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Ukrainian teen in viral TikTok fleeing Kyiv says Russians convinced ‘the war isn’t real’: ‘I was there’

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Ukrainian teen in viral TikTok fleeing Kyiv says Russians convinced ‘the war isn’t real’: ‘I was there’

NEWNow you can hearken to Fox Information articles!

At age 17, Yelizaveta “Lizzy” Lysova is on her personal in Switzerland after fleeing warfare surrounding her household’s dwelling in Kyiv, Ukraine. 

When Russia first invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Lysova, like many Gen Zers, took to TikTok. However she didn’t anticipate to garner greater than 16 million views on a video of herself dancing round in a bathrobe in her kitchen attempting to make mild of the truth that “Russia attacked us,” forcing her to depart in a number of hours. 

Enjoying a clip of the 2009 track “Who’s That Chick?” by David Guetta, and that includes Rihanna, Lysova, nonetheless in her bathrobe, continues to smile and exhibit her dance strikes, as phrases pop up on the display.

“Whenever you wakened at 5 a.m. to the sounds of explosions and the whole lot trembling and understand that Russia declared warfare on u so u r packing you sh1t and dipping,” she wrote.

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RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE: LIVE UPDATES 

“Love Russia,” she quipped, ending that the second TikTok was considered greater than 1.1 million occasions. 

Describing it each as shock and a coping mechanism, Lysova instructed Fox Information Digital on Monday that when she created the video on the onset of the warfare, she didn’t totally comprehend what was taking place or the impact that Russian shelling would have on the Ukrainian individuals within the three weeks to come back.

KYIV, BATTERED BY RUSSIAN SHELLING, TO WELCOME 3 EUROPEAN PRIME MINISTERS BEFORE 35-HOUR CURFEW TAKES EFFECT 

Not ‘some type of a dream’

“In the intervening time, you do not actually understand what’s taking place,” she mentioned, now protected and talking through Zoom from her Swiss dorm room. “It actually took a while for me to grasp that it is really occurring, and it isn’t prefer it’s some type of a dream that is taking place – as a result of it was actually sudden.” 

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“A couple of days earlier than, I heard the information that principally, like, there was some rigidity between Russia and Ukraine, like many individuals have been speaking about how Russian troops are standing on the border of Ukraine,” she recalled. “However lots of people have been skeptical about it, and so they have been like, ‘No, the warfare shouldn’t be going to occur’ as a result of it appears so unrealistic – you by no means know what’s going to come back to you.” 

“At 5 a.m., I woke as much as the whole lot, like, shaking, and I used to be like, ‘Wait, what was that an earthquake?’” Lysova mentioned. “After which I heard a second explosion, and I used to be like, ‘Yeah, that is – that is warfare.’” 

Her dad and mom have been away in western Ukraine on the time the Russian invasion started, so Lysova introduced her little sister to the basement of their dwelling within the outskirts of Kyiv and waited for his or her brother, who lives 20 minutes away, to reach. They weren’t certain whether or not they wanted to flee straight away, however when she mentioned their home’s safety digicam captured video of an explosion within the distance above the Dnieper River and what they believed was a Russian aircraft, she readied herself, packing only a single suitcase of necessities. 

“I am clearly actually terrified for my individuals, my household who stayed in Ukraine for like the entire nation as a result of I like Ukraine and I like the town – the town of Kyiv. And I like the entire nation,” she instructed Fox Information Digital on Monday. “It is actually devastating to see how harmless individuals are struggling.” 

“I am clearly actually terrified for my individuals … as a result of I like Ukraine and I like the town – the town of Kyiv. … It is actually devastating to see how harmless individuals are struggling.” 

— Yelizaveta “Lizzy” Lysova, 17

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Leaving her canine Peach and cat Anfisa behind, Lysova, her mom and her sister started their drive towards Romania, experiencing heavy visitors and lengthy traces of individuals ready to have their paperwork checked. 4 days after the invasion started, it struck midnight on Feb. 28 – her sister’s fifteenth birthday – proper as they crossed into Romania. She later flew to Switzerland, the place she attends boarding faculty. 

She mentioned she’s discovering it troublesome to concentrate on her research understanding her dad and brother stayed behind. 

“It’s actually onerous for me to focus, particularly prefer it’s been occurring for weeks now. And I can not actually like – no focus, no sleep, like nothing as a result of it is actually like bothering me,” she mentioned. “It’s not good to expertise it, particularly understanding that your loved ones’s nonetheless there, and they’re nonetheless in peril. My exams are developing quickly and like, they don’t seem to be doing any excuses for Ukrainians, so I am attempting my finest.” 

