zelensky’s death sentence.”
“The myth of Russia as a ‘pariah’ in global politics, carefully inflated by Western propaganda, has burst with a bang,” the column said.
 




Screenshot showing an article on Komsomolskaya Pravda about the Trump-Putin call.

Zelensky won’t accept talks without Ukraine
In his first comments to journalists since Trump held individual calls first with Putin and then Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader conceded that it was “not very pleasant” that the American president spoke first to Putin. But he said the main issue was to “not allow everything to go according to Putin’s plan.”
“We cannot accept it, as an independent country, any agreements (made) without us,” Zelensky said as he visited a nuclear power plant in western Ukraine.
During the conversation with Trump on Wednesday, Zelensky said, the US president told him he wanted to speak to both the Russian and Ukrainian leaders at the same time.
“He never mentioned in a conversation that Putin and Russia was a priority. We, today, trust these words. For us it is very important to preserve the support of the United States of America,” Zelensky said.

 

Alarm bells ring in Europe and NATO
Trump appears ready to make a deal over the heads of Ukraine and European governments.
He also effectively dashed Ukraine’s hopes of becoming part of NATO, which the alliance said less than a year ago was an “irreversible” step, or getting back the parts of its territory captured so far by the Russian army. Russia currently occupies close to 20 percent of the country.
The US administration’s approach to a potential settlement is notably close to Moscow’s vision of how the war should end. That has caused alarm and tension within the 32-nation NATO alliance and 27-nation European Union.
Some European governments that fear their countries could also be in the Kremlin’s crosshairs were alarmed by Washington’s new course, saying they must be part of negotiations.
“Ukraine, Europe and the United States should work on this together. TOGETHER,” Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote Wednesday on social media.

 

EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas said: “It is clear that any deal behind our backs will not work. You need the Europeans. You need the Ukrainians.”
Others balked at Trump’s overtures and poured cold water on his upbeat outlook.
“Just as Putin has no intention of stopping hostilities even during potential talks, we must maintain Western unity and increase support … to Ukraine, and political and economic pressure on Russia,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said. “Our actions must show that we are not changing course.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was right for Trump to speak to Putin, and Scholz noted that he had done so himself as recently as November. He said “a dictated peace” would never win European support.
“We also will not accept any solution that leads to a decoupling of American and European security,” Scholz said. “Only one person would benefit from that: President Putin.”
 




German Chancellor Olaf Scholz answers questions in a ZDF program  in Berlin, Germany, on February 13, 2025. (REUTERS)

A Ukrainian soldier is resigned to Trump and Putin talking
A soldier from Ukraine’s 53rd Brigade fighting in the eastern Donetsk region said it was normal for Trump and Putin to speak to each other.
“If dialogue is one way to influence the situation, then let them talk — but let it be meaningful enough for us to feel the results of those talks,” the soldier said, insisting on anonymity due to security risks for her family in occupied Ukrainian territory.
But she was skeptical about the negotiations, given the incompatible demands tabled in the past by Russia and Ukraine.
“The conditions are unacceptable for everyone. What we propose doesn’t work for them, and what they propose is unacceptable for us,” she said. “That’s why I, like probably every soldier here, believe this can only be resolved by force.”
A Ukrainian army officer, who said he’s in touch with more than 40 brigades, said the troops he regularly speaks with don’t want a peace deal at any price even as they are desperate for more Western military aid.
“The stock we currently have, in terms of ammunition, is enough to last two or three weeks, maybe a month,” he told The Associated Press, asking that his name not be used because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.
“We definitely cannot deal with it on our own,” he added.
 


Trump targets lawyers in immigration cases, lawsuits against administration

Updated 5 sec ago
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Trump targets lawyers in immigration cases, lawsuits against administration

  • The Trump administration has been hit with more than 100 lawsuits challenging White House actions on immigration, transgender rights and other issues since the start of the president’s second term

WASHINGTON: Legal advocacy groups sounded alarms on Saturday after US President Donald Trump threatened new actions against lawyers and law firms that bring immigration lawsuits and other cases against the government that he deems unethical.
In a memorandum to US Attorney General Pam Bondi late on Friday, Trump said lawyers were helping to fuel “rampant fraud and meritless claims” in the immigration system, and directed the Justice Department to seek sanctions against attorneys for professional misconduct.
The order also took aim at law firms that sue the administration in what Trump, a Republican, called “baseless partisan” lawsuits. He asked Bondi to refer such firms to the White House to be stripped of security clearances, and for federal contracts they worked on to be terminated.
Ben Wizner, a senior lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the new directive sought to “chill and intimidate” lawyers who challenge the president’s agenda. Trump has separately mounted attacks on law firms over their internal diversity policies and their ties to his political adversaries. “Courts have been the only institution so far that have stood up to Trump’s onslaught,” Wizner said. “Courts can’t play that role without lawyers bringing cases in front of them.”
The ACLU is involved in litigation against the administration over immigrant deportations, including the expulsion of alleged Venezuelan gang members.
The Trump administration has been hit with more than 100 lawsuits challenging White House actions on immigration, transgender rights and other issues since the start of the president’s second term. Legal advocacy groups, along with at least 12 major law firms, have brought many of the cases.
A White House spokesperson, Taylor Rogers, said “President Trump is delivering on his promise to ensure the judicial system is no longer weaponized against the American people.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the memorandum, which directed Bondi to assess lawyers and firms that brought cases against the government over the past eight years.
Law firm Keker, Van Nest & Peters, which is working with the ACLU in an immigrant rights case against the administration, said in a statement that it was “inexcusable and despicable” for Trump to attack lawyers based on their clients or legal work opposing the federal government.
Representatives from other prominent law firms that are representing clients in cases against Trump’s administration, including Hogan Lovells, Jenner & Block, Perkins Coie and WilmerHale, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump issued executive orders this month against law firms Perkins Coie and Paul Weiss, suspending their lawyers’ security clearances and restricting their access to government buildings, officials and federal contracting work.
The president also last month suspended security clearances of lawyers at Covington & Burling, in each case citing the firms’ past work for his political or legal opponents.
The Keker firm on Saturday called on law firms to sign a joint court brief supporting a lawsuit by Perkins Coie challenging the executive order against it.
Paul Weiss on Thursday struck a deal with Trump to rescind the executive order against it, pledging to donate the equivalent of $40 million in free legal work to support some of the administration’s causes such as support for veterans and combating antisemitism.
Lawyers are bound by professional ethics rules that require them to investigate allegations before filing lawsuits and not deceive the courts. Imposing disciplinary sanctions on lawyers who violate such rules falls on the court system, not federal prosecutors, though prosecutors can charge lawyers with criminal misconduct.
Some lawyers aligned with Trump faced professional discipline over claims that they violated legal ethics rules in challenging Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election win over Trump.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who later was an attorney for Trump, was disbarred in New York and in the District of Columbia over baseless claims he made alleging the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Lawyers for Civil Rights, a legal advocacy group suing the administration over deportations, called Trump’s sanctions threat hypocritical in a statement to Reuters, saying Trump and his allies “have repeatedly thumbed their noses at the rule of law.”


Japan, China, and South Korea agree to promote peace

Updated 23 March 2025
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Japan, China, and South Korea agree to promote peace

  • Seoul and Tokyo typically take a stronger line against North Korea than China, which remains one of Pyongyang’s most important allies and economic benefactors

TOKYO: Japan, South Korea and China agreed Saturday that peace on the Korean Peninsula was a shared responsibility, Seoul’s foreign minister said, in a meeting of the three countries’ top diplomats in which they pledged to promote cooperation.
The talks in Tokyo followed a rare summit in May in Seoul where the three neighbors — riven by historical and territorial disputes — agreed to deepen trade ties and restated their goal of a denuclearised Korean peninsula.
But they come as US tariffs loom over the region, and as concerns mount over North Korea’s weapons tests and its deployment of troops to support Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“We reaffirmed that maintaining peace and stability on the Korean peninsula is a shared interest and responsibility of the three countries,” South Korea’s Cho Tae-yul told reporters after the trilateral meeting.
Seoul and Tokyo typically take a stronger line against North Korea than China, which remains one of Pyongyang’s most important allies and economic benefactors.
Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said he, Cho, and China’s Wang Yi “had a frank exchange of views on trilateral cooperation and regional international affairs ... and confirmed that we will promote future-orientated cooperation.”
“The international situation has become increasingly severe, and it is no exaggeration to say that we are at a turning point in history,” Iwaya said at the start of Saturday’s meeting.
This makes it “more important than ever to make efforts to overcome division and confrontation,” he added.
Wang noted this year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII, saying “only by sincerely reflecting on history can we better build the future.”
At two-way talks between Iwaya and Wang on Saturday, the Japanese minister said he had “frankly conveyed our country’s thoughts and concerns” on disputed islands, detained Japanese nationals and the situation in Taiwan and the South China Sea, among other contentious issues.
Ukraine was also on the agenda, with Iwaya warning “any attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by force will not be tolerated anywhere in the world.”
Climate change and aging populations were among the broad topics officials had said would be discussed, as well as working together on disaster relief and science and technology.
Iwaya said the trio had “agreed to accelerate coordination for the next summit” between the countries’ leaders.

 


Russian authorities bring in trains to fight oil depot fire

Updated 22 March 2025
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Russian authorities bring in trains to fight oil depot fire

  • Regional officials said four trains were drafted into the site at Kavkazskaya
  • 473 firefighters and 189 pieces of equipment were engaged in the operation

MOSCOW: Authorities in southern Russia’s Krasnodar region brought in firefighting trains loaded with water on Saturday to help battle a blaze still raging at an oil depot following a Ukrainian drone attack.
Regional officials, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said four trains were drafted into the site at Kavkazskaya, where the fire first broke out last Tuesday.
Firefighters were tackling a fire still burning at one of the tanks at the site covering 1,250 sq. meters (13,500 square feet) while also trying to cool other equipment at the site.
The statement said 473 firefighters and 189 pieces of equipment were engaged in the operation.
On Friday, depressurization of the burning tank triggered an explosion and the release of burning oil.
Reports on Friday said the fire covered some 10,000 square meters.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said this week the attack amounted to a violation of a proposed ceasefire on energy sites in the more than three-year-old war, agreed between Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump.
The accord fell short of a wider agreement that the US had sought, and which was accepted by Ukraine, for a blanket 30-day truce.


Migrants deported from Mauritania recount police beatings

Passengers from the Mauritanian side of the Senegal river disembark from a pirogue in Rosso, Senegal, on March 20, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 22 March 2025
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Migrants deported from Mauritania recount police beatings

  • Government spokesperson Houssein Ould Meddou said migrants were returned to the border crossings through which they had entered the country

ROSSO, SENEGAL: Ismaila Bangoura has terrible dreams about the night when he says Mauritanian police burst into the place in Nouakchott he shared with other Guineans, beat them up, and carted them off to a police station.
After three days in detention without food or access to toilets, they were taken to the border with Senegal on March 7, the 25-year-old said.
Since then, the group has wandered the streets of Rosso with nowhere to go and no connections to this remote part of northern Senegal.
“They beat us and stuck us in jail without telling us why,” said Bangoura, a trained carpenter who emigrated to Mauritania in 2024 to earn a living.
“They took everything we had — money, watches, phones. They handcuffed us and crammed us into buses to deport us,” he said.
He was left with only the clothes on his back — a Guinea squad football jersey and a pair of black shorts.
For several weeks now, Mauritania has been throwing out migrants, mostly from neighboring countries in West Africa like Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, and Guinea.
The campaign has sparked indignation in the region.
The vast, arid country on the Atlantic seaboard is a departure point for many African migrants seeking to reach Europe by sea.
The authorities say their “routine” deportations target undocumented people.
They have not provided information on the number of people expelled.
None of the migrants said they intended to take to the sea.
Interior Minister Mohammed Ahmed Ould Mohammed Lemine told journalists all the foreigners deported had been in Mauritania illegally.
He said the expulsions were “compliant with international conventions.”
Government spokesperson Houssein Ould Meddou said migrants were returned to the border crossings through which they had entered the country.
NGOs, however, have condemned the “inhumane” deportations, and the Senegalese government has voiced outrage at the treatment of its nationals.
A few meters from the Rosso crossing, about 30 migrants — mostly Guinean men, women, and children — squatted in a dilapidated building littered with rubbish, each trying to carve out a space of their own in the narrow edifice.
“You have to get in there quickly if you want to secure a place to sleep at night,” commented a young man named Abibou.
The rest “sleep on the street,” he said.
The most fortunate end up at the nearby Red Cross premises, where they are looked after.
But Mbaye Diop, the head of the Red Cross branch in Rosso, said there had been such a large influx of migrants recently that his organization could no longer accommodate everyone.
“The people who come to us generally arrive exhausted. They’re hungry and need a shower. Some also need psychological support,” he said.
Around him, several migrants tried to get some sleep on old mats despite the constant noise and movement of people around them.
Others remained huddled in their corners, staring blankly.
“We’re hungry. We haven’t eaten anything since this morning,” one said.
Some said they were getting restless and now just wanted to go home.
Amid the hubbub, Ramatoulaye Camara tried to soothe her crying toddler.
She was also deported in early March.
Despite being heavily pregnant with another child, she was — like many others — beaten by Mauritanian guards, imprisoned, and stripped of all her belongings, she recounted.
“We suffered a lot,” she said quietly, trying to comfort the little girl.
Idrissa Camara, 33, has been working as a carpenter in Nouakchott since 2018.
On March 16, he says he was arrested at his workplace and deported. Since then, he has been wandering around Rosso in the same grey and yellow overalls and protective boots, his only remaining possessions.
“They got so dirty and smelly these past few days that I had to go and wash them in the river. I had to hang around nearby in my underwear while they dried,” he said.
The married father of two said he had kept his deportation secret from his family so as not to distress them and planned to return to Nouakchott and his job there.
“All I want is to be able to work and provide for my family. I haven’t harmed anyone,” he said.

