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The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has ordered a halt to virtually all US foreign aid, but made an exception for funding to Israel and Egypt, according to an internal memo to staff at the US state department. “No new funds shall be obligated for new awards or extensions of existing awards until each proposed new award or extension has been reviewed and approved … as consistent with President Trump’s agenda,” said the memo. The sweeping order appears to affect everything from development assistance to military aid – including potentially to Ukraine, which received billions of dollars in weapons under...

The ultimatum given to Vladimir Putin by U.S. President Donald Trump has infuriated Russian propagandists. Russian war bloggers are also outraged. Donald Trump has called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. He warned that if an agreement is not quickly reached, he would have no choice but to "put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries."

Donald Trump’s special envoy yesterday publicly slapped down Nato’s chief over the idea that Ukraine could be admitted to the alliance. Richard Grenell told secretary-general Mark Rutte he would ‘run into a big buzz saw in America’ if, as Mr Rutte suggested, he tried to make it happen. The spat broke out during an annual Ukraine breakfast on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. The event laid bare divisions between those in Mr Trump’s new administration who are pushing for early peace talks with Russia to end the war and others including European ministers who say Vladimir...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday described American President Donald Trump as "pragmatic" and "smart," expressing doubt that the US president would lower global oil prices to harm Russia. Putin noted that extremely high or low oil prices would negatively affect both the Russian and American economies. "He is not only a smart person, but a pragmatic person," Putin told state media. "I have a hard time imagining there will be decisions taken that are detrimental to the American economy," he added. Putin also said that the 2022 "crisis in Ukraine"—a reference to Moscow's full-scale military offensive—might have been avoided...

You love to see it.Trump’s State Department halted funding for military aid to Ukraine for 90 days.According to Politico, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued new guidance on Friday to temporarily halt spending on most foreign aid for 3 months.Military funding for Egypt and Israel will continue.Deep state officials in the State Department were reportedly shocked after Marco Rubio issued the new guidance.The new guidance is effective immediately.“State just totally went nuclear on foreign assistance,” a State Department official said according to Politico.Politico reported:Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday issued new guidance halting spending on most existing foreign aid...

The day has been hectic on the US-Russian negotiations front, leaving the peace-loving people in this world much more optimistic than yesterday. Now that the second Donald J. Trump administration in place and beginning work at a breakneck speed on so many fronts, the prospects for a consolidation of world peace and an end to the war in Ukraine are the best they ever were. Right now, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are exchanging statements in the press in a kind of diplomatic dance to advance the momentum for a first telephone talk, and eventually an in-person talk. And...

Russia "has never refused to communicate with the United States," but contacts have been interrupted by WashingtonMOSCOW, January 24. /TASS/. Moscow has never shied away from contacts with Washington, former US head of state Joe Biden interrupted them, Russian President Vladimir Putin told VGTRK journalist Pavel Zarubin at the end of his visit to Moscow State University, commenting on his US counterpart Donald Trump's statements. He also noted that the current Ukrainian leadership is illegitimate at the moment, which is dangerous because any result of negotiations with it may become null and void. TASS has compiled the key statements of...

Mr. President, I believe that the CIA is providing you inaccurate, false intelligence about Russia’s casualties and the condition of its economy. If you hope to realize your goal of opening negotiations with President Vladimir Putin to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, you must be equipped with the best information available.You have been briefed that Russia has suffered devastating losses — as many as 800,000 casualties — and that Russia’s economy is weak and fragile. Data from open sources paint a diametrically opposite picture.One of the best open sources for information about Russian casualties is Mediazona:Mediazona (Russian:...

President Donald Trump partially blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country. Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, launching a war that continues to this day. Under former President Joe Biden, the U.S. sent billions in aid and weapons to Ukraine to help fend off the invaders. On the campaign trail, Trump was critical of the aid, which many congressional Republicans have vehemently opposed. As a senator, Vice President JD Vance said last year that blocking assistance to the country was his second-biggest priority. Speaking with Sean Hannity for...

US President Donald Trump on Thursday said he wanted to immediately meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, telling reporters that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had told him he was ready to make a deal to end the war.

