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Tag: eastern europe

  • The government remains open — for now. Here’s what happens next | CNN Politics

    The government remains open — for now. Here’s what happens next | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    After days of stalemate, Congress passed a stopgap funding bill Saturday to keep the government open through mid-November, narrowly avoiding a shutdown which could have had devastating effects.

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy secured broad Democratic support for the short-term bill while hardline members of his own party remained defiant. In the Senate, members of both parties also came together to move the bill to the desk of President Joe Biden, who signed the measure late Saturday.

    The government will now continue operating until November 17. Lawmakers must pass another spending bill before then to avoid a shutdown. Here’s what you should know.

    Nearly 2.2 million federal workers and 1.3 million active-duty troops will be spared an immediate impact on their finances after the possibility of a shutdown had threatened to leave them without pay.

    The bill’s passage also at least temporarily avoids massive disruptions to air travel, as a shutdown could have led to significant delays. During the 2019 shutdown, hundreds of Transportation Security Administration officers – who had to work without pay – called out sick.

    The bill also includes a special measure to keep the Federal Aviation Administration operational. A shutdown, paired with the looming expiration of a key aviation law, would have resulted in millions of dollars in losses daily and left the agency scrambling to rebuild the air traffic control system.

    The White House was able to get natural disaster funding into the stopgap bill, allowing relief efforts to continue in the wake of a recent brutal stretch of natural disasters.

    Border policies will continue to be enforced as hardline Republicans were unable to get a border security amendment into the final bill.

    The stopgap measure passed by Congress did not include additional funding for Ukraine after McCarthy put forward a bill without additional aid to the war-torn country – a key concession many House Republicans demanded but left Democrats disappointed.

    So far, Congress has approved about $113 billion in aid to Ukraine, according to calculations by the US State Department Office of Inspector General and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. In August, the White House asked Congress to approve another $24 billion in aid, and last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a trip to the Capitol to ask for more relief.

    Some Republicans argue the Biden administration should divert funding to border security and other domestic priorities instead of giving more financial assistance to Ukraine.

    The House and Senate are adjourned until Monday, and lawmakers are likely to resume negotiations once they’re back at the Capitol. They must now pass another spending bill before they head home for Thanksgiving.

    They have over a month to reach an agreement on which provisions to include in a long-term spending bill. The fierce debate leading up to Saturday’s resolution revealed a deep divide within the Republican Party, which is expected to make the second round of talks just as difficult before the GOP even attempts to secure Democratic support.

    Progress could be stalled if a vote to oust McCarthy as speaker is brought to the floor, a motion hardline Republicans are expected to bring forth, though timing remains unclear.

    Border security and Ukraine aid were the two sticking points delaying an agreement and nearly leading to a government shutdown.

    When lawmakers resume negotiations to pass a long-term spending bill, Democrats, with bipartisan support, are expected to push to renew assistance to Ukraine, while some Republicans will likely seek a border amendment. However, as of Friday, Republicans had not reached a consensus on what kind of amendment they would want to add.

    The House Democratic leadership said in a statement Saturday evening McCarthy is expected to advance a vote on Ukraine aid once the House is back in session.

    Bipartisan members of Senate leadership issued a statement late Saturday, committing to vote on further funding for Ukraine aid “in the coming weeks.”

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  • US increases pressure on Ukraine to do more to counter corruption | CNN Politics

    US increases pressure on Ukraine to do more to counter corruption | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The US is increasingly urging Ukraine to do more to combat governmental corruption, issuing several notices to Kyiv in the last few weeks indicating that certain kinds of US economic aid will be linked to Ukraine’s progress in reforming its institutions, multiple US officials told CNN.

    The Biden administration’s commitment to supporting Ukraine’s military remains undiminished. But officials have made clear recently that other forms of US aid are potentially in jeopardy if Ukraine does not do more to address corruption.

    Congress has not yet approved the administration’s request for $24 billion in additional funding for Ukraine, with some Republicans wary of providing so much money without robust oversight and conditions attached.

    “The message to the Ukrainians has always been that if any of these funds are misappropriated, then it jeopardizes all US aid to the country,” one US official familiar with the efforts told CNN.

    The State Department issued a formal diplomatic note, also known as a demarche, to Ukraine in late summer that said the US expects Ukraine to continue pursuing various anti-corruption and financial transparency efforts in order to keep receiving direct budget support, three officials familiar with the matter told CNN. The demarche has not been previously reported.

    The US has provided Ukraine with over $23 billion in direct budget support since the war began, according to the Congressional Research Service. This money is separate from military aid and allows Ukraine to continue providing essential services to its citizens like emergency first responders, health care, and education. It is disbursed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the World Bank to the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance.

    The demarche also emphasized the need for Ukraine to implement critical reforms under Ukraine’s International Monetary Fund program, including those related to anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT), a source familiar with the matter said.

    In a statement to CNN, the Ukrainian embassy in Washington said that Ukraine has moved “ambitiously” to pass reforms, including on its IMF program.

    “We have conducted these reforms initiated by Ukraine with the help and support from the US, EU and other friends,” the statement says. “And their practical support to our Cabinet of ministers as well as our (National Bank of Ukraine), General Prosecutors office and anticorruption agencies is appreciated and valued…In all our obligations with IMF, EU and other international donors as well as USA, Ukraine delivers on this front.”

    The administration has been public about its desire to help Ukraine fight corruption throughout its war with Russia. But private diplomatic discussions about the issue have ramped up in recent weeks, as questions have swirled about whether Congress will approve the administration’s funding request for Ukraine.

    National Security adviser Jake Sullivan met with a delegation of Ukrainian anti-corruption officials to discuss their efforts just last month, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the issue with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky while in Kyiv in early September, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.

    Asked by CNN about the US push to get Ukraine to tackle corruption, Miller said that he would not detail “specific conversations, other than to say that it continues to be a high priority for us that we raise with our Ukrainian counterparts, and it continues to be a priority for Ukraine. And we have seen them take action in response to specific requests that we have made as recently as the past few weeks.”

    Separately, the White House has drafted a list of reforms Ukraine should implement in order to continue receiving US financial assistance and move toward integrating into Europe.

    The draft, first reported by Ukrainska Pravda, was shared with the US embassy in Kyiv and members of the Donor Coordination Platform, a mechanism launched in January to better coordinate international financial support flowing into Ukraine. The reforms are not a condition for receiving military aid, a US official said.

    “This list was provided as a basis for consultation with the Government of Ukraine and key partners as part of our enduring support to Ukraine and its efforts to integrate into Europe, a goal the United States strongly supports,” the US embassy in Kyiv said in a statement.

    The White House document outlines changes Ukraine could make within three months, six months, one year and 18 months.

    Many of the proposals – including strengthening the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, enhancing the independence of the supervisory boards of Ukrainian state-owned companies, and constitutional court reform – are also requirements for EU membership and benchmarks for the IMF.

    “Reforms in the energy sector, a bastion of corruption and oligarchic control, are essential to cementing Ukraine’s European integration,” the State Department said in a strategy memo for Ukraine posted on its website in August.

    The memo added that “Ukraine must maintain stable financial management of its economy in order to continue to fight the war, rebuilt the economy, and achieve its goal to become a prosperous, democratic, western country. Ukraine must slay the corruption dragon once and for all.”

    The Ukrainian embassy said in its statement to CNN that Ukrainian officials signed an “energy memorandum” during their visit to Washington last month, and that Ukraine has passed a European-style law aimed at preventing abuses in wholesale energy markets. The White House document says implementation of that law should occur by April 2024.

    Zelensky, for his part, has been eager to show the US, EU and NATO that he is cracking down on corruption, particularly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He recently cleaned house at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, firing his defense minister and several senior defense officials, and launched a number of high-profile raids earlier this year against officials suspected of graft.

    Ukraine considers the direct budget support it gets from the US and other foreign allies to be vital to keeping its economy afloat.

    “We are grateful that this money arrives as grants, because this does not affect the state debt of Ukraine, and this is a very important factor in these difficult times,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told Blinken last month, referring to the US’ direct budget support for Ukraine.

    That money is also the “most closely scrutinized” form of aid to Ukraine, a senior Democratic Senate aide told CNN. “The Ukrainians know they have to account for every single penny. The Ukrainians making the decisions know that accountability is a key to their continuing to get funds. It’s been a consistent point of messaging from the administration. Which is fair considering all the support we’re giving them.”

    USAID’s inspector general and Ukraine’s Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor signed a memorandum of understanding in July aimed at strengthening USAID’s ability to probe any misuse or abuse of funds by Ukraine, including the direct budget support.