 


Daesh suspect who held journalists gets life sentence in France

Updated 22 March 2025
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Daesh suspect who held journalists gets life sentence in France

  • Nemmouche is already in prison after a Belgian court jailed him for life in 2019 for killing four people at a museum in May 2014, after he had returned from Syria

PARIS: A French court sentenced a French extremist to life in prison for holding four journalists captive more than a decade ago in the Syrian Arab Republic.
Mehdi Nemmouche, 39, was convicted of having held the French reporters hostage for Daesh from June 2013 to April 2014.
The sentence carries a minimum term of 22 years before he is eligible for parole.
All four journalists during the trial said they clearly recognized Nemmouche’s voice and manner of speech as belonging to a so-called Abu Omar, who terrorized them and made sadistic jokes while they were in captivity.
Nemmouche denied ever being their jailer, only admitting in court that he was a Daesh fighter in Syria.
From the beginning of the trial last month, he has claimed only to have fought against the forces of former President Bashar Assad.
“Yes, I was a terrorist, and I will never apologize for that.”
Nemmouche has said he joined Al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate and then Daesh — both listed as “terrorists” in the EU — while in Syria.
Nemmouche is already in prison after a Belgian court jailed him for life in 2019 for killing four people at a museum in May 2014, after he had returned from Syria.
Daesh emerged in 2013 in the chaos that followed the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, slowly gaining ground before declaring a so-called caliphate in large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq.
A US-backed offensive dealt the final blow to that proto-state in 2019.
Daesh abducted and held hostage 25 Western journalists and aid workers in Syria between 2012 and 2014, publicly executing several of them, according to French prosecutors.
Reporters Didier Francois and Edouard Elias, and then Nicolas Henin and Pierre Torres, were abducted 10 days apart while reporting from northern Syria in June 2013.
They were released in April 2014.
Henin alerted the authorities after he saw a facial composite of the presumed perpetrator of the May 2014 Brussels attack that looked very familiar.
Henin, in a magazine article in September 2014, recounted Nemmouche punching him in the face and terrorizing Syrian detainees.
During the trial, he detailed the repeated torture and mock executions he witnessed while in captivity.
=Nemmouche, whose father is unknown, was brought up in the French foster system and became radicalized in prison before going to Syria, say investigators.
The court also handed life sentences to two other extremists tried in absentia because they are presumed dead.
Belgian extremist Oussama Atar, a senior Daesh commander, had already been sentenced to life for the 2015 terror attacks in Paris claimed by Daesh that killed 130 people and the Brussels bombings by the group that took the lives of 32 others in 2016.
The other defendant was French Daesh member Salim Benghalem, accused of having been the jailer-in-chief of the hostages.
The court also handed a 22-year sentence to Frenchman Abdelmalek Tanem, 35, accused of being one of the jailers.
None of the journalists had recognized Tanem, who said he was a bodyguard for several IS leaders and slept in the basement of an eye hospital where they were held hostage, but claimed to have never seen them.
But prosecutors argued he was one of around 10 French-speaking Daesh jailers.
The court also handed a 20-year sentence to Kais Al Abdallah, a 41-year-old Syrian extremist accused of having helped abduct the journalists and of having been deputy in command in the Syrian city of Raqqa, all of which he denies.