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In a matter of days, US President Donald Trump has extended a hand to Iran and bombed Tehran’s allies in Yemen. His administration has both demanded that Iran dismantle its nuclear program and offered more flexibility.Trump has for years dangled force as a means to get his way in negotiations. But on Iran, some observers see less a strategy than mixed messaging, with a real debate on how the norms-breaking president will handle a US adversary of nearly half a century.”There is a lot of contradiction within the Trump administration on Iran,” said one Western diplomat, who asked not to be named due to the sensitive nature of the issue. “Sooner or later, it will have to come to a head.”Trump said on March 7 that he had written a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offering talks on Iran’s contested nuclear program, but also warning of potential military action if he refuses — a threat also made by Israel.Trump, who in his first term ripped up a 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by predecessor Barack Obama, returned to office saying he would resume his “maximum pressure” policy of sanctions but openly said he was doing so reluctantly out of deference to hawkish advisors.Steve Witkoff, a friend of Trump who has quickly become his roving global envoy, hinted at compromise with Iran in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, the conservative pundit and critic of military interventionism who dissuaded Trump from military action against Iran in his first term.Witkoff said Trump was proposing a “verification program” to show Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon — in line with Obama’s deal, which was backed by European allies.Trump’s national security advisor, Mike Waltz, quickly said the goal remained “full dismantlement.” Iran insists it is not seeking a nuclear bomb, but US intelligence believes it could build one quickly if it decided to do so.- Trump surrounded by hawks -Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group, which supports peaceful resolutions, said a maximalist position of ending the nuclear program was a non-starter with Iran.”The Iranians are never going to negotiate with a gun to their heads,” he said.Both Witkoff and the president himself are “not ideologically opposed to a mutually beneficial deal” with Iran, but no one else in the administration appears to agree, Vaez said.While Trump is the chief decision-maker, he has not shown he is focused on Iran, and Witkoff is spread thin as he also negotiates on Gaza and Ukraine, Vaez said.Khamenei already will struggle to accept negotiations with Trump due to his past track record, including ordering the killing of top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in 2020.Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, voiced more optimism about diplomacy. He said Iran could even seek a deal of the sort Trump relishes, such as agreeing to buy US products after years of sanctions.”If Iran was smart, they would take this opportunity and say, well, here’s an American president who really doesn’t seem that heavily involved in this issue,” Vatanka said.”He just wants to be able to say that he got a better deal than Obama did in 2015.”- Play for time? -Trump’s outreach comes at a weak point for the Islamic republic after Israel decimated two of its allies — Hamas, the Palestinian militants who attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Iran’s main regional ally, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, fell in December after an offensive led by Sunni Islamists.Trump in recent days has unleashed major attacks on Yemen’s Iranian-linked Huthi insurgents who have been attacking Black Sea shipping in avowed solidarity with the Palestinians.Hanging over diplomacy is the prospect of military action by Israel, which already struck hard at Iran’s air defenses last year.Israel has sought to join forces on Iran with Gulf Arab nations, although Israel’s renewed Gaza offensive could jeopardize any open alliance.Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that a “credible American and Israeli military threat is instrumental” in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program, including in leveraging a strong agreement.”There is a great amount of cognizance within folks in the administration that Tehran is trying to play the administration to stall for time, and that there needs to be some real benchmarks if diplomacy is going to be an option here,” he said.