    The US intends to provide up to $3.3 billion in direct economic aid to Ukraine if Congress authorizes its $24 billion supplemental request for Ukraine.

    That supplemental request is now in limbo, however.

    Congress passed a short-term bill on Saturday to continue funding the government through mid-November, but the legislation does not include additional money for Ukraine. Republicans have increasingly questioned the wisdom of the funding and called for greater oversight of it, though some remain opposed to supporting Ukraine as a matter of principle, regardless of Kyiv’s anti-corruption efforts.

    The Pentagon, meanwhile, is also taking new steps to better monitor US military aid flowing to Ukraine. The Defense Department inspector general announced last month that it will be establishing a new team in Ukraine to monitor ongoing US security assistance to Kyiv, which has totaled more than $43.7 billion since the start of the Biden administration.

    It will mark the first time the DoD IG will have personnel based in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, said spokeswoman Megan Reed.

    The White House noted in its draft list of priorities for Ukraine that the Ukrainian MoD should “redesign” its armament and procurement processes to better reflect NATO standards of “transparency, accountability, efficiency and competition in defense procurement.”

    Another issue that has come up in recent weeks is the question of whether Zelensky will move to hold a presidential election in March 2024. Sen. Lindsey Graham has pushed for an election, saying it will demonstrate Ukraine’s commitment to freedom and democracy in the face of Russia’s invasion.

    Zelensky has said that holding an election in wartime would be complicated and expensive, noting that international observers must be allowed in to ensure the results are internationally recognized. But he said last month that he is ready to do so “if it is necessary.”

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  • Zelensky urges Trump to share Ukraine peace plan but says he won’t give territory to Russia | CNN Politics

    Zelensky urges Trump to share Ukraine peace plan but says he won’t give territory to Russia | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Volodymyr Zelensky urged Donald Trump to share his peace plans publicly if the former US president has a way to end the war between Ukraine and Russia – but the Ukrainian president cautioned in an interview Tuesday that any peace plan where Ukraine gives up territory would be unacceptable.

    “He can publicly share his idea now, not waste time, not to lose people, and say, ‘My formula is to stop the war and stop all this tragedy and stop Russian aggression,’” Zelensky told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, following his speech Tuesday at the United Nations General Assembly. “And he said, how he sees it, how to push Russian from our land. Otherwise, he’s not presenting the global idea of peace.”

    The Ukrainian president added: “So (if) the idea is how to take the part of our territory and to give Putin, that is not the peace formula.”

    Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has claimed that he would be able to cut a deal with Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours. Pressed Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about whether the deal would let Putin keep the land he’s taken, Trump said, “No, no. I’d make a fair deal for everybody. Nope, I’d make it fair.”

    Trump, asked at the time whether it would be a win for Putin, said, “You know, that’s something that could have been negotiated. Because there were certain parts, Crimea and other parts of the country, that a lot of people expected could happen. You could have made a deal. So they could have made a deal where there’s lesser territory right now than Russia’s already taken, to be honest.”

    Zelensky’s trip to the United Nations comes as Ukraine is facing its stiffest headwinds in the US to date over support for the war. A faction of the House GOP conference is openly hostile to providing Ukraine with any additional military aid, and it remains unclear whether House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will be willing to sign off on more funding.

    In the interview, Zelensky gave a positive assessment of Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive, which has sparked concerns that it’s failing to achieve expected results. And he reiterated Ukraine’s desire to obtain long-range missiles from the US, which President Joe Biden is still considering, saying it would be “a loss” for Ukraine if they do not receive them.

    “We are on the finishing line, I’m sure of that,” Zelensky said.

    Zelensky told Blitzer that he’s planning to meet with McCarthy when he travels to Washington later this week. Asked about those skeptical of offering more funding to Ukraine, Zelensky said that it was difficult for those who have not seen war up close to compare domestic problems like civil rights or energy to the existential threat facing a country under attack.

    “It’s so difficult to understand when you are in war, and when you are not in war,” Zelensky said. “Even when you come to the war, to the country which is in war, when you come to one day, you can understand more than you live, you hear, you think, you read. No, you can’t compare. It’s different situation. That’s why I’m thinking we can’t compare these challenges.”

    Biden last month asked Congress to approve an additional $24 billion in emergency spending for Ukraine and other international needs. While there’s bipartisan support for the funding package in the Senate, there’s no sign yet that the Republican-led House will play ball.

    Following his speech Tuesday at the UN General Assembly, Zelensky is traveling to Washington, DC, where he will hold talks with Biden at the White House, along with a visit to Capitol Hill. Zelensky addressed a joint meeting of Congress in a surprise appearance last December.

    Zelensky’s trip to the Capitol this week gives him the chance to make a personal pitch to skeptical lawmakers to approve more aid for the war. The Ukrainian leader is slated to speak at an all-senators meeting, though a similar meeting is not planned for the House.

    McCarthy, who is expected to meet with Zelensky along with other House leaders, declined Tuesday to commit to more funding for Ukraine.

    “Was Zelensky elected to Congress? Is he our president? I don’t think so. I have questions for where’s the accountability on the money we’ve already spent? What is this the plan for victory?” the California Republican said.

    ‘Nobody knows’

    Asked whether a major breakthrough was possible this year in Ukraine’s military counteroffensive, Zelensky said, “I think nobody knows, really.”

    “But I think that we will have more success,” he said, noting gains Ukraine has made in the east.

    Zelensky said he remained focus on obtaining more long-range missiles from the US, arguing that Ukraine did not want them to target Russia but to keep the battlefield capabilities level between the two sides.

    Biden is expected to make a final decision soon on sending the long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems, also known as ATACMS, CNN reported earlier this month.

    “It would be a loss for us” if the weapons are not provided, Zelensky said, adding it would result in “more casualties on the battlefield and elsewhere.”

    He also reiterated the need for more air defense systems, particularly the US-made Patriot air defense system, saying they were needed to help protect civilian areas.

    Zelensky downplayed tensions between the US and Ukrainian officials over Ukraine’s military strategy in Russian-occupied Crimea, when asked about skepticism from officials in Washington over Ukraine ramping up missile strikes to try to disrupt Russian logistics and resupply efforts.

    “We think the same way,” he said.

    Still, Zelensky defended the strategy.

    “Temporary-occupied Crimea – it’s a place they store weapons to kill our civilians,” he said. “They’re shooting from Crimea into our territory. And of course, we have to see where their rockets are coming from, and we have to basically deal with it.”

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • America’s political turmoil hampers its capacity to lead through yet another global crisis | CNN Politics

    America’s political turmoil hampers its capacity to lead through yet another global crisis | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A weekend of terror in Israel has sharpened already grave questions about the capacity of the politically fractured United States to lay out a unified and coherent response to a world spinning out of its control.

    When the House of Representatives descended into chaos last week, many Republicans, Democrats and independent experts warned that anarchy raging in US politics sent a dangerous message to the outside world. But no one could foresee just how quickly the paralysis in Washington would test the country’s reaction to a major global crisis.

    The horrific Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians, which have killed hundreds of people and shattered the country’s sense of security, thrust the Middle East to the precipice of a new era of violence and instability. This followed a period of relative calm and after US presidents spent years trying to extricate American forces from the region.

    Israel’s response to the carnage caused by a major Iranian proxy raises the possibility of a wider regional war that would further destabilize the global order already rocked by the war in Ukraine and China’s flagrant challenges to Western power.

    A situation this dangerous requires a calm, united and thoughtful US response, supported across the political spectrum. But the turmoil in America’s politics – plagued by internal extremism, threats to democracy and the hyperpoliticization of foreign policy – means it will be an impossible task to bring the country together at a perilous moment.

    Swift efforts by lawmakers to quickly register support for Israel and to rush extra aid to its government could be hampered by the collapse of the Republican Party’s ability to govern in the House after the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week by his party’s extreme elements.

    And the US is also facing an unprecedented election season. A president with low approval ratings confronting questions about his advanced age could go up against a potential Republican nominee who could be an indicted felon by Election Day. This means, at best, the United States will spend the coming months preoccupied by its own political plight. At worst, the world’s superpower guarantor of democracy could actually worsen global disruption and instability.

    Republican front-runner Donald Trump rushed to exploit the crisis for his political gain, accusing President Joe Biden of causing the conflict because of “weakness.”

    “Joe Biden betrayed Israel, he betrayed our country. As president, I will once again stand with Israel,” Trump said.

    Foreign policy issues rarely decide US elections. But the danger for Biden and the opening for Trump is that yet another crisis abroad could foment an idea that the world is in turmoil, American power is weakening and Biden is hapless. At home and abroad, chaos is Trump’s friend as he seeks to foment the classic conditions that benefit aspiring autocrats promising strongman rule.