As hundreds of thousands of latest eyeballs instantly started visiting her account, bearing the deal with @whereislizzyy, Lysova praised TikTok as a “platform for younger individuals” to share their experiences, but additionally cautioned of “misinformation” spreading on social media – a rising concern of the White Home, which convened a Zoom name of 30 prime TikTok influencers for the Biden administration to feed them data on the warfare. Lysova was not invited to the decision.

‘Utterly completely different story’

“I really obtained a whole lot of messages saying like, ‘keep protected,’ like ‘if you happen to want, please come to Georgia or, like, different nations,’” Lysova instructed Fox Information Digital. “However I’ve additionally encountered a whole lot of Russian people who find themselves telling me that the warfare is not actual, and it is probably not taking place – after I was there.” 

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UKRAINIAN PREGNANT WOMAN, BABY DIE AFTER RUSSIAN AIR STRIKE ON MATERNITY HOSPITAL IN MARIUPOL 

“The reality shouldn’t be being unfold until it is by Ukrainians, as a result of like Belarus, like Russia, they do not actually inform their individuals what is admittedly occurring,” Lysova mentioned, referring to Russian propaganda. “They inform a very completely different story to what’s going on really in Ukraine. I do know it as a result of I’ve some Russian buddies, and so they inform me that, and it is really insane.” 

“They instructed me that on their information, their president mentioned he is attempting to save lots of Ukraine from us – like he is saving Ukraine from Ukrainians, principally. And it is a particular operation, and he simply needs peace,” she mentioned. 

The disconnect between what Russians are being instructed was most evident to Lysova following the Russian airstrike that destroyed a maternity hospital within the southern metropolis of Mariupol final week. AP photographs confirmed bloodied pregnant girls fleeing down debris-strewn steps or being evacuated on a stretcher. 

“General, they don’t seem to be displaying the true picture so far as I can see. I may give an instance,” Lysova mentioned. “So, a number of days in the past, a maternity dwelling was bombed in Ukraine, and there are a whole lot of movies, lots of people who noticed lots. Look, prefer it was large. And on the Russian information, it was mentioned that sure, it was a maternity dwelling, however a number of years in the past it was rebuilt to be a U.S. navy base, which isn’t true.”

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“I am actually scared for my complete nation. Clearly, in Mariupol, it’s actually dangerous proper now,” she mentioned. “I had a good friend from there, and the final time we spoke was like 4 days in the past when she was in a bomb shelter. And however then the WiFi / web minimize off as I understood, and I have not heard from her since then.”

Fed propaganda

Based mostly on the messages she’s obtained and her conversations along with her buddies in Russia, she acknowledged how the Russian individuals have been fed propaganda by means of the state-run media and can solely develop extra unaware of Ukrainian struggling after Russian regulators minimize entry to Instagram final week.

Even so, she had little sympathy for Russian influencers seen crying in posts that they’d lose their monetized Instagram accounts, saying these pictures on-line distract from the true hardship in Ukraine.  

“After all, I do really feel dangerous for some Russians as a result of like the whole lot principally left the Russian market like even McDonald’s,” Lysova instructed Fox Information Digital. “However on the identical time, I really feel like by them posting themselves crying on-line and like about like McDonald’s or like Instagram or like social media, they’re actually like devaluing the precise points the Ukrainians are going by means of each day by sitting in bomb shelters and never with the ability to sleep for weeks and never with the ability to focus, eat. I really feel like that is one thing that you would be able to’t actually evaluate to one another.”

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As Russian forces proceed to advance on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, and civilians have been bombarded with heavy shelling and airstrikes in current days, Lysova praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for staying behind, saying the choice “put up their morale and spirits.” 

“So lots of people now wish to struggle since they see that their president is on their aspect and never in some like protected bunker evacuated,” she mentioned. “I feel it is actually motivating, and it is actually good that he stayed.”

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Exclusive: Shein poised to slash valuation to $50 billion in London IPO, sources say

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Exclusive: Shein poised to slash valuation to  billion in London IPO, sources say
Online fast-fashion retailer Shein is set to cut its valuation in a potential London listing to around $50 billion, said three people with knowledge of the matter, nearly a quarter less than the company’s 2023 fundraising value amid growing headwinds.
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Iran's supreme leader says nuclear talks with Trump admin would not be 'wise'

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Iran's supreme leader says nuclear talks with Trump admin would not be 'wise'

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told air force officers in Teheran on Friday that nuclear talks with the U.S. “are not intelligent, wise or honorable.”