With Russian troops ravaging their native Kharkiv, Nikita Demydov and his wife Alina were offered a way out when the United States welcomed them and their five-year-old daughter as part of a humanitarian program.But that welcome is now being withdrawn under President Donald Trump, whose administration has suspended “Uniting for Ukraine,” which allowed more than 200,000 Ukrainians to legally reside in the country. “We have IDs, a Social Security number, a work permit,” said Demydov, 39, who has put down roots and started several small construction businesses in San Diego.”If the new government cancels it, we’ll lose everything again, one more time, and start from scratch again.”The humanitarian program was begun under then-president Joe Biden in April 2022 to offer safety to some of the thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian advance.Many of them had found their way to the US southern border, joining desperate people from Central and Southern America seeking asylum in the US. Biden also established admission programs for people fleeing authoritarian regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.But almost as soon as Trump took power, he began making good on his promise to shut the border and drastically reduce migration.- ‘What for?’ – The programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans have been terminated, while that for Ukrainians has been paused.That stoppage has left tens of thousands of Ukrainians in limbo and in fear.”This program gave Ukrainians the chance for stability,” said Ester Miroshnychenko, an 18-year-old high school student who moved to the United States with her parents and eight siblings in 2022.”If I have to leave everything, it’s gonna be really hard for me. It’s gonna be like everything that I achieved is gonna be destroyed,” said Miroshnychenko, who didn’t speak English when she arrived in the United States. “I would say to them… think about actual people who worked hard, who left everything behind, and they still find motivation to continue even after war.”Taking away those opportunities… for what?”Demydov says the winds of anti-migrant intolerance blowing from Washington are completely out of step with his daily experience in a country where he has always felt welcomed.”You will not see it from the regular people,” he said.”American people are happy to have us here. But at the highest level… I’m a little bit… not even confused. I’m scared.” – ‘Just want to be safe’ – Vlad Fedoryshyn, who settled in the United States in 2020 and became a liaison and supporter for Ukrainians who arrived under the humanitarian program, receives between 20 and 30 calls a day from people fretting about what will happen to them.Many are beginning to see the impact of the program’s pause, with their work permits and other applications paralyzed.”People are very worried,” he said.”When you hear from the government that, hey, we’re not going to have (this) program for you anymore… what does that mean?” asked Fedoryshyn, who works for a mailing company.”It was super hard for them to rent an apartment, to find a job, to just establish their life here,” he added. “And when this thing happened, they don’t know what’s going to happen with their parole, they start feeling unsafe.”Fedoryshyn, 26, believes the Trump administration does not really understand what is happening on the ground in Ukraine, where civilians come under frequent attack from invading Russian forces.The sudden about-face in US policy towards his country is upsetting and disorientating.”We are a small country,” said Fedoryshyn, who learned in textbooks that the United States and other European countries were allies and protectors of Ukraine. For him, seeing Trump rebuke President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House last month was very difficult to swallow. “We were always relying on this protection. And right now, when Trump was talking to the President like that… I almost was crying.”Fedoryshyn says he finds it difficult to believe that other countries, which opened their doors to Ukrainians at the beginning of the war, will want to welcome more migrants.But returning is almost impossible.”Are you going to want to go back to Ukraine, where the war continues, where missiles could fall or a drone could hit your house any day?” he said. “They just want to be safe.”

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen denounced Tuesday a US delegation visit that now includes Vice President JD Vance to Greenland, the Danish island coveted by President Donald Trump, as putting “unacceptable pressure” on both the territory and her country.Vance, who has become Trump’s attack dog on foreign policy matters, will travel with his wife Usha to Pituffik Space Base on Friday “to receive a briefing on Arctic security issues and meet with US servicemembers”, his office said in a statement.The vice president had earlier said in a video message that there was “so much excitement” around his wife’s planned visit to Greenland that he had decided to join her.According to the Arctic island’s outgoing Prime Minister Mute Egede, US national security adviser Mike Waltz will also visit Greenland this week, while US media have reported that Energy Secretary Chris Wright will travel there as well.The visits, presented as private, have angered Danish and Greenlandic politicians.”You can’t organise a private visit with official representatives of another country,” Frederiksen told reporters. The visit comes at a time of political flux in Greenland, where parties are still negotiating to form a new coalition government following a March 11 general election.”This is clearly not a visit that is about what Greenland needs or wants,” Frederiksen told broadcaster DR.”That’s why I have to say that the pressure being put on Greenland and Denmark in this situation is unacceptable. And it’s pressure we will resist.”- ‘So-called tourists’ -The outgoing Greenlandic government posted on Facebook that it had not “sent out any invitations for visits, private or official”. “The current government is a transitional government pending the formation of a new governing coalition, and we have asked all countries to respect this process,” it wrote.Since returning to power in January, Trump has insisted he wants to take over Greenland for national security purposes, refusing to rule out the use of force to do so.In his video message, Vance said other countries sought to use the territory to “threaten the United States, to threaten Canada, and, of course, to threaten the people of Greenland.”A self-governing territory that is seeking to emancipate itself from Copenhagen, Greenland holds massive untapped mineral and oil reserves, though oil and uranium exploration are banned.It is also strategically located between North America and Europe at a time of rising US, Chinese and Russian interest in the Arctic, where sea lanes have opened up because of climate change.Greenland’s location also puts it on the shortest route for missiles between Russia and the United States.Greenland’s likely new prime minister — Jens-Frederik Nielsen of the centre-right Democrats, who won the election — has criticised Trump’s moves on Greenland as “inappropriate”.Aaja Chemnitz, a lawmaker representing Greenland in the Danish parliament, denounced the US delegation’s visit.”No one from the Greenlandic official system has invited the so-called tourists. They’re coming, using soft power diplomacy and also focusing on security issues and this is totally unacceptable,” Chemnitz told AFP.Trump nonetheless alleged the visit was at the invitation of Greenland.”We’ve been invited,” Trump told reporters on Monday.”We’re dealing with a lot of people from Greenland that would like to see something happen with respect to being properly protected and properly taken care of,” he said.Frederiksen meanwhile said Copenhagen and Nuuk were still open to cooperation with Washington.”We are allies, we have a defence agreement on Greenland that dates back to 1951,” Frederiksen said. “There is nothing that indicates, neither in Denmark nor Greenland, that we don’t want to cooperate with the Americans.” 