    Fractured American governance doesn’t simply pose a material issue for Israel and for Ukraine, whose US lifeline as it battles Russia’s unprovoked invasion is now in extreme jeopardy due to far-right Republicans. The spectacle also suggests to US enemies – including Iran, the main supporter of Hamas, and Russia and China – that the US is hopelessly divided and may struggle to wield power to safeguard its interests.

    “It wasn’t my idea to oust the speaker. I thought it was dangerous,” Rep. Michael McCaul, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “I look at the world and all the threats that are out there, and what kind of message are we sending to our adversaries when we can’t govern, when we’re dysfunctional, when we don’t even have a speaker of the House?

    “How does Chairman Xi in China look at that when he says democracy doesn’t work?” the Texas Republican added. “How does the Ayatollah look at this, knowing that we cannot function properly? And I think it sends a terrible message.”

    US sends a message of chaos and weakness

    The shuttered House created a particularly damaging symbol of the US – and the democratic system of governance it promotes around the world – in disarray. The Biden administration has the capacity to send immediate military aid to Israel, whose government has asked Washington for JDAM precision-guided munition kits and more interceptors for the Iron Dome air defense system as Hamas rockets rain down on Israeli cities. But any delay in seating a new speaker and creating a functioning majority in the House could have serious consequence.

    Republican Rep. Michael Lawler, who faces a tough reelection in a New York district that Biden would have carried in 2020 under its new lines, warned that the chaos in the House needs to end. “Given the situation in the Middle East with one of our closest allies in the world, it is critical that we bring this to a close expeditiously,” Lawler told CNN’s Dana Bash. “And so, I think it is imperative, frankly, that this nonsense stop, that Kevin McCarthy be reinstated as speaker,” Lawler added.

    Republicans left town after ousting McCarthy last week, and are expected to try to choose between Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who has the backing of Trump, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise this week. But given the demands of extremists in the GOP conference, the complications of a tiny majority and the fact it took McCarthy a marathon 15 rounds of balloting to win the job in January, there is no guarantee that strong, new Republican leadership will quickly emerge.

    While there is crossparty consensus over supporting Israel in the House, the US response to another murderous assault on a vulnerable democracy – Ukraine – threatens to be derailed by America’s viciously polarized politics in a way that could seriously erode Washington’s global leadership.

    Right-wing Republicans who back Trump are echoing the former president’s opposition to further US aid and ammunition to Ukraine. While there is still a majority in favor of such measures in the House and the Senate, any future Republican speaker will likely have to pass aid packages with the help of Democratic votes – the very scenario that caused McCarthy’s fall as he tried to head off a damaging government shutdown (even though that stopgap funding bill did not include Ukraine aid, as the White House had wanted).

    Already, the political showdown over Ukraine is causing deep concern in Kyiv that it will be unable to continue its fight against Russia in the current form without the more than $20 billion in assistance that the Biden administration has requested.

    In a broader sense, the possibility that a populist, nationalist wing of the Republican Party under Trump could desert a democracy under attack from Russia – and therefore reward the aggression of an autocrat who shaped his worldview as a member of the KGB – threatens to not just shatter the logic of decades of US foreign policy, but to fundamentally change the US’ role in the world and the values on which its allies believed they could depend.

    The politicization of global crises is not just confined to Israel or Ukraine. A Chinese spy balloon that wafted over US soil this year caused an extraordinary outburst of Republican fury toward Biden, which threatened to tie the president’s hands when managing the critical issue of US relations with the Pacific superpower.

    A growing sense abroad that America’s political problems are limiting its ability to lead globally could also have a devastating effect on its power. This can only play into the hands of enemies in Beijing, Moscow and Tehran, who have all sought to influence US elections, according to US intelligence agencies, and all have strong geopolitical incentives in seeing American democracy fail.

    The extraordinary and sudden Hamas attack on Israel – which has been compared to the September 11 attacks in the United States, and in terms of per capita casualties was far more bloody – falls into the category of tragedies that could change the world.

    Aside from the awful human toll – now also being felt by Palestinian civilians in Gaza, where hundreds have perished in the initial Israel reprisal attacks on the infrastructure of Hamas – the onslaught will have far-reaching strategic consequences that will be felt in the US.

    If evidence is found that Iran directly plotted the attack with Hamas, there will be huge pressure on the Israelis to respond by directly confronting the Islamic Republic, at the risk of sparking a wider regional conflagration that could draw in the United States.

    The attacks and their fallout are also almost certain to disrupt the effort, in which the US is a key player, to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and allied Arab states. Such an agreement would fundamentally reshape the region and further isolate Iran – a logical reason why it could have had an interest in perpetrating the Hamas assault. US officials are still trying to establish how, if at all, Iran was involved.

    The horror in Israel presents Biden with another fearsome foreign policy crisis as he contemplates his reelection bid – alongside the war in Ukraine and a rising confrontation with China.

    It comes at a moment of political vulnerability for the administration as it seeks to explain why it made a deal to release US prisoners from Iran that resulted in the release of $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds. The Iranian government can use the funds only to buy humanitarian and medical supplies. The deal took place far too recently for such money to be used to finance this attack. But such subtleties don’t count for much in an election year, as multiple Republican presidential candidates accused the president of funding Iranian terror.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday tried to defuse the political impact of the agreement. “Not a single dollar has been spent from that account. And, again, the account is closely regulated by the US Treasury Department, so it can only be used for things like food, medicine, medical equipment,” he insisted on “State of the Union.”

    But, in a political sense, it only matters that enough Americans believe what the Republicans are saying is true.

    GOP hopeful Nikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, for instance, implied Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that funds that Iran may not have to spend on medicine because of the hostage deal could now be spent on terror.

    “Secretary Blinken is just wrong to imply that this money is not being moved around as we speak,” Haley said, although her argument is undercut by the fact that Iran’s clerical regime has rarely seemed to prioritize the humanitarian needs of its people while building up a huge state military complex.

    Another 2024 candidate, GOP Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, went even further, accusing Biden – who has been one of the strongest Washington supporters of Israel in half a century in politics – of being “complicit” in the attacks.

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  • Many in House GOP caution against tying Israel and Ukraine aid together | CNN Politics

    Many in House GOP caution against tying Israel and Ukraine aid together | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Biden administration and congressional Democrats are weighing tying legislation for additional military support for Israel with military assistance for Ukraine, setting up a showdown with congressional Republicans opposed to helping Ukraine amid the tumult in the speaker-less chamber.

    The looming fight over tying military aid for Israel and Ukraine together – along with Taiwan and potentially border funding – is the latest in a series of complicated questions a new speaker will have to navigate as the narrow Republican majority grapples with its future. It comes as interim House Speaker Patrick McHenry maintains his role is limited to help Israel in the midst of war, meaning the House can’t pass any legislation until a new speaker is chosen.

    The White House has yet to formalize a request for additional aid to Israel – it is expediting weapons already purchased first – but briefers on a call with lawmakers Sunday night underscored that there would be an eventual need as Israel burns through munitions. On a Senate briefing Sunday evening, Senate Armed Services Chairman Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, and others proposed packaging Ukraine aid and Israel aid together with the expectation that conversation will likely intensify over the next several days ahead of the Senate’s return next week, one person familiar told CNN.

    While congressional aides and US officials make clear that Israel is not in danger of running out of equipment in the near term like Ukraine, the thinking is that tying funding for each country together could help get Ukraine aid across the finish line as support has dwindled among House Republicans in recent months.

    There is also some discussion of including border security funding and more funding for Taiwan in an eventual package as there is growing uncertainty over how future supplemental packages would fare in the GOP-controlled House.

    “There’s discussion about putting Israeli funding with Ukraine funding, maybe Taiwan funding and finally border security funding. To me that would be a good package,” said House Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul, a Texas Republican who has been a vocal supporter in the conference for continuing to support Ukraine.

    It’s an open question if hardliners in the House – who have been vehemently opposed to giving more to Ukraine – would back that effort, however. It’s also not clear if a future speaker – knowing the bitter divide over the issue of Ukraine – would be willing to move a joint package on the House floor.

    “Absolutely not,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who has been steadfastly opposed to providing Ukraine with any additional funding. “They shouldn’t be tied together. I will not vote to fund Ukraine.”

    But even some House Republicans who support providing Ukraine with additional aid said Monday they had concerns with pairing a supplemental for Israel with Ukraine, given the opposition inside their conference, including Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, who co-chairs the Congressional Ukraine Caucus.

    “You know, right now, probably not,” said Diaz-Balart, who is a House appropriator. “There’s still quite a bit of money left for Ukraine. There will be a moment when we have to revisit that. But I think that there’s potentially going to be a lot more urgency for the situation in Israel.”