Khamenei added that “there should be no negotiations with such a government,” but did not issue an order to not engage with the U.S., according to The Associated Press.

Khamenei’s remarks on Friday seem to contradict his previous indications that he was open to negotiating with the U.S. over Iran’s nuclear program. In August, Khamenei seemed to open the door to nuclear talks with the U.S., telling his country’s civilian government that there was “no harm” in engaging with its “enemy,” the AP reported.

IRAN’S FOREIGN MINISTER RESPONDS TO TRUMP ‘MAXIMUM PRESSURE’ CAMPAIGN AMID REGIME PANIC

President Donald Trump floated the idea of a “verified nuclear peace agreement” with Teheran in a post on his Truth Social platform. In the same post, he also slammed “greatly exaggerated” reports claiming that the U.S. and Israel were going to “blow Iran into smithereens.”

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Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, left, and President Donald Trump. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo)

“I would much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement, which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper. We should start working on it immediately, and have a big Middle East Celebration when it is signed and completed,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

In 2018, during his first term, Trump exited the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, saying that it was not strong enough to restrain Iran’s nuclear development. At the time, President Trump argued that the deal, which was made during former President Barack Obama’s second term, was “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.”

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei alongside a look inside a Uranium plant. (Getty Images)

Just days before his call for a “verified nuclear peace agreement” with Iran, Trump signed an executive order urging the government to put pressure on the Islamic republic. He also told reporters that if Iran were to assassinate him, they would be “obliterated,” as per his alleged instructions.

According to the AP, on Friday, Khamenei slammed the U.S. because, in his eyes, “the Americans did not hold up their end of the deal.” Furthermore, Iran’s supreme leader referenced Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA, saying that he “tore up the agreement.”

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“We negotiated, we gave concessions, we compromised— but we did not achieve the results we aimed for.”

Iran has insisted for years that its nuclear program was aimed at civilian and peaceful purposes, not weapons. However, it has enriched its uranium to up to 60% purity, which is around 90% the level that would be considered weapons grade.

Iran military parade

An Iranian military truck carries surface-to-air missiles past a portrait of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a parade on the occasion of the country’s annual army day on April 18, 2018, in Tehran, Iran. (ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images)

IRAN’S WEAKENED POSITION COULD LEAD IT TO PURSUE NUCLEAR WEAPON, BIDEN NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER WARNS

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi told Reuters in December 2024 that it was “regrettable” that there was no “diplomatic process ongoing which could lead to a de-escalation, or a more stable equation.”

In addition to his remarks on Iran, President Trump made global headlines with his proposal that the US take over Gaza as the Israel-Hamas war rages on. Khamenei, according to the AP, also seemed to reference the president’s remarks on Gaza without mentioning them outright.

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“The Americans sit, redrawing the map of the world — but only on paper, as it has no basis in reality,” Khamenei told air force officers, according to the AP. “They make statements about us, express opinions and issue threats. If they threaten us, we will threaten them in return. If they act on their threats, we will act on ours. If they violate the security of our nation, we will, without a doubt, respond in kind.”

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Fact check: Did Clinton set the precedent for mass federal worker buyouts?

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Fact check: Did Clinton set the precedent for mass federal worker buyouts?

As unions and Democrats denounced the Trump administration’s effort to slash the federal workforce through worker buyouts, some social media users have said the president’s actions parallel those of former President Bill Clinton.

“To all you Democrats freaking out over President Trump’s buyout programme, I present to you a piece of history,” LD Basler, a retired federal law enforcement officer, wrote on X. His post quoted a 1995 statement Clinton made a year after he signed the Federal Workforce Restructuring Act.

“I guess Clinton didn’t have the authority either, when he did it in the 90s? (Because) the precedent was set BY DEMOCRATS,” another X user wrote.

Is that true?

Under Clinton, the government offered mass buyouts. But there’s a key difference with what’s happening under President Donald Trump: a bipartisan Congress overwhelmingly approved Clinton’s programme following months of review.

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By contrast, Trump’s “deferred resignation” offer, conversationally known as a buyout, emerged within a week of his inauguration, with lots of uncertainty about the terms.

“We spent six months, involved several hundred federal workers, and made hundreds of recommendations to Clinton and Gore, some of which they accepted, some they didn’t,” said David Osborne, an adviser to the Clinton-era review that preceded the buyouts.

The status and legality of Trump’s programme remains unclear. The administration set a midnight February 6 deadline for workers to accept the offer, but a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked that deadline and set a hearing for February 10.

Federal unions sued and wrote that the administration “has offered no statutory basis for its unprecedented offer”. The lawsuit questions whether the federal government will honour the commitment to pay participants through September 30.