A US federal judge on Tuesday set a trial date of June 23 in the Justice Department’s criminal case against aircraft manufacturer Boeing over two deadly 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019.In two court filings in Texas, Judge Reed O’Connor said he was vacating an April 11 deadline for Boeing and prosecutors to announce progress on a plea deal, and moving ahead with the trial over the two crashes, in which altogether 346 people died.After the accidents, all 737 MAXs were grounded for 20 months worldwide. Boeing admitted in April 2019 that its Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) — an anti-stall software — had been partly to blame.In a statement Tuesday, Boeing said it was still engaged in “good faith discussions” with the Justice Department regarding an “appropriate” resolution of the matter.Despite Tuesday’s decision, the company could still in theory reach agreement with the prosecution on a new guilty plea, which would spare it the reputational damage that would likely be associated with a public criminal trial.The Justice Department declined to comment on the case.”I am so happy that Judge O’Connor of Texas… has put an end to the delaying tactics of Boeing and the Department of Justice,” said Catherine Berthet, whose daughter Camille died in one of the crashes. “Finally (there is) going to be a trial,” Berthet told AFP. – ‘A trial is necessary’ -Boeing agreed last July to plead guilty to fraud after the Justice Department found the company failed to improve its compliance and ethics program, in breach of a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement following the two MAX crashes.That deal had been approved to address the disasters in Ethiopia and Indonesia.But in December, a judge in Texas rejected the 2024 settlement over apparent flaws in the selection process for a monitor to ensure Boeing’s compliance, sending the company and the government back to continue discussions.The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Boeing was looking to overturn the plea deal related to the 737 MAX crashes, in the hope that the administration of Donald Trump would show it more leniency.”Allowing Boeing to rescind its plea agreement, or lightening the company’s punishment, would mark one of the most prominent examples of the Trump administration’s lighter-touch approach to some white-collar enforcement,” the Journal said. It was not immediately clear why O’Connor decided to cancel the April 11 deadline for the plea deal and move directly to trial. “For years we have been fighting, and I am fighting, on behalf of the victims and my daughter Camille, for truth and justice,” said Berthet.”A trial is necessary to bring this truth to light.”