    The question now is looming large over a massively unpredictable speaker’s race that all signs suggest could drag out for days or weeks. On Monday, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who’s running for the position, told CNN that he plans to bring forward a resolution to show support for Israel, but it’s not clear how he would handle a move to bundle Ukraine and Israel military aid.

    On Monday night, House Republicans gathered for a conference meeting – the first since McCarthy announced he wouldn’t seek another term as speaker – in order to discuss next steps in the leadership race. But the question of how to support Israel in uncertain times remained a key question.

    McHenry has made clear to colleagues that his role is narrow and is only intended to help elect the next speaker of the House. Even as some have raised questions about whether the North Carolina Republican could put a resolution vowing support for Israel on the floor, McHenry has maintained that is not in the scope of his limited role. That means that the only way to move more funding for Israel is to elect a new speaker, something that remains in flux as neither Majority Leader Steve Scalise nor Jordan has locked down the votes they need to secure the gavel.

    Further complicating the dynamics, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy wouldn’t rule out if he’d seek the speakership again if the conference failed to rally around one candidate.

    “I’m going to allow (the) conference to do their work,” McCarthy said repeatedly on Monday when pressed if he’d get in the race.

    Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said at a conference in Washington on Monday that additional funding from Congress would be required for the Defense Department to provide munitions to Israel at the same time the US is supporting Ukraine. Wormuth would not say whether the US would be providing Israel with additional Iron Dome systems, but that she expected the US would “lean forward in support of Israel” in the same way the US has for Ukraine.

    “To be able to increase our capacity … to expand production, and then to also pay for the munitions themselves, we need additional support from Congress,” Wormuth said. “We’re obviously at the early stage of the process of evaluating our ability to support what the IDF needs, and just as we have with Ukraine, we’re going to weigh obviously the impacts of requests to our readiness.”

    Israel is requesting precision guided bombs and additional Iron Dome interceptors from the US, according to an Israeli military official and a US defense official. The Israeli official said the request to the Americans includes Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs, a kit that turns an unguided “dumb” bomb into a precision “smart” weapon. Israel has used precision guided bombs to strike targets in Gaza from the air.

    Administration officials told lawmakers in the Sunday briefings they are already expediting existing contracts for weapons Israel has purchased to give them a boost in the near term. The administration also can use the presidential drawdown authority to provide additional weapons to Israel, though it would need Congress to increase the amount of money in the fund, officials said.

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  • US will start training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s in October | CNN Politics

    US will start training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s in October | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The US has announced that it will start training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 jets in October.

    “Following English language training for pilots in September, F-16 flying training is expected to begin in October at Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson, Arizona, facilitated by the Air National Guard’s 162nd Wing,” Pentagon Spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said Thursday at a press briefing.

    “Although we do not have specific numbers to share at this time in regards to how many Ukrainians will participate in this training, we do anticipate it will include several pilots and dozens of maintainers.”

    Earlier on Thursday, two US officials told CNN an announcement of the training program was coming. The officials said the pilots still need to go through English language training before they can begin learning to operate the fourth-generation American jets. The language classes will also take place in the US, at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

    Lackland is home to the Defense Language Institute English Language Center, which provides English language training for international military and civilian personnel.

    Ukraine put forward a list of approximately 32 pilots who are ready to begin training on F-16 fighter jets, according to another US official, but most did not have a strong enough command of the English language yet, a necessary requirement since the jet’s instrumentation and manuals are all in English.

    The pilots, along with some personnel who will receive training on maintaining the aircraft, could arrive in the US as soon as next month, one official said. Once the language instruction is complete, the Ukrainian pilots will be able to begin training to fly the F-16s, one official said. It is not yet clear how long it will take to train the pilots, who have flown Soviet-era MIG and Sukhoi fighters, to fly more modern western jets.

    For American F-16 pilots, training can take anywhere from eight months for brand new pilots, to five months for pilots with more experience, Ryder said Thursday.

    He also explained that the training will include a number of specific instructions, including fundamental skills like formation flying and basic fighter maneuvers, to combat maneuvering, tactical intercepts, suppression of enemy air defenses, and how to cope with G-force. All of that is in addition to the training for logistics and maintenance personnel.

    “So training all of those maintainers on how to maintain this aircraft so that it can stay in the air, training the ground support, air traffic controllers, the fuelers, the communications associated with that – all of that is entailed in maintaining this this platform.”

    The US decided to preemptively arrange training for Ukrainian pilots on the F-16 fighter jets after recognizing that training in Europe would eventually reach capacity, Ryder said Thursday.

    “So really, as we looked at our European allies providing this training, recognizing the fact that we want to do everything we can to help move this effort along as quickly as possible in support of Ukraine, we know that as the Danes and the Dutch prepare to train those pilots, at a certain point in time in the future, capacity will be reached,” Ryder said. “So preemptively, acknowledging that and leaning forward in order to assist with this effort is the impetus for why we’re doing this now.”

    Morris Air National Guard base hosted two Ukrainian fighter pilots in March to evaluate how fast they can learn to fly the F-16, a program which showed the Ukrainian pilots demonstrated above average abilities in several different areas.

    The base is also home to the 162nd Wing, a part of the Arizona Air National Guard whose mission is to train international partners on the F-16. The unit has trained pilots from 25 different countries to fly the fourth-generation jet.

    In honor of Ukrainian Independence Day, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, “The United States is proud to stand with Ukraine, and we will continue to ensure that it has what it needs to fight for its freedom.” Repeating a promise often made by the Biden administration, he said in a statement that the US will support Ukraine “for as long as it takes in its fight for security and freedom.”

    Earlier this week, Denmark and the Netherlands – the two countries leading the coalition to train Ukrainians to fly and operate F-16 fighter jets – committed to send aircraft to Ukraine. Denmark pledged to send 19 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine over the next several years. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky said the Netherlands would provide 42 F-16s to Ukraine, though the Dutch Prime Minister did not commit to providing all of them to Kyiv.

    On Sunday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Ukrainian pilots and technical crews have already begun training on the jets. Reznikov said the “minimal term” for the training is six months, though it would be up to the instructors to decide how long the course will run.

    The spokesman for Ukraine’s Air Force said F-16s can “change the course of events” and allow Kyiv to achieve “air superiority in the occupied territories.”

    CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that Morris Air National Guard Base hosted two Ukrainian fighter pilots in March and is home to the 162nd Wing.

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  • Republicans must overcome deep splits to choose a speaker as Israel crisis exposes failure to govern | CNN Politics

    Republicans must overcome deep splits to choose a speaker as Israel crisis exposes failure to govern | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    House Republicans must mend gaping splits in their conference if they are to succeed in picking a new speaker – as dangerous global crises in Israel and Ukraine expose the steep cost of their malfunctioning majority.

    The two declared candidates, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, must demonstrate their capacity to either control or co-opt hardliners who ousted Kevin McCarthy last week and are making the United States look like an ebbing superpower that cannot govern itself – let alone lead a world in turmoil.

    Republicans on Wednesday are meeting for internal secret ballot elections to determine who will become their nominee to be second in line to the presidency. But the gravity of outside events is apparently doing little to shake the GOP out of its endless internal conflict because serious doubts remain over whether either Scalise or Jordan can win the necessary overwhelming support of the Republican conference in an eventual floor vote of the full House.

    The House GOP already looked deeply negligent with time running out to stave off another government shutdown drama by the middle of next month. But if the House remains paralyzed much longer it will undermine the country’s capacity to respond to the horrific Hamas assault on Israel. And Ukraine’s battle to survive as a sovereign state will soon reach a critical point if its next aid package doesn’t make it through the House.

    Republican lawmakers met Tuesday night as Jordan and Scalise made their pitches. The situation is so fraught because the tiny House GOP majority means that a candidate for speaker can only lose four Republican votes and still win the gavel in a full House vote. Democrats refused to save McCarthy from a revolt by eight hardliners last week and on Tuesday named their leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, as candidate for speaker, suggesting they will sit on the sidelines again, content to expose the dysfunction in the GOP ahead of next year’s election.

    Rep. David Valadao, a California Republican who faces a tough reelection fight, said it could be difficult for either Scalise or Jordan to win outright. “I think both candidates are going to struggle. … But I don’t know exactly where their numbers are,” Valadao said. “It seems like they are both scrambling and they’re both working hard. So I don’t know if anyone is super confident right now.”

    The faces are different but the GOP fault line remains the same

    A week on from McCarthy’s rejection, after less than nine months as speaker, the fundamental fault line in the party remains as glaring as ever. Far-right Republicans have demands for massive spending cuts but fail to acknowledge that Democratic control of the Senate and the White House means that GOP leaders have no choice but to eventually compromise. McCarthy fell after using Democratic votes to pass a stopgap bill to keep the government open, fearing that Republicans would pay a harsh political price for a shutdown that could, over time, affect millions of Americans.

