Connect with us

News

Russia says it does not want a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine

Published

on

Russia says it does not want a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine

Stay informed with free updates

Russia does not want a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine and is pushing for a long-term peace settlement that will take into account its interests and concerns, a senior aide to Vladimir Putin has said.

Yuri Ushakov, the Russian president’s foreign policy adviser, told state television on Thursday that the 30-day ceasefire proposed after talks between the US and Ukraine this week was “nothing other than a temporary breather for Ukrainian troops”.

Russia’s rejection of the US proposal aligned with Putin’s hardline stance ahead of high-level talks later on Thursday in Moscow, where a plane linked to Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, has landed.

Advertisement

Those demands would in effect end Ukraine’s existence as a functioning state and place it squarely in Russia’s orbit while severely limiting Nato’s presence east of Germany.

Ushakov said Witkoff, who spoke to Putin last month as the US began extraordinary attempts at a rapprochement with Russia, would not be the White House’s main envoy to Moscow.

The Russian adviser said Washington and Moscow had agreed that any future contacts would be “of a closed nature” and declined to name the envoy.

He said he told US national security adviser Mike Waltz a day earlier that Russia’s goal was “a long-term peace agreement that takes into account . . . our well-known concerns”.

“Nobody needs steps that imitate peaceful actions in this situation,” Ushakov said, adding that Moscow “hopes [the US] knows our position and wants to believe that they will take it into account as we work together going forward”.

Advertisement

Putin has demanded that Ukraine recognise Russia’s annexation of four partially occupied south-eastern regions and the Crimean peninsula, withdraw its troops from those areas, and pledge to never join Nato as preconditions for the ceasefire.

Russia is also pushing for caps on Ukraine’s military, protections for Russian speakers in the country and fresh elections to replace President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

It has demanded an effective rollback of Nato’s eastward expansion since the cold war, which Putin has claimed forced him to order his invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

While the Trump administration has ruled out Ukraine joining Nato and has also said it wants Kyiv to hold fresh elections, it has threatened Russia with future sanctions if Putin does not make concessions.

The US restored military aid and intelligence sharing to Ukraine earlier this week after senior officials held talks in Saudi Arabia over Trump’s ceasefire proposal.

Advertisement

Trump then said Moscow needed to agree to a pause, warning that he could “do things financially that would be very bad for Russia”.

“Hopefully we can get a ceasefire from Russia,” Trump said after meeting Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin on Wednesday. “I’ve gotten some positive messages, but a positive message means nothing. This is a very serious situation.”

News

Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

Published

on

Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

Donald Trump has terminated the remaining members of the independent, federal commission that assists election administration officials nationwide just a few months before the midterm elections, multiple outlets reported Thursday.

The remaining three commissioners of the four-member bipartisan commission ⁠were forced out on Thursday in different ways. The one Republican appointee resigned and the other ⁠two, Democratic appointees were notified of their terminations via email from ​the White House presidential personnel office.

“On ‌behalf of President ‌Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position ‌as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” the email, seen by Reuters, said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Election Assistance Commission serves as a “national clearinghouse of information on election ‌administration”, accredits testing laboratories and certifies voting systems, and maintains the national mail-voter registration form developed by the National ​Voter Registration Act of 1993, according to the commission’s website. The terminations follow Trump and top administration officials’ advocacy to change vote-by-mail requirements and investigations into the 2020 election outcome, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Advertisement

“It is ⁠irresponsible and dangerous that this Administration remains dead set on ​causing chaos for ​our election officials across this ​country,” Arizona secretary of state Adrian Fontes said in a ​Thursday statement. “This ‌move undermines the integrity ​of nonpartisan ​election administration.”

The 2002 law that established the commission, the Help America Vote Act, states the president can appoint replacements to the commission.

It is unclear how Trump will move ahead with the commission.

Reuters contributed reporting

Advertisement
Continue Reading

News

Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

Published

on

Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

Former U.S. Olympian David Hearn (left) walks with his attorney Norman Eisen to speak to reporters and protesters gathered after his arraignment at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

Finn Gomez/Getty Images


hide caption



toggle caption

Advertisement

Finn Gomez/Getty Images

Former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn pleaded not guilty to damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in D.C. Superior Court Thursday morning.

Federal prosecutors charged Hearn with a single count of destruction of property causing more than $1,000 in damage to the pool.

Hearn has previously claimed, which his attorneys repeated during a short press conference outside the court, that he simply touched the water in the pool out of curiosity.

Advertisement

The Trump administration had just completed a $14 million renovation of the pool.

But shortly after the work finished, peeling paint and algae gathered in the water. The remodel has been largely criticized as a massive failure and waste of taxpayer dollars.

Superior Court Judge Carmen McLean released Hearn on his own recognizance. His next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 5.

Norm Eisen, one of Hearn’s attorneys, spoke to reporters outside of court following the hearing. He said the administration is using Hearn as a “scapegoat … for their own failures.”

“It is not a crime to touch the reflecting pool, to touch water in the United States of America,” he said.

Advertisement

Prosecutors say there is a host of evidence against Hearn.

This is a developing story.

Continue Reading

News

Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Published

on

Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

Advertisement

Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

Advertisement

The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending