Free Republic

U.S. President Donald Trump's senior envoys Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg will travel to Istanbul for potential talks on Thursday on how to end Russia's war in Ukraine, three sources familiar with the plans said on Tuesday. However, a senior U.S. official said it was unclear whether anyone from the Russian government would show up. The White House, State Department, National Security Council and a spokesperson for Witkoff did not immediately respond to a request for comment. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will only attend the talks this week if Russia's Vladimir Putin is also there, an aide to the Ukrainian leader...

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration and Ukraine plan to sign the much-debated minerals deal following a disastrous Oval Office meeting Friday in which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was dismissed from the building, four people familiar with the situation said on Tuesday. President Donald Trump has told his advisers that he wants to announce the agreement in his address to Congress Tuesday evening, three of the sources said, cautioning that the deal had yet to be signed and the situation could change. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ukraine’s presidential administration in Kyiv and the...

The United States wants Ukraine to hold elections, potentially by the end of the year, especially if Kyiv can agree a truce with Russia in the coming months, President Donald Trump's top Ukraine official told Reuters. Keith Kellogg, Trump's special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, said in an interview that Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections, suspended during the war with Russia, "need to be done". "Most democratic nations have elections in their time of war. I think it is important they do so," Kellogg said. "I think it is good for democracy. That's the beauty of a solid democracy, you...

Biden administration officials have assessed that Russian President Vladimir Putin may use chemical weapons in Ukraine first before resorting to a nuclear confrontation with NATO if his troops continue to lose ground.The concerns, according to six people with knowledge of the matter, come amid a push by the administration to ensure allies are prepared for such an event, as well as to mobilize new resources and investments in manufacturing of detection systems for when the chemicals are used. The people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive, internal deliberations, include U.S. and Defense Department officials.

As the Biden administration scrambled to conduct a massive evacuation effort from Afghanistan, American officials quietly instructed U.S. citizens and at-risk Afghans, including Afghan commandos, to head to a secret CIA base outside Kabul to secure safe passage to the U.S. amid increased risks of a terrorist attack on the capital city’s main airport. The clandestine operation, which took place over several weeks in August, resulted in the successful evacuation of hundreds of American citizens and vulnerable Afghans, including members of the elite Afghan special forces and their family members. At least 1,000 Afghan commandos and their family members were...

George Nader, who was a key witness in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, was hit with new federal charges of sex trafficking for allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old boy he transported from Europe. An indictment unsealed Friday morning in Eastern District of Virginia also charges Nader with counts of child pornography and obscenity. The charges come on top of separate child-porn charges leveled by the same prosecutors last month.