    The key question on Wednesday will be whether Scalise or Jordan can unite enough of the party behind them before a full floor vote, which could happen as soon as later that day. Republicans are conducting the initial process behind closed doors to avoid a repeat of the public demonstration of disarray that unfolded during the 15 rounds of balloting McCarthy required to win the top job in January. They’ll be debating and voting on a proposed change to conference rules to raise the threshold for winning the nomination – from a simple majority of the conference to a majority of the current House – as part of their effort to avoid January’s theatrics. Both Jordan and Scalise committed to supporting one another if they become the nominee, lawmakers said after Tuesday’s candidate forum.

    Rep. Mike Garcia of California warned after the forum that the fate of the speakership was still up in the air. “I think it’s 50/50 odds right now,” he said. Some of his colleagues were even more pessimistic. Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida said, “No one is close to 217.” Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, who is backing Jordan, was asked the chances of a new speaker being selected Wednesday and replied: “I’d put it at 2%.”

    Jordan, a vehement supporter of Donald Trump who’s echoed his false claims of election fraud in 2020, has the former president’s backing. The Ohio Republican, who was a co-founder of the conservative Freedom Caucus, has devoted his chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee to trying to prove Trump’s accusations that the government has been weaponized against him as he faces four criminal trials and is also a leading figure in the impeachment probe into President Joe Biden.

    Jordan said he had a plan to head off a new government funding cliff-hanger, but he’d have to reconcile the demands of right-wingers and also get such a measure through the Senate and the White House. “Nobody wants a shutdown,” Jordan said. Several lawmakers in the meeting said the Judiciary chairman said he’d pitch for a long-term stopgap plan that cut spending by 1% to allow time for passing individual spending bills.

    Rep. Don Bacon, a key moderate from Nebraska who is leaning Scalise’s way, suggested he was pleasantly surprised by Jordan’s argument. “Because of his past, I think we expected to hear the Freedom Caucus message. It was not that. It was very pragmatic,” Bacon said Tuesday.

    Scalise is also an authentic conservative and vocal supporter of Trump. (Both men voted against certifying Biden’s win in 2020.) But he’s known as less of a flamethrower than Jordan. And as a member of leadership with fundraising bona fides, he could be more palatable to moderate Republican lawmakers in more than a dozen districts that paved the way to the narrow GOP majority in last year’s midterms and that will be critical to its hopes in 2024. The Louisianan emerged from the meeting Tuesday evening warning that the country needed a Congress that can work. “What people have really liked about my approach is I’ve been a unifier,” he said, though such skills would face an extreme test if he wins the gavel.

    If neither Scalise nor Jordan is able to win sufficient support, there could be an opening for a compromise candidate that all wings of the party could get behind. Some freshmen have been pushing for a return of McCarthy. But the former speaker asked that he not be nominated in the race – without closing the door to getting his job back.

    “There are two people running in there. I’m not one of them,” the California Republican told CNN’s Manu Raju.

    Even if a new speaker does emerge on Wednesday, they will face the same relentless pressure imposed by a tiny majority, the split balance of power in Washington and a GOP that has riotously resisted the efforts of the last three Republican speakers to unify the conference and provide long-term governance.

    Most immediately, the victor will have to decide whether to try to amend the rule that any one member can call a vote to oust the speaker – a concession McCarthy had offered to hardliners in order to win the gavel in January. Then, looming a few weeks away, is a possible repeat of the crisis that led to McCarthy’s defeat and the current power vacuum in the House. Unless Congress passes more funding by November 17, the government will close down, creating a series of adverse consequences, including the possibility that troops go unpaid and public services are severely disrupted.

    To avoid this scenario, the House will either have to pass a series of complex spending bills in a month – a near impossibility given their size and the time wasted on the speaker’s race – or opt for another short-term spending patch that significant numbers of Republicans may oppose. Even if the House can manage to pass a spending plan, any measure acceptable to the entire House GOP is unlikely to win support in the Senate or the White House since hardliners are demanding cuts far below those previously agreed to by McCarthy and Biden earlier this year.

    A Speaker Scalise or Speaker Jordan – or whoever can get the job – would almost certainly have to make the same fateful choice that faced McCarthy. Do they shut down the government if they can’t jam concessions out of the White House or Senate? Or seek to punt the choice down the road with a temporary funding bill that will probably need Democratic votes to pass? Jordan’s approach that calls for 1% spending cuts would likely be a non-starter among Democrats, meaning he would need to convince moderate Republicans it was in their interests.

    The House must also soon wrestle with the president’s request for more than $20 billion in military aid to Ukraine as it fights the Russian invasion. Many Republicans oppose additional funding, and it’s another measure that would need Democratic votes to get through the House. The question has become even more complicated following the attack on Israel, with some Republicans arguing that the US should send the Jewish state as much help as it wants while being reluctant to continue propping up the Ukrainian war effort.

    Such is the complexity of the untamed nature of the GOP majority that further turmoil certainly lies ahead, even if Republicans somehow settle on a new speaker on Wednesday.

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  • US military responded to Chinese and Russian vessels near Alaska | CNN Politics

    US military responded to Chinese and Russian vessels near Alaska | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A Russian and Chinese naval patrol consisting of several vessels operated off the coast of Alaska last week, defense officials and lawmakers said over the weekend – a show of force that prompted a US military response but did not pose a threat to the US or Canada, a US Northern Command spokesperson told CNN.

    NORTHCOM and the North American Aerospace Defense Command deployed planes and ships to monitor the Russian and Chinese patrol, which stayed in international waters, the spokesperson said.

    Alaska’s Republican Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski said in a statement Saturday that a total of 11 Russian and Chinese vessels had been operating near the Aleutian Islands, and were met in response by four US Navy destroyers. Murkowski said that she and Sullivan had been in “close contact with leadership from Alaska Command for several days now and received detailed classified briefings about the foreign vessels that are transiting U.S. waters in the Aleutians.”

    Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told CNN in a statement that “according to the annual cooperation plan between the Chinese and Russian militaries, naval vessels of the two countries have recently conducted joint maritime patrols in relevant waters in the western and northern Pacific Ocean. This action is not targeted at any third party and has nothing to do with the current international and regional situation.”

    Sullivan said that Chinese and Russian vessels came similarly close to Alaska last summer and were encountered by a US Coast Guard ship on a routine patrol at the time – a “tepid” response, the senator added, that led him to press senior military leaders to be ready with a more robust response in the future.

    “For that reason, I was heartened to see that this latest incursion was met with four U.S. Navy destroyers, which sends a strong message to (Chinese President) Xi Jinping and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin that the United States will not hesitate to protect and defend our vital national interests in Alaska,” Sullivan said.

    Blake Herzinger, a research fellow at the United States Studies Center in Australia, echoed the NORTHCOM repsonse that the Chinese and Russian warships were not a threat and acted according to international law just as US Navy vessels do when operating off the Chinese or Russian coasts.

    But he said the US statement affirming the navigation rights of the foreign warships was in contrast to reactions from Beijing to similar US Navy sailings.

    “Chinese responses to similar operations in the Indo-Pacific … hype up imagined threats and broadcast their military response as efforts to eject invaders from their waters,” Herzinger said.

    Russia and China have intensified their defense and economic partnership considerably since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, according to a July US intelligence report, and the countries have repeatedly pledged to strengthen their military ties.

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  • Schumer in talks with McConnell as shutdown fears grow: ‘We may now have to go first’ | CNN Politics

    Schumer in talks with McConnell as shutdown fears grow: ‘We may now have to go first’ | CNN Politics

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    Watch CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju’s interview with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer this Sunday at 11 a.m. ET/8 a.m. PT on CNN’s “Inside Politics”.



    CNN
     — 

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told CNN that his chamber might have to take matters in its own hands and push through a must-pass bill to fund the government amid deep divisions in the House and a looming shutdown by next weekend.

    For weeks, Democratic and Republican senators have been watching the House with growing alarm as Speaker Kevin McCarthy has struggled to cobble together the votes to pass a short-term spending bill along party lines – all as he has resisted calls to cut a deal with Democrats to keep the government open until a longer-term deal can be reached. The initial plan: Let McCarthy get the votes to pass a bill first before the Senate changes it and sends it back to the House for a final round of votes and negotiations.

    Now with House GOP leaders still struggling to get the votes ahead of the September 30 deadline, Schumer said he would try to cut a deal with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and send it to the House on the eve of a potential shutdown – all as he signaled he was pushing to include aid to Ukraine as part of the package.