A judge ordered US authorities Tuesday to cease efforts to detain and deport a New York college student, as President Donald Trump presses his campaign against pupils linked to pro-Palestinian protests. Trump has targeted New York’s Columbia University, where the student is enrolled, as an epicenter of the US student protest movement sparked by Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, stripping federal funds and directing immigration officers to deport foreign student demonstrators.Critics argue that the Trump administration’s campaign is retribution and will have a chilling effect on free speech, while its supporters insist it is necessary to restore order to campuses and protect Jewish students.Authorities had sought to detain Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old South Korean citizen and permanent resident of the United States, under the same powers they used to arrest and hold Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil pending deportation.In both cases, authorities argue the students undermined US foreign policy through their actions, a charge which allows the Secretary of State to deport foreigners.Chung, whom officers reportedly have been unable to find, sued the US government Monday, arguing that “immigration enforcement — here, immigration detention and threatened deportation — may not be used as a tool to punish noncitizen speakers who express political views disfavored by the current administration.” According to Chung’s lawyers, Columbia’s Public Safety department contacted Chung to tell her that Homeland Security agents were seeking her arrest.At an emergency hearing Tuesday, judge Naomi Buchwald ordered the government to stop its effort to locate and remove Chung, a court order said.”Defendants-Respondents are enjoined from detaining the Plaintiff-Petitioner pending further order of this Court,” Buchwald said in a temporary restraining order.- ‘They won’t stop’ -Separately, a number of university professors sued the Trump administration Tuesday, arguing its policy targeting foreign academics was illegal.”The policy prevents or impedes Plaintiffs’ US citizen members from hearing from, and associating with, their non-citizen students and colleagues,” the lawsuit reads.In addition, the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers asked a New York judge to declare Trump’s slashing of $400 million from Columbia’s budget unconstitutional and to restore the funding.Columbia’s student movement has been at the forefront of protests that have exposed deep rifts over the war in Gaza, drawing dividing lines on the issues of protest and free speech across the country.Khalil, the arrested Columbia graduate student, was a prominent leader in the protest movement, leading negotiations between students and university authorities. Lawyers are seeking to have him released from detention in Louisiana while they fight his deportation. Chung, meanwhile, did not have such a high profile in the protest movement.Her lawyers acknowledge that she was detained and released for “obstruction of governmental administration” and the case is pending in the New York courts system.On March 13, federal agents searched two Columbia-owned residences apparently in connection with Chung’s case, according to her attorneys.Activists call the protests that rocked numerous US campuses a show of support for the Palestinian people, while Trump condemns them as anti-Semitic and says they must end.The president has cut $400 million in federal funding for Columbia — including research grants and other contracts — on the grounds that the institution has not adequately protected Jewish students from harassment.Columbia announced Friday a package of concessions to the Trump administration around defining anti-Semitism, policing protests and oversight for specific academic departments.They stopped short however of some of the more strenuous demands of the Trump administration, which nonetheless welcomed the Ivy League college’s proposals.Todd Wolfson, of the American Association of University Professors that joined the academics’ lawsuit, said “the Trump administration is going after international scholars and students who speak their minds about Palestine, but make no mistake: they won’t stop there.”

Vice President JD Vance will visit a US military base in Greenland on Friday, adding to pressure on the autonomous Danish territory that Donald Trump wants to take over.Vance, who has become Trump’s attack dog on foreign policy matters, will travel with his wife Usha to Pituffik Space Base “to receive a briefing on Arctic security issues and meet with US servicemembers,” his office said Tuesday in a statement.The announcement came just hours after Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen criticized the US second lady’s planned visit to Greenland — prior to the vice president stating he would accompany his wife — as putting “unacceptable pressure” on both the territory and Denmark.”There was so much excitement around Usha’s visit to Greenland this Friday that I decided that I didn’t want her to have all that fun by herself, and so I’m going to join her,” Vance said in a video Tuesday.Since returning to power in January, Trump has insisted he wants the United States to take over Greenland for national security purposes and has refused to rule out the use of force.In his video announcement, Vance said other countries sought to use the territory to “threaten the United States, to threaten Canada, and, of course, to threaten the people of Greenland.”Trump has also recently talked about annexing Canada, saying it should become the “51st state” of the United States.”Speaking for President Trump, we want to reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland,” added Vance.Both US and Danish leaders had “ignored Greenland for far too long,” he added. “We think we can take things in a different direction.”According to Greenland’s outgoing Prime Minister Mute Egede, US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz will also visit Greenland this week, while US media have reported that Energy Secretary Chris Wright will travel there as well.The announcement of Usha Vance’s trip on Monday angered Danish and Greenlandic politicians.”You can’t organize a private visit with official representatives of another country,” Frederiksen told reporters.The visit comes at a time of political flux in Greenland, where parties are still negotiating to form a new coalition government following a March 11 election.A self-governing Danish territory which is seeking to emancipate itself from Copenhagen, Greenland holds massive untapped mineral and oil reserves, although oil and uranium exploration are banned.It is also strategically located between North America and Europe at a time of rising US, Chinese and Russian interest in the Arctic, where sea lanes have opened up due to climate change.

Signal is an end-to-end encrypted messaging app that is considered one of the most secure in the world by security professionals, but was never intended to be the go-to choice for White House officials planning a military operation.What differentiates it from other messaging apps, and why has its use by top Trump officials planning strikes on Yemen raised concerns?- What is end-to-end encryption? -End-to-end encryption means that any sent message travels in a scrambled form and can only be deciphered by the end user. Nobody in between — not the company providing the service, not your internet provider, nor hackers intercepting the message — can read the content because they don’t have the keys to unlock it.Signal is not the only messaging service to do this, but unlike WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage, the app is controlled by an independent non-profit — not a big tech behemoth motivated by revenue — winning it more trust with those concerned about privacy.Signal crucially goes further than WhatsApp on data privacy by making metadata such as when the message was delivered and who it was sent to invisible even to the company itself.WhatsApp, meanwhile, shares information with its parent company Meta and third parties, including your phone number, mobile device information, and IP addresses.For these reasons, Signal has always been a go-to messaging service for users especially concerned about communications secrecy, notably people working in security professions, journalists, and their sources.- Who owns Signal? -Founded in 2012, Signal is owned by the Mountain View, California-based Signal Foundation. Its history is linked to WhatsApp: the site was founded by cryptographer and entrepreneur Moxie Marlinspike, with an initial $50 million from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton.Both Signal and WhatsApp, which was bought by Mark Zuckerberg in 2014, are based on the same protocol built by Marlinspike.”We’re not tied to any major tech companies, and we can never be acquired by one either,” Signal’s website reads. Development is mainly supported by grants and donations.Very outspoken compared to other Silicon Valley bosses, Signal’s CEO is Meredith Whittaker, who spent years working for Google, is a fierce critic of business models built on the extraction of personal data.- How secure is Signal? -“Signal is a very solid platform because of the way that it goes about doing its business, the way that it frequently updates the app, the way that it uses end-to-end encryption,” said Michael Daniel, former White House cybersecurity coordinator under Barack Obama and current head of the Cyber Threat Alliance.But “it was never built or intended to be used for discussing military plans,” Daniel told AFP.The real vulnerability, Daniel said, is not so much the app itself, “but everything that goes on around it. It’s more that these (messages) are on personal devices that may or may not be stored in a secure manner or protected in the right way.”He noted that given their responsibilities, the high-level officials involved in the Yemen conversation would have communications teams capable of handling the conversation using the appropriate methods.Coincidentally, the Pentagon warned staff in a memo last week against using Signal, according to NPR, citing threats from Russian hackers.The Pentagon said that Russia was taking advantage of the app’s linked devices feature — which allows users to sign into their account from PCs and laptops — to spy on conversations.Daniel said that under normal circumstances, “it wouldn’t have been that difficult to jump off their phones and do this in the proper protocols,” he said, adding that having an outsider involved would have been impossible if the right technology was used.Matthew Green, who teaches cryptography at Johns Hopkins University and has collaborated with the development of Signal, said on Bluesky that by asking it to step up to “military grade” communications, Signal was “being asked to do a lot!”He warned that Signal, which shot up on the list of most downloaded apps after the revelation, could become a victim of its own success.”As the only encrypted messenger people seem to ‘really’ trust, Signal is going to end up being a target for too many people,” he said.

US President Donald Trump downplayed a growing scandal Tuesday after a journalist was accidentally added to a group chat about air strikes on Yemen, denying any classified information was shared and defending a top aide over the breach.Trump said he would “look into” the use of the Signal app, and put on a united front at a meeting with US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who inadvertently included The Atlantic magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg in the conversation.As Democrats scented blood for perhaps the first time since the Republican returned to power in January, Trump doubled down by attacking Goldberg as a “sleazebag” and said “nobody gives a damn” about the story that has rocked Washington.Journalist Goldberg said that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent information in the Signal chat about targets, weapons and timing ahead of the strikes on March 15. Goldberg also revealed highly critical comments by top US officials about European allies. “There was no classified information,” Trump told reporters when asked about the chat, saying that the commercial app Signal was used by “a lot of people in government.”Waltz said US technical and legal experts were looking into the breach but insisted he had “never met, don’t know, never communicated” with the journalist.”We are looking into him, reviewing how the heck he got in,” said Waltz when Trump asked him to comment during a meeting with new US ambassadors at the White House.- ‘Sloppy, careless, incompetent’ -Their comments came as part of an aggressive Trump administration pushback against the scandal. US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe — who were both reported to be in the chat — endured a stormy Senate Intelligence Committee hearing over the leak.”There was no classified material that was shared,” Gabbard, who has previously caused controversy with comments sympathetic to Russia and Syria, told the committee.Ratcliffe confirmed he was involved in the Signal group but said the communications were “entirely permissible and lawful.”Hegseth, a former Fox News host with no experience running a huge organization like the Pentagon, had said on Monday that “nobody was texting war plans.”But Democrats on the committee called on Waltz and Hegseth to resign.Senator Mark Warner blasted what he called “sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior.”Other White House officials also went on the attack. “Don’t let enemies of America get away with these lies,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said on X, describing the row as a “witch hunt.”Trump and his aides have repeatedly used the same term to dismiss an investigation into whether the Republican’s 2016 election campaign colluded with Moscow.- ‘Freeloading’ -But the report has sparked concerns over the use of a commercial app instead of secure government communications — and about whether US adversaries may have been able to hack in.Trump’s special Ukraine and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was in Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin when he was included in the group, CBS News reported.The report also revealed potentially embarrassing details of what top White House officials think about key allies.Trump said he agreed with Pentagon chief Hegseth’s reported comments in the chat that European nations were “freeloading” off the United States.”Yeah I think they’ve been freeloading,” Trump told reporters. “The European Union’s been absolutely terrible to us on trade.”In the chat, a user identified as Vice President JD Vance opposed the strikes saying that “I just hate bailing Europe out again” as countries there were more affected by Huthi attacks on shipping than the United States.A user identified as Hegseth replies: “I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It’s PATHETIC.”The Huthi rebels, who have controlled much of Yemen for more than a decade, are part of the “axis of resistance” of pro-Iran groups staunchly opposed to Israel and the United States.They have launched scores of drone and missile attacks at ships passing Yemen in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden during the Gaza war, saying they were carried out in solidarity with Palestinians.

Russia and Ukraine agreed Tuesday to halt military strikes in the Black Sea and on energy sites during talks brokered by the United States, which offered to ease pressure on agricultural exports as a first concrete incentive to Moscow.With President Donald Trump pushing for a rapid end to the war that has killed tens of thousands of people, US negotiators shuttled separately over three days in the Saudi capital Riyadh between delegations from Ukraine and Russia.In parallel statements, the White House said that each country “agreed to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea.”The United States said it would also look for ways to enforce a ban on strikes on energy infrastructure in the two countries.The Kremlin meanwhile said the agreement to halt strikes on the Black Sea could come into force only after the lifting of restrictions on its agriculture sector.It said Russia and the United States agreed that a 30-day energy truce ordered by Vladimir Putin last week applies to pipelines, power stations and refineries.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has turned to diplomacy after heavy pressure from Trump including a brief ban on US aid and intelligence sharing, said it was too early to tell if the agreements would work but that they were “the right steps.”Zelensky told a news conference in Kyiv that the talks also discussed bringing in third parties to oversee a future truce.He said that Turkey, which has maintained ties with both sides, could monitor the situation on the Black Sea and that a Middle Eastern nation could supervise the energy agreement.