<p>Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration considered making a deal that would have lined Melania Trump’s pockets in order to curry favor with the new president, according to a report.</p><p>As part of a desperate scramble to make inroads with Donald Trump, the Ukrainian president’s aides floated brokering the purchase of the Ukrainian language rights to the first lady’s memoir, unnamed Ukrainian officials told The New York Times.</p>

Donald Trump directly blamed Vladimir Putin for the fact the war in Ukraine is still raging — a day after threatening massive tariffs and sanctions on Russian products if he fails to make a deal to end the conflict. Speaking in a video address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, the United States president said he would bring down the cost of oil, because "if the price came down, the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately," adding: "It's time to end it." Asked whether he believed the war in Ukraine would end by the time the WEF returned to Davos...

The high popularity that the Ukrainian president had in the early days of the Russian invasion, with an approval rating of about 90 percent, has dipped badly. ... And a new trouble spot for Mr. Zelensky has emerged: the revival of political opposition in Ukraine, animated by the prospects of a cease-fire and the elections that could soon follow. His opponents are also encouraged by the barrage of criticism Mr. Trump and his aides have aimed at Mr. Zelensky. Two opponents who ran against Mr. Zelensky in Ukrainian elections in 2019 — former President Petro O. Poroshenko and former Prime...

Intensifying talk in European capitals about sending peacekeepers to Ukraine’s front lines is welcome but it won’t work without American boots on the ground, President Volodymyr Zelensky says at the Davos World Economic Forum meeting. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has been at Davos this week drumming up support, but also attempting to ingratiate himself with President Donald Trump by acting as a conduit for America First messaging to European leaders. Nevertheless, Bloomberg reports the Ukrainian “bristled” at the suggestion the United States wouldn’t put boots on the ground in Ukraine to deter further Russian aggression.

President Donald Trump has had a busy couple of days back in the White House, and he isn’t slowing down. On the campaign trail, he promised he would get the Russia/Ukraine conflict resolved. And I have no doubt we’re closer to this war ending than we ever were when Biden was president. The Washington Post reported that two days after his reelection, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke for about 20 minutes. During the call, Trump urged Putin not to escalate the war in Ukraine and highlighted the U.S.’s strong military presence in Europe. Putin also shifted his public rhetoric...

The United States should send its peacekeepers to Ukraine. This was stated by the head of the Kiev regime, Vladimir Zelensky, in an interview with Bloomberg. Zelensky said that any effective peacekeeping forces deployed on the Ukraine, should include American troops, the newspaper notes. According to him, his European allies do not have enough soldiers to become a realistic deterrent for President Vladimir Putin and any other decision risks leading to a split within the NATO alliance. "This cannot happen without the United States. Even if some European friends think it can be, no, it can't be. No one will...

SNIPRecent credible polling shows that his prior widespread popularity has been smashed as a war-weary public grows less trusting of his leadership and more suspicious regarding rampant corruption in Ukraine. In a large survey taken by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 52 percent of Ukrainians say they "trust" Zelensky now, down from the 77 percent who trusted him in 2023. The percentage saying they "do not trust" Zelensky has almost doubled over that same time period. Not surprisingly, Zelensky's support is weakest in the eastern and southern parts of the country, where most of the warfighting has unfolded.SNIPBut the...

According to the Slovak prime minister, foreign "specialists" have already arrived in SlovakiaPRAGUE, January 22. /TASS/. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has called an emergency meeting of the republic’s Security Council after security services received intelligence about an impending coup d’etat with the involvement of "foreign experts" who helped launch the color revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, the Dennik N web portal said. Fico stressed that he was ready for anything "but the country cannot be overthrown." According to him, foreign "specialists" have already arrived in Slovakia. He said that attempts to overthrow legitimate authorities may be carried out by...

One of Donald Trump's first executive orders as president was to suspend any aid to foreign countries for 90 days. The consequences of this decision are still difficult to assess. On the one hand, we can talk about stopping the transfer of money and weapons to Ukraine. Trump believes that about 200 billion dollars was allocated to this country in the form of equipment and finance, and not only by America. However, Washington intends to audit the rationality of the use of these funds. On the other hand, the appropriations for aid to Ukraine were approved by the Congress, and...

President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to impose "high levels" of sanctions on Russia and tariffs on imports from there if the country did not reach a settlement to end its nearly three-year-old war against Ukraine. Trump's warning, made in a social media post on his third day as president, called out Russian President Vladimir Putin by name. "If we don't make a 'deal,' and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries," Trump wrote on Truth...