    “We may now have to go first … given the House,” Schumer told CNN in an interview in his office, moments before he took procedural steps to allow the Senate to take up a continuing resolution, or CR, as soon as next week. “Leader McConnell and I are talking and we have a great deal of agreement on many parts of this. It’s never easy to get a big bill, a CR bill done, but I am very, very optimistic that McConnell and I can find a way and get a large number of votes both Democratic and Republican in the Senate.”

    If Schumer’s assessment is correct, that would leave McCarthy with a choice: Either ignore the Senate’s bill altogether or continue to try to pass his own bill in the narrowly divided House where he can only afford to lose four GOP members on any party-line vote.

    But McCarthy could also be jammed by a bipartisan group of members who are openly threatening to sign a petition forcing a vote in the House – if they get 218 supporters – and circumvent the speaker altogether. At the moment, McCarthy is scrambling to resurrect his spending plans to try to move 11 year-long funding bills through his chamber – even though it typically takes months to hash out differences between the two chambers on spending legislation.

    There’s now talk in House GOP circles about focusing solely on those long-term bills and abandoning a stop-gap resolution altogether, as hardliners threaten to tank it, and as GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida has vowed to seek McCarthy’s ouster as speaker if he pushes for such a Band-aid solution. But McCarthy indicated he’s still open to passing a Republican stop-gap bill, and he was non-committal on Friday on how he would handle a plan sent to him by the Senate.

    It remains to be seen what will ultimately be included in the Senate’s plan. Schumer said in the interview “I hope so” when asked if he expected Ukraine funding to be included as the White House has pushed for $24 billion to aid the country in its war against Russia.

    “Leader McConnell and I are both strongly for aid for Ukraine, and I believe the majority of the members of both parties in the Senate agree with that,” Schumer said.

    But pushing such a plan quickly through the Senate will be difficult. Any one senator can slow down action in the Senate – and Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican – has vowed to battle a bill that provides money for Ukraine.

    “I’ll object to sending any more money to Ukraine,” Paul told CNN on Thursday. “We don’t have any more money.”

    Yet with the GOP divisions over how to proceed, frustration is growing in the ranks.

    Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, a member of Senate GOP leadership, raised concerns about her party’s handling of the spending talks.

    “I feel like we have control of the House – I don’t envy my good friend Kevin McCarthy’s position here – but I think we’re just showing that we don’t have any solutions,” Capito told CNN. “Stalemates and government shutdowns are not good solutions.”

    Asked if she were concerned about the fallout of a shutdown, Capito said: “I do worry about that, the political backlash.”

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  • Pentagon: Russian fighter jets approached US and Coalition aircraft over Syria 7 times in August — at times within 1,000 feet | CNN Politics

    Pentagon: Russian fighter jets approached US and Coalition aircraft over Syria 7 times in August — at times within 1,000 feet | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Russian fighter aircraft approached US F-35 fighter jets and other Coalition aircraft over Syria on seven occasions during the month of August and in several instances flew within 1,000 feet, the Pentagon said Friday.

    Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said the Russian jets’ actions were “unsafe and unprofessional,” adding that the Russian fighters flew in “aggressive maneuvers, several of which were inside 1,000 feet.”

    The unsafe maneuvers, Ryder said, “increase the risk of miscalculation and are not reflective of the behavior we’d expect from a professional air force.” The most recent unsafe maneuvers took place on August 25, according to the Pentagon.

    Over the last several years, the US and Russia have used a deconfliction line between the two militaries in Syria to avoid unintentional mistakes or encounters that can inadvertently lead to escalation. Still, Russian pilots have a history of interacting with US and Coalition aircraft in unsafe manners.

    In April, US Central Command said Russian pilots tried to “dogfight” US jets over Syria – adding at the time to a pattern of more aggressive behavior. In military aviation, dogfighting is engaging in aerial combat, often at relatively close ranges.

    A video released by US Central Command from April 2 showed a Russian SU-35 fighter jet conducting an “unsafe and unprofessional” intercept of a US F-16 fighter jet. A second video from April 18 showed a Russian fighter that violated coalition airspace and came within 2,000 feet of a US aircraft, a distance a fighter jet can cover in a matter of seconds.

    A US official previously told CNN that the Russian pilots did not appear in those cases to be trying to shoot down American jets, but they may have been trying to “provoke” the US and “draw us into an international incident.”

    Ryder on Friday called on Russia “to cease this reckless activity.”

    “We call on the Russian Air Force to cease this reckless activity, but regardless will continue to remain focused on our mission to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS,” he said.

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  • House Oversight GOP claims they don’t need to find direct payments to Joe Biden to prove corruption in Hunter Biden business dealings memo | CNN Politics

    House Oversight GOP claims they don’t need to find direct payments to Joe Biden to prove corruption in Hunter Biden business dealings memo | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    House Oversight Republicans laid out their intention to accuse President Joe Biden of corruption even without direct evidence that he financially benefited from Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, a clear shift in their strategy that they said was launched to investigate the president.

    The new strategy is highlighted in a memo released by the committee on Wednesday.

    “President Biden’s defenders purport a weak defense by asserting the Committee must show payments directly to the President to show corruption,” the House Oversight Republicans wrote.

    “This is a hollow claim no other American would be afforded if their family members accepted foreign payments or bribes. Indeed, the law recognizes payments to family members to corruptly influence others can constitute a bribe,” the memo says. The panel points to a resource guide of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that states “companies also may violate the FCPA if they give payments or gifts to third parties, such as an official’s family members, as an indirect way of corruptly influencing a foreign official.” Hunter Biden has not been charged or convicted of accepting bribes at this point.

    The memo follows the increasing drumbeat from many House Republicans – and certainly the GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump – to pursue impeachment of the sitting president even without a clear establishment of facts.

    But, so far, it appears the committee has not found any direct evidence that President Biden personally benefited from any of his son’s business dealings. Republicans are now insisting they don’t have to.

    “No one in the Biden Administration or in the Minority has explained what services, if any, the Bidens and their associates provided in exchange for the over $20 million in foreign payments,” reads the memo.

    The White House has long maintained that Comer’s investigation is designed for political purposes as it has yet to find any evidence that Joe Biden directly profited from his son’s foreign business dealings or if Hunter Biden’s entanglements influenced his decision-making while vice president.

    President Biden has denied being involved in any of his son’s business dealings.

    In a statement following the release of the memo, White House spokesperson Ian Sams said, “Today House Republicans on the Oversight Committee released another memo full of years-old ‘news,’ innuendo, and misdirection – but notably missing, yet again, is any connection to President Biden.”

    The top Democrat on the Oversight panel, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, added, “Republicans have repeatedly twisted and mischaracterized the evidence in a transparent and increasingly embarrassing attempt to justify their baseless calls for an impeachment inquiry and distract from former President Trump’s dozens of outstanding felony criminal charges in three different cases.”

    The memo argues that Hunter Biden selling his father’s “brand” around the world to enrich the Biden family is enough to prove that there was corruption and bribery connected to Joe Biden.

    “During Joe Biden’s vice presidency, Hunter Biden sold him as ‘the brand’ to reap millions from oligarchs in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine,” said Committee Chairman James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, in a statement. “It appears no real services were provided other than access to the Biden network, including Joe Biden himself. And Hunter Biden seems to have delivered.”

    But Hunter Biden’s business associate Devon Archer, testified to the Oversight Committee last week that Hunter gave the false impression to executives of Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company, that he had influence over US policy.

    Archer said that Hunter Biden sold the illusion of access to his father, and Archer told the panel he was “not aware of any” wrongdoing by Joe Biden and that “nothing” of importance was discussed the 20 times he recalled then-Vice President Joe Biden being placed on speaker phone during meetings with business partners.

    The only evidence Oversight Republicans mention that indirectly connects Joe Biden to his son’s business dealings are a 2014 and 2015 dinner that he attended with Hunter Biden and some of his foreign business associates at Café Milano and that he visited Ukraine as vice president shortly after his son started receiving $1 million a year from Burisma, for joining their board of directors.

    Wednesday’s memo comes as CNN previously reported that House Republicans are gearing up to launch an impeachment inquiry into the president as soon as next month.

    The memo focuses on a previously known $3.5 million payment from Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina that Archer testified Hunter Biden was “not involved” in the meeting.

    Even though Hunter Biden was not directly involved, House Oversight Republicans are attempting to show how a portion of the $3.5 million was transferred into multiple accounts until it entered an account connected to Hunter Biden. Committee Republicans then suggest, without evidence, that the payment was connected to a dinner with Baturina including Hunter and Joe Biden at Café Milano in the spring of 2014 shortly after the initial payment was made. Without presenting evidence that would provide a connection, Republicans suggested that this payment could have something to do with why Baturina is not on the public sanctions list following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Hunter Biden’s business associate involved in this payment, Devon Archer, who testified to the Oversight panel last week described the Café Milano dinner as “like a birthday dinner.”

    “He came to dinner, and we ate and kind of talked about the world, I guess, and the weather, and then everybody – everybody left,” Archer, who was also at the dinner, said of Joe Biden.

    In a 2020 Senate report, Republicans revealed the existence of the payment from Baturina to a company tied to Hunter Biden’s business associates. But Wednesday’s memo does not detail how much of the $3.5 million Hunter Biden received specifically.

    Hunter Biden’s lawyers said in 2020 that the claim that he was paid $3.5 million “is false” and the key financial transactions that Comer flagged – between Hunter Biden and billionaires from Russia and Kazakhstan – are not referenced in any of the plea documents in Hunter Biden’s criminal case and were not mentioned at his court hearing last month.

    The memo focuses on deals and transactions Hunter Biden made with foreign oligarchs and leaders in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The panel subpoenaed six banks for information regarding specific Biden family business associates, but has not yet subpoenaed bank records from Biden family members themselves.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • US aid to Israel and Ukraine: Here’s what’s in the $105 billion national security package Biden requested | CNN Politics

    US aid to Israel and Ukraine: Here’s what’s in the $105 billion national security package Biden requested | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Weeks after the Biden administration laid out the details of a $105 billion national security package that includes funding for both Israel and Ukraine, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he would bring the supplemental request to the floor as soon as next week.

    But the effort faces steep hurdles in getting through Congress. Among them: The House and Senate are divided over whether to continue sending aid to Ukraine, and Republican lawmakers want to tie the funding to tightening immigration laws.

    The supplemental package would provide security support to Israel, bolster Israeli efforts to secure the release of hostages and extend humanitarian aid to civilians affected by the war in Israel and Gaza, according to a White House fact sheet released in October.

    It would also provide training, equipment and weapons to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s invasion and to recapture its territory, as well as to protect Ukrainians from Russian aggression, the fact sheet said.

    The package would also include additional funds to support US-Mexico border security, including more patrol agents, machines to detect fentanyl, asylum officers and immigration judge teams. Plus, it would provide funding to strengthen security in the Indo-Pacific region, including Taiwan.

    President Joe Biden pushed for the funding request in a prime-time Oval Office address to the nation in October. The administration’s prior request for $24 billion in Ukraine aid was not included in a stopgap government funding measure Congress approved in late September.

    Here’s what’s in the package, according to the White House:

    • $30 billion for the Defense Department for equipment for Ukraine and the replenishment of US stocks. So far, the US has provided Ukraine with air defense systems, munitions, small arms and ground maneuver units, among other weapons and equipment.
    • $14.4 billion for continued military, intelligence and other defense support. This includes investments in the defense industrial base, transportation costs of US personnel and equipment, and continuing an enhanced US troop presence in Europe, among other activities.
    • $16.3 billion for economic, security and operational assistance. It includes direct budget support to Ukraine to help it provide critical services to its people and sustain its economy, as well as investments in infrastructure, civilian law enforcement and getting rid of mines.
    • $481 million to support Ukrainians arriving in the US through the Uniting for Ukraine program.
    • $149 million for the National Nuclear Security Administration for nuclear/radiological incident response and capacity building in case of emergencies as part of general contingency planning.

    RELATED: Ukraine aid: Where the money is coming from, in 4 charts

    • $10.6 billion for assistance through the Defense Department, including air and missile defense support, industrial base investments and replenishment of US stocks being drawn down to support Israel.
    • The aid aims to bolster Israel’s air and missile defense system readiness and support its procurement of Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile defense systems and components, as well as the development of the Iron Beam.
    • $3.7 billion for the State Department to strengthen Israel’s military and enhance US Embassy security.
    • $9.15 billion for aid for Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and other humanitarian needs. It includes support for Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and surrounding areas.
    • $850 million for migration and refugee assistance at the US-Mexico border.

    $7.4 billion for Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region

    • The security assistance aims to bolster deterrence and to support allies facing increasing assertiveness from China and transitioning off Russian military equipment.
    • $2 billion for foreign military financing.
    • $3.4 billion for the submarine industrial base. It would fund improvements at the Navy’s four public shipyards and increase submarine availability.
    • $2 billion for the Treasury Department to provide a “credible alternative to coercive financing” and to catalyze billions from other donors through the US-led World Bank. The administration is seeking to offer options other than China’s “coercive and unsustainable financing for developing countries.”
    • $6.4 billion for border operations, including additional temporary holding facilities, DNA collection at the border and support for eligible arrivals and unaccompanied children.
    • $3.1 billion for an additional 1,300 Border Patrol agents, 1,600 asylum officers, processing personnel and 375 immigration judge teams.
    • $1.4 billion for state and local support for temporary shelter, food and other services for migrants recently released from Department of Homeland Security custody.
    • $1.2 billion to counter fentanyl, including inspection system deployment, additional Customs and Border Protection officers, and testing and tracing activities.
    • $1.4 billion for migration needs to support Safe Mobility Offices, for host communities and legal pathways in the region, for foreign government repatriation operations and to combat human trafficking and smuggling in the Western Hemisphere.
    • $100 million for child labor investigations and enforcement, particularly to protect migrant children entering the US through the southern border.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Three drones intercepted following attack in Moscow, Russian forces say | CNN

    Three drones intercepted following attack in Moscow, Russian forces say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Three drones were intercepted on Sunday in an attempted attack on “Moscow City” – a business and shopping development in the west of the city, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said.

    “One Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was destroyed in the air by air defense forces over the territory of the Odintsovo district of Moscow region,” a statement said.

    “Two more drones were jammed using electronic warfare capabilities and after losing control, they crashed on the territory of a complex of non-residential buildings in Moscow City.”

    CNN has not been able to verify the origin of the drones that few over Moscow on Sunday.

    Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) were first deployed by Ukraine to help artillery locate Russian targets on the battlefield, and now many believe they are being used to hit targets well inside Russian territory.

    Russian state news agency TASS reported the attack, attributing it to security sources. “There was a strike in the building of the “IQ-Quarter” located in “Moscow City” (shopping center),” TASS said.

    In subsequent reporting, it added that a “temporary no fly zone had been introduced for the Moscow flight zone… reported by emergency services.”

    “As a result of the strike, glass broke on the fifth and sixth floors of the 50-story building. There are no casualties. It did not result in a fire.”

    Videos showed debris as well as emergency services at the scene.

    A witness told Reuters that there were explosions and fire. “My friends and I rented an apartment to come here and unwind, and at some point, we heard an explosion – it was like a wave, everyone jumped,” she said. “There was a lot of smoke, and you couldn’t see anything. From above, you could see fire.”

    It also came after a Russian missile attack on the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy late on Saturday, which left at least one civilian dead and five others wounded, according to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry.

    Response teams were on site and continuing firefighting effects, the ministry added.

    Sunday’s drone attack was the second reported in Moscow in the past week.

    Ukrainian forces carried out drone strikes on July 24, Ukrainian officials confirmed with CNN, adding that security forces were responsible for the strike. Russian officials said it was a “terrorist attack of the Kiev regime.”

    Ukrainian Minister Mykhailo Fedorov whose Digital Transformation Ministry oversees the country’s “Army of Drones” procurement plan, said there would be more strikes to come.

    Speaking on the sidelines of the Russian Africa forum in St. Petersburg on Saturday, President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow had never rejected peace negotiations with Ukraine and a ceasefire was hard to implement when the Ukrainian army was on the offensive.

    To start the process an agreement is needed from both sides, Putin added.

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  • What Ukraine must do to win in its southern push — and what Russia has in reserve | CNN

    What Ukraine must do to win in its southern push — and what Russia has in reserve | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The Ukrainian military is doubling down on efforts to break through thick Russian defenses in its counteroffensive in the south, which has struggled to gain momentum since being launched at the beginning of June.

    Ukrainian officials have said little about what fresh units are being committed to the offensive, but the military has clearly added recently-minted units equipped with western armor in at least one important segment of the southern front.

    The challenges faced by the Ukrainians are perhaps less to do with numbers and more to do with capabilities, training and coordination, factors that are critical when an attacking force is faced with such an array of defenses.

    Fragments of geolocated video show that western armor such as Bradley fighting vehicles have been part of the renewed assault and that experienced units have been brought into the fray. But tight operational security on the part of the Ukrainians precludes a full assessment of what is being done to reboot the counteroffensive – and where.