- Offer on agriculture -Trump spoke directly to Putin after taking office, ending the ostracization of him by the West since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.In the first concrete step by the United States toward Russia in return for the engagement, the White House said it would “help restore access to the world market” for Russian agricultural and fertilizer exports.The United States never directly put sanctions on Russian agriculture but had restricted access to payment systems used for international transactions. The issue became a major talking point for Russia, which told countries in the developing world that US policies — not the war itself — were contributing to higher prices.Moscow said the deal would “come into force” after the “lifting of sanctions restrictions” on the Russian Agricultural Bank and other “financial institutions involved in international trade of food,” and only after they are reconnected to the SWIFT international payment system.Zelensky, while saying he did not know full details of the US decision, voiced alarm.”We believe that this is a weakening of the position and a weakening of sanctions,” he said.Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who took part in the talks, said details on the Black Sea agreement were still being worked out.He also warned that if Russian warships moved from the eastern part of the Black Sea then “Ukraine will have full right to exercise right to self-defense.”Ukraine earlier this month agreed to a US-proposed unconditional ceasefire, but Russia turned it down, with Kyiv accusing it of wanting to gain more battlefield advantage first. – ‘Napoleon and Hitler’ -Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave no sign that Moscow was closer to agreeing to a wider ceasefire and put a priority on shipping through the Black Sea.A previous UN-brokered deal allowed millions of tonnes of grain and other food exports to be shipped safely from Ukraine’s ports, but Russia had complained it was not beneficial for its trade.Before the US announcement on agricultural exports, Lavrov accused Western countries of trying to “contain” Russia like “Napoleon and Hitler.”Zelensky said he was expecting to gain clarity from a coming summit in Paris on which countries might contribute forces to oversee possible truce agreements by sending peacekeepers to his country.The Saudi talks came as both Russia and Ukraine escalate their attacks on the ground, with Kyiv saying its air defense units had downed 78 of 139 drones launched by Russia on Tuesday.  In Ukraine’s northeastern city of Sumy, officials said the toll from a Russian strike in a residential area a day earlier climbed to 101 wounded, including 23 children, with one adult and one child in serious condition.Russia has advanced in some areas of the front for months and on Tuesday claimed to have captured two more villages in southern and eastern Ukraine. burs-rlp/js

Estonia’s top diplomat said that Russia has gained an upper hand after President Donald Trump initiated talks to end the Ukraine war and suggested the United States consider a time limit if there is no progress.Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna and his counterparts from Latvia and Lithuania met jointly Tuesday in Washington with Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the Baltic nations — all NATO members — lead concerns over the new US push on Russia and Ukraine.”Putin has now an upper hand in some ways,” Tsahkna told AFP in an interview late Monday ahead of his talks with Rubio.”The question is now, how long is Trump actually going to give Putin to play the games?” he said.Trump campaigned vowing to end the war, which began when Russia invaded its neighbor in 2022, and bristled at the billions of dollars in weapons sent to Kyiv under former president Joe Biden.Trump stunned many European allies when he reached out to Russia and berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a disastrous February 28 meeting at the White House.The Trump administration this week held talks separately with both Russia and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia and said both had agreed to avoid strikes in the Black Sea.The White House said in turn that it would facilitate Russian exports of fertilizer, one grievance of Moscow as the United States slapped sweeping sanctions over the invasion.The Baltic foreign ministers said that while the Black Sea understanding was a welcome beginning, it was premature to see it leading to a full ceasefire.”The Baltic states are quite skeptical about Russia’s intentions. Our intel assessments clearly show that Russia and their instruments of power are all aligned towards war, not towards peace,” Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze told a joint news conference.- ‘Only Putin’ -Tsahkna said Putin’s main motivation was not to reach a ceasefire in Ukraine but more broadly to decrease US influence in Europe and restore his economy.”The only person who can actually finish this war is Putin and we just don’t see within the last couple of weeks that actually he has put anything on the table,” he told AFP.Putin is maintaining his “full-scale war on the battlefield” while diplomacy is ongoing, Tsahkna said.”He sees the opportunity to ask everything that he wants to get,” he added.”If you see what Putin was like two months ago, or even more than two months ago, he was in a weaker position.”Tsahkna said there was no sign Trump would back Russia’s demands and voiced support that the United States was again working with Ukraine.Putin, he said, “understands only strength and hard talks.”The Baltic states, with their vivid memories of Soviet rule, have been at the forefront of defense spending and arming Ukraine.Amid questions of US support, Germany last week approved three billion euros ($3.25 billion) in military aid for Ukraine, part of a shift that Tsahkna called historic.The Baltic nations and Poland last week also took the first step toward exiting a treaty banning anti-personnel mines, pointing to the risk of Russia.Tsahkna said that he expected Finland, which also shares a border with Russia, to follow suit.While acknowledging the humanitarian risks of landmines, Tsahkna said, “We need to understand that Russia is a brutal country, and the war is very brutal.””We need to use everything to protect NATO and us,” he said.