Trump: [Zelensky] was taking candy from a baby [Biden]; I’ve checked - there is titanium, lithium in Ukraine;
Ukraine might not survive anyway; I’ve been tougher on Russia than Hamas;
no cut of the U.S. defense spending because of China, Russia. 0/
He's [Zelensky] a smart and tough guy. And he took money out of this country under Biden, like candy from a baby. And I don't think he's grateful. 1/
Trump: If I were president, you wouldn't have had Russia going into Ukraine, situation with Hamas, cause Iran was broke, worst evacuation from Afghanistan, and the highest inflation like under Biden. 2/
Trump: Interest rates are down for the last 3-4 days. Nobody ever gets rich when interest rates are high because people can't borrow money.
Energy's gone down, and interest rates have gone out over the last week. That's a big thing. 3/
Reporter: Do you expect Zelensky to come back and do rare earth minerals deal?
Trump: Yeah. I think it'll happen. 4/
Reporter: Are you sure there's the titanium, lithium, and other rare earth minerals?
Trump: I do. I've had it checked. It's very valuable. 5/
Trump: Other thing in Europe that bothers me, they've given Russia more money, by far, for buying their oil than they put into Ukraine. 6/
Reporter: Are you comfortable with fact that you walked away and Ukraine may not survive?
Trump: It may not survive anyway, but we have some weaknesses with Russia. It takes two. 7/
Trump: Now we're stuck with this mess. Open borders where we have 21 mln people came into our country, many of whom are criminals, murderers, drug dealers. 8/
Reporter: Ukraine and Israel are both victims. Is America treating both countries similarly? Are they treating the aggressors similarly?
Trump: They're very different. You're talking about very different places, levels of power, parts of the world. 9/
Trump: Middle East has been under attack forever. Then we came along and did the Abraham Accords, which was unheard of. 10/
Reporter: Have you been as tough on Russia as you've been on Hamas?
Trump: Much tougher because I haven't done [much] to Hamas. That's been Israel that has to do to Hamas.
I've been very tough to Russia, tougher than anybody's ever been to Russia. 11/
Trump: I stopped the Russian pipeline, Nord Stream-2. Biden came in, and he approved it.
I'm the one that put sanctions on Russia. I'm the one that gave the javelins against Russia. 12/
Trump: I was tough. At the same time, I got along with Putin. I got along with Kim Jong Un.
I got along with president Xi. But nobody was tougher, like, on China than I was. 13/
Reporter: Can the United States negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran?
Trump: There are two ways Iran can be handled, militarily or you make a deal. I would prefer to make a deal. 14/
Trump: I'm not looking to hurt Iran. We can make a deal that would be just as good as if you won militarily. 15/
Trump: I've written him a letter saying, I hope you're gonna negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it's gonna be a terrible thing for them. 16/
Reporter: You said you wanted to cut a trillion dollars in defense spending.
Trump: No, I never said that. I'd love to cut defense spending, but not in these days, because of China, Russia, a lot of problems out there. 17/
Trump: We spend a lot of money on nuclear missiles. It's just bad that everybody has to spend all this money on something that if it's used, it's probably the end of the world. 18/
Trump on climate vs nuclear threat: They talk about the dangers of the climate in three hundred years, but don't talk about the dangers of a nuclear weapon, which could happen tomorrow. 19X
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Russia knows it can’t create a second Ukrainian SSR. Its goal is the destruction of Ukraine — “Novorossiya,” LNR/DNR, “Malorossiya.”
Signs of genocide are clear, including deporting children, Ukrainian Institute of National Memory head Oleksandr Alfyorov for Ukrainska Pravda.1/
Alfyorov: “In Ukraine, Russia needs only two resources: history and children.”
Russia uses history as a weapon — through “Novorossiya,” “LNR,” “DNR,” “Malorossiya,” and the myth of a “fight against Nazism” to justify occupation and erase Ukrainian statehood.
2/
Alfyorov: “Russians violate territories with their markers and people.”
They glorify Soviet generals, invent imperial continuity, and turn memory into a tool that normalizes war, borders, and violence.
3/
Chris Wright, US Energy sec.: Russia is funding its war by selling oil, gas and coal. Europe is the biggest buyers of Russian oil and natural gas to this day.
Trump is saying you’re helping fund this war machine, so we’re going to stop large buyers. 1/
Chris Wright: What’s India doing right now? It’s looking to buy more oil from the United States, probably more from Venezuela and other sources.
One way to help end the war in Ukraine is to starve the Russian war machine. 2X
Russian Ambassador to the UK Kelin: We could fight in Ukraine like the US did in Iraq, crushing cities, but we don’t. This war is slow and ‘surgical,’ to preserve civilians.
[Russia killed more than 15,000 civilians since 2022, this is how they preserve civilians.]
1/
Kelin: Three rounds of peace talks with Ukraine in Istanbul brought little result except prisoner exchanges.
Russia sticks to the Anchorage understandings with the US. Ukraine, despite a losing position, is trying to dictate its own terms.
2/
Kelin: Of course the talks matter. With or without the U.S., we need to work through many details.
Russia has proposed three tracks — military, political, humanitarian. Dialogue at different levels and formats is better than continued fighting.
Yuliia Dvornychenko from Ukraine’s Donetsk region spent two years in Russian captivity. Her two sons waited the entire time.
Yuliia: I was tortured: electric shocks, stripped, beaten. They threatened to send my kids to an orphanage. I signed anything to stop it. — DW.
1/
Yuliia: People traveled from occupied areas to Ukraine-controlled territory to buy basics, collect pensions, get medicine. Everyone needed to get out; for some, just to breathe.
We’d go with the kids to see the difference between life under occupation and outside it.
1/
Yuliia: The unit that captured me got 500,000 rubles($6,500) for taking Ukrainian “spies.” My younger son slept, the older saw everything.
Then the kids were alone for a month, the occupation security service banned neighbors from helping.
The EU may give Ukraine EU-level protections before full membership
The EU is weighing a peace-deal formula that grants Kyiv early access to EU membership rights and safeguards, locking in a time-bound path to full accession, possibly by 2027 — Bloomberg.
1/
One option would grant Ukraine up-front accession protections, legal, economic, and regulatory safeguards, plus immediate access to selected EU rights, before formal membership.
2/
At the same time, the EU would lock in a time-bound accession roadmap, fixed steps and deadlines, replacing today’s open-ended process that can stall for years.
3/