    There’s still debate about the size of the additional effort.

    George Barros of the Institute for the Study of War – a Washington-based group – told CNN: “We had not seen any evidence of a battalion-level attack and certainly no brigade-level attacks. If the Ukrainians are indeed committing full battalions and brigades now as reported, that would mark a clear new phase of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.”

    A Ukrainian brigade is roughly 3,000 troops.

    For weeks Ukrainian forces have struggled to break through Russian lines because of layers of defenses: tank traps, other obstacles and dense minefields. According to some Ukrainian accounts, they have resorted to using small groups of military engineers working through forested areas to cut a path through or evade these minefields.

    But navigating them will not break the back of Russian defenses. Satellite imagery shows multiple layers of Russian fortifications, sometimes 20 kilometers deep: breach one and another awaits.

    Despite hurried training, some of it in western Europe, Ukrainian forces appear to be struggling to carry out combined arms operations: the use of multiple different assets to suppress and degrade Russian defenses both in the air and on the ground.

    “Russian attack helicopters and fighter-bombers are exploiting weaknesses in Ukraine’s air defenses, enabling the Russians to strike Ukrainian ground forces. Conducting a mechanized penetration of this magnitude while the adversary has air superiority is extremely difficult,” says Barros at the ISW.

    “Operations are more sequential than synchronized,” says analyst Franz-Stefan Gady after a visit to the front lines and extensive conversations with the Ukrainian military.

    “Ukraine will have to better synchronize and adapt current tactics, without which western equipment will not prove tac[tically] decisive in the long run. This is happening but it is slow work in progress.”

    Gady says that in addition, Ukrainian troops he spoke with “are all too aware that lack of progress is often more due to force employment, poor tactics, lack of coordination (between) units, bureaucratic red tape/infighting, Soviet style thinking etc.”

    He says that makes the Ukrainians more vulnerable as they try to advance, and there is some evidence of that in the few videos that have emerged on social media.

    “It’s not just about equipment. There’s simply no systematic pulling apart of the Russian defensive system that I could observe,” Gady tweeted. “Weakening Russian defenses to a degree that enables maneuver,” which will include the use of cluster munitions, is a critical task in the weeks ahead.

    The commitment of new units this week does appear to have enabled the Ukrainians make modest advances south of the town of Orikhiv, edging closer to the important Russian hub of Tokmak some 20 kilometers to the south of the current frontline.

    There are other modest successes further east, but the few frontline accounts to have emerged speak of unceasing Russian aviation and artillery strikes.

    Kostyantyn Denysov, a member of the Freedom Legion, said the fighting was relentless.

    “In a word, it’s hell,” he told RFE/Radio Liberty this week. “There are small arms battles along the entire contact line, counter-battery fighting.”

    “Their helicopters are flying here in pairs and shelling our positions, Su-25 assault aircraft are working, dropping bombs on our guys’ heads. Many units have been brought here to try not only to stop our movement, but also to recapture lost positions in certain areas.”

    The Ukrainian military’s critical need is to gain momentum – and force Russian commanders to make painful choices about where and how to deploy their units.

    It is far too early to tell whether the Ukrainian counteroffensive has entered a more dynamic phase. The ISW cautions that “this kind of penetration battle will be one of the most difficult things for Ukrainian forces to accomplish.”

    A vehicle of the Ukrainian Armed Forces moves along the road in Novodarivka village, Zaporizhzhia Region.

    Nor can the Ukrainians focus their entire effort on the south. The Russians still hope to make tactical advances of their own in the north and eastern fronts, so the Ukrainians have to retain substantial and capable forces along the straggling northern front.

    As former Australian general Mick Ryan writes: “General Gerasimov, who we assume retains overall command of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, is implementing a defensive strategy. But concurrently he is conducting offensive activities at the tactical and operation levels,” especially along the front that leads north from Kreminna to Kupyansk.

    The Kremlin has seized upon the slow progress of the Ukrainian counter-offensive: a rare opportunity to go beyond damage limitation.

    President Vladimir Putin said on July 21 that it was “clear today that the Western curators of the Kiev regime are certainly disappointed with the results of the counteroffensive that the current Ukrainian authorities announced in previous months.”

    But this conflict has been a graveyard of premature declarations.

    There are factors that may work in Ukraine’s favor.

    George Barros at the ISW says the Ukrainians may be able to exploit geographical advantages.

    “Russian defensive lines are not all contiguous or uniformly suited for strong defence. Some lines are bisected by water features or difficult terrain. Some lines are arrayed in such a manner that it could make a controlled withdrawal from one prepared defensive line to the other difficult.”

    Pointing to successful Ukrainian attacks along the Mokri Yaly river, Barros says that “many such exploitable terrain intricacies exist along the southern frontline.”

    A Ukrainian serviceman inspects a former position of Russian troops.

    Russian units are suffering battle fatigue, with insufficient rotation or relief even as reinforcements are brought forward. Elements of the 58th Combined Arms Army have been fighting in Zaporizhzhia non-stop for nearly two months.

    Its commander, Major General Ivan Popov, was dismissed earlier this month for complaining to the Russian Defense Ministry about the situation.

    Most observers say that in contrast, Ukrainian morale remains robust.

    Even so, Gady contends that “Russian forces, even if severely degraded and lacking ammo, are likely capable of delaying, containing or repulsing individual platoon- or company-sized Ukrainian advances unless these attacks are better coordinated & synchronized along the broader frontline.”

    Some Ukrainian officials have complained that allied expectations have been unreasonable given the depth of Russian defenses and Russian air superiority – and the speed with which they have had to stand up new brigades.

    While grateful for Western equipment such as mine engineering vehicles and cluster munitions, they say much more is needed. F16s would neutralize Russia’s air superiority; longer-range artillery would accelerate the damage to the Russian military’s logistics.

    Absent an unexpected collapse of Russian lines, Ukrainian gains “are likely to occur over a long period of time and interspersed with lulls and periods of slower and more grinding efforts as the Ukrainians come to successive Russian defensive lines and themselves require relief and rotation,” says the ISW.

    Gady concurs. “I suspect this will remain a bloody attritional fight with reserve units being fed in incrementally in the coming weeks and months,” he tweeted.

    If that is the case, and this conflict begins to resemble the static frontlines that began to solidify in Donbas in 2015-16, when Russian-backed forces captured Ukrainian territory, other questions arise.

    Will western governments begin to exert pressure on Ukraine to seek a settlement? And given the losses suffered thus far, Russia’s ability to generate reinforcements and the uncertainties surrounding the US presidential election – will the Ukrainian government’s own calculations shift?

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  • Wagner chief Prigozhin seen back in Russia for first time since rebellion | CNN

    Wagner chief Prigozhin seen back in Russia for first time since rebellion | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner private military company, was spotted inside Russia on Thursday for the first time since he led an armed rebellion against the Russian military last month.

    Prigozhin was seen in St. Petersburg, meeting with an African dignitary on the sidelines of the Russia Africa summit, according to accounts associated with the mercenary group.

    The dignitary is part of the Central African Republic delegation to the summit. Wagner has had a presence in the Central African Republic for several years, as previously reported by CNN.

    CNN was able to geolocate the photograph of Prigozhin and the dignitary to the Trezzini Palace Hotel in St. Petersburg, where, according to Russian media, the Wagner founder has kept an office. The hotel was one of the locations searched by Russian authorities on July 6, after the rebellion.

    Since then, Prigozhin had only been seen in public on July 19, when he seemingly appeared in a video inside Belarus, apparently greeting Wagner fighters at a base in Asipovichy.

    Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko – a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir – claimed he convinced Putin not to “destroy” Wagner and Prigozhin during the rebellion.

    Video purportedly shows Prigozhin in public for first time since mutiny

    Prigozhin’s rebellion posed one of the biggest challenges to Putin’s long rule.

    Typically a figure who has preferred to operate in the shadows, Prigozhin and his fighters were thrust into the spotlight following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, with Wagner mercenaries playing a key role in multiple battles.

    Prigozhin and Putin have known each other since the 1990s. Prigozhin became a wealthy oligarch by winning lucrative catering contracts with the Kremlin, earning him the moniker “Putin’s chef.”

    His apparent transformation into a brutal warlord came in the aftermath of the 2014 Russian-backed separatist movement in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine.

    Prigozhin founded Wagner as a shadowy mercenary outfit that fought both in Ukraine and, increasingly, for Russian-backed causes around the world.

    CNN has tracked Wagner mercenaries in the Central African Republic, Sudan, Libya, Mozambique, Ukraine and Syria. Over the years they have developed a gruesome reputation and have been linked to multiple human rights abuses.

    After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Wagner forces were heavