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Post by Admin on Feb 2, 2023 4:10:21 GMT
ABC News’ Linsey Davis sat down with former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, discussing his lobbying efforts to Congress in part one of their exclusive sit-down interview.
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Post by Admin on Feb 6, 2023 3:45:08 GMT
The White House and the CIA have responded to a report that CIA Director, William Burns, offered Russian President Vladimir Putin a fifth of Ukraine's territory to end the ongoing war as part of a peace plan drawn up on behalf of President Joe Biden.
A CIA official told Newsweek that claims in the report from Swiss-German newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) that Burns took a secret trip to Moscow in January and that there was a peace proposal put forward by the director on behalf of the White House were "completely false."
Last month, Burns traveled in secret to meet and brief Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, The Washington Post reported.
Burns is said to have submitted the plan in mid-January to put an end to the war, which began on February 24, 2022. The story was reported by NZZ on Thursday, citing high-ranking German foreign politicians.
Both Kyiv and Moscow reportedly rejected the proposal.
Newsweek reached out to the foreign ministries of Ukraine and Russia for comment.
According to the newspaper, the proposal offered "around 20 percent of Ukraine's territory"—approximately the size of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.
Kyiv reportedly shut down the proposal "because they are not willing to have their territory divided" while Russian officials said they "will win the war in the long run anyway," reported NZZ, which has been described as the Swiss newspaper of record.
Sean Savett, the deputy spokesperson at White House's National Security Council, told Newsweek that the report from NZZ is "not accurate," and that the CIA would say the same.
According to the news outlet the German politicians said Biden wanted to avoid a protracted war in Ukraine, and so, offered the territory as part of the peace plan.
And when Ukraine and Russia both rejected the proposal, the Biden administration pledged to provide Kyiv with Abrams tanks, NZZ reported.
The U.S. announced on January 25 that it would send Ukraine up to 31 M1 Abrams tanks, after much debate and deliberation on the issue. The tanks could take months to arrive, according to reports.
The two politicians reportedly said that U.S. officials were split on how to handle the Ukraine war, which started nearly a year ago.
Burns and Biden's National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, "wanted to end the war quickly so they could focus on China," while Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin "didn't want to let Russia get away with destroying the rule-based peace order and called for massive military support for Ukraine."
One of the politicians told NZZ that he believes it is becoming increasingly clear that the U.S. is preparing for a long war of attrition. He raised concerns that Germany would suffer economically, financially and militarily from such a war.
Germany has also said it would provide Ukraine with 14 of its Leopard 2A6 tanks, and allow partner countries to re-export other tanks to assist Kyiv.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on January 26 that the promised Leopard 2 tanks will arrive in Ukraine at the end of March or the start of April.
Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia's first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, told Newsweek the report from NZZ was "interesting," but that he couldn't "comment [on] speculation."
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that negotiations between Russia and Ukraine "are now impossible since there are no conditions for them either de facto or de jure."
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Post by Admin on Feb 9, 2023 17:11:31 GMT
There will be no immediate transfer of UK fighter jets to Ukraine, the defence secretary has said. Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky renewed his call for fighter jets during a visit to the UK on Wednesday - his first since the Russian invasion. Ben Wallace told the BBC that supplying aircraft to use in the conflict would potentially take months. The defence secretary said the UK was instead focused on using alternative provision of air cover to Ukraine. Mr Wallace did not completely rule out sending aircraft to Ukraine, but said air support and supporting moving troops could be achieved by using long-range missiles and drones. Speaking at a conference in Rome, he said it was "more realistic and more productive" to envisage the UK providing Ukraine with aircraft in the long-term to ensure its security after the war with Russia has ended. "This is not a simple case of towing an aircraft to the border," Mr Wallace told the BBC. "Britain knows what Ukraine needs and is very happy to help in many ways trying to achieve the effect. "Those same effects can be done, but potentially through a different way - and without taking months, which of course gifting fighter jets would take."
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Post by Admin on Feb 10, 2023 18:26:39 GMT
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Post by Admin on Feb 13, 2023 22:13:44 GMT
Trump and Giuliani argued that Ukraine’s leaders were corrupt and anti-American, but I believe there were other reasons Trump had it in for them. He viewed them as political enemies who had supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, hurting his feelings and engaging his unquenchable thirst for revenge. Trump also hated the Ukrainian government because Putin did. Some have said that Putin has compromising information on Trump, regarding money laundering or prostitutes, but those theories are promoted by people who did not know Trump well. I never saw evidence of that kind. Rather, I think the Russian leader had a lot in common with Trump’s father, Fred. Both men were authoritarian leaders who valued ruthlessness and considered it the only way to succeed. I first met Fred when I was selling condos in Brooklyn as a kid and he and Putin struck me the same way. Both men had immense effects on Donald Trump. Trump acted on his hatred of Ukraine as he tried to improve his re-election chances in 2020. The plan that Giuliani and Trump put into operation was simple. Giuliani sent me to collect compromising information that the Eastern European oligarchs had on Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine to use against Joe Biden. It was also my job to convince the new Ukrainian government to announce an official investigation into Hunter Biden. If they didn’t, the U.S. would not send Trump or Vice President Mike Pence to Zelensky’s inauguration, threatening Zelensky’s domestic stature and his ability to stand up to Putin. Trump also paused much needed military aid for Ukraine while he tried to get Zelensky to open the Biden investigation. Trump didn’t care if this made Ukraine vulnerable to Russia, which had annexed Crimea from the country in 2014. At about the same time, Trump casually asked me: “How long do you think Ukraine could hold out against a Russian invasion?” I responded: “Not long, without our help.” I eventually realized that not only was I enabling Trump’s dirty tricks in the 2020 election, I was also risking that Ukraine would be essentially unarmed when Putin invaded. Trump was determining the future of two countries and affecting the lives of millions. And who was I? Just another guy who’d made some money from the Soviet Union’s collapse, just some guy from the streets of Brooklyn who hadn’t even finished college. Trump weakened Zelensky, but fortunately, Biden won the 2020 election and Ukraine received a steady supply of weapons. Since my arrest, I have done my best to help the people of Ukraine with charitable works, but Giuliani is still peddling his version of events and even now Republican politicians are campaigning to stop the pipeline of weapons and medical supplies. They are just trying to please Trump, exactly as Giuliani does. And whether they realize it or not, they are making it easier for Putin and his gang to steal everything they can from Ukraine.
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