The US Office of Personnel Management said 40,000 employees as of February 5 have taken the offer.

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Buyouts under Clinton stemmed from a review and act by Congress

A few weeks into his presidency in February 1993, Clinton issued an executive order telling each government department or agency with more than 100 employees to cut at least 4 percent of its civilian positions over three years through attrition or “early out programmes”.

Congress paved the way for buyouts. In March 1994, Clinton signed HR 3345, the Federal Workforce Restructuring Act of 1994. The legislation passed by wide, bipartisan margins: 391-17 in the House and 99-1 in the Senate.

The legislation authorised buyouts of up to $25,000 for selected groups of employees in the executive and judicial branches except employees of the Department of Defense, Central Intelligence Agency or the General Accounting Office (now called the Government Accountability Office). The law set an April 1, 1995, deadline.

Clinton said the plan would enable the “reduction of employment” by 273,000 people by the end of 1999.

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“After all the rhetoric about cutting the size and cost of Government, our administration has done the hard work and made the tough choices,” Clinton said in a statement. “I believe the economy will be stronger, and the lives of middle class people will be better, as we drive down the deficit with legislation like this.”

The legislation was an outgrowth of Clinton’s National Performance Review, which launched in March 1993 with the slogan “Make Government Work Better and Cost Less”. Clinton appointed Vice President Al Gore to lead the review and issue a report within six months.

About 250 career civil servants worked on the review and created recommendations with agency employees.

Not everyone agreed with the Clinton-Gore initiative.

“There was opposition,” but union leaders supported reducing the power of middle managers, the target of most of the reductions, and the increased role of unions in bargaining, “so they felt this was an acceptable trade-off”, John M Kamensky, National Performance Review deputy director, told PolitiFact.

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Gore visited “federal offices for what are billed as ‘town meetings’ but are more like group therapy sessions that allow workers to air their feelings about their jobs”, The Chicago Tribune wrote in June 1993.

Gore’s September 1993 report made hundreds of recommendations including buyouts. Gore went on David Letterman’s late-night television show to promote the plan.

“So, have you fixed the government?” Letterman asked.

“We found a lot of really ridiculous things that cost way too much money,” Gore said.

Gore brought up government-purchased ashtrays and read the federal regulations about how the ashtrays must break when dropped. Wearing safety goggles, Gore cracked the ashtray with a hammer.

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Clinton had a “very deep commitment to change, but it was not hostile”, Paul Light, New York University professor emeritus of public service, said.

Clinton’s effort to reduce the federal workforce stemmed from his campaign platform as a “new Democrat” who said the era of big government was over, said Elaine Kamarck, who helped lead the Clinton-Gore review and is now director of the Brookings Institution’s Centre for Effective Public Management.

“We had a tech revolution going on that did not require as many layers of management as the old days,” Kamarck said.

How the Trump administration wants to cut jobs

The Clinton approach sought to be surgical in determining which employees could be eased out without compromising the government’s overall mission.

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The Trump approach, so far, involves buyouts and firings, without a review period or congressional action. On January 28,  the Office of Personnel Management emailed federal employees about the “fork in the road”. (Elon Musk, who heads Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, used the same phrase in an all-staff message in 2022 after buying Twitter.)

The email said remote workers must return to work five days a week and offered “deferred resignation”. Employees had until February 6 to resign and be paid through September 30 (until the February 6 court intervention). The email hinted that layoffs were possible.

About two million employees received the offer. The civilian federal workforce is about 2.4 million, setting aside US Postal Service workers, according to the Pew Research Center. The average annual pay is about $106,000.

Some workers were exempt from the offers, including the military, Postal Service employees and workers in immigration enforcement, national security and public safety.

Trump’s programme is more generous than Clinton’s, Rachel Greszler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, told PolitiFact. Clinton’s $25,000 offer is about $55,000 in today’s dollars. Trump’s plan says it will pay people over about eight months, so factoring in the average federal worker salary, that’s higher.

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Democratic attorneys general said the payments may not be guaranteed and urged unionised workers to follow the guidance of their union officials. Democratic senators raised similar concerns about the short window for employees to decide and Trump’s authority to do this.

Trump issued an order to reclassify workers so he can more easily fire them – another subject of lawsuits. An order to end federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes led to workers being placed on paid leave.

A reporter asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt whether the programme was a way to purge the government of people who disagree with the president.

“That’s absolutely false,” Leavitt said. “This is a suggestion to federal workers that they have to return to work. And if they don’t, then they have the option to resign. And this administration is very generously offering to pay them for eight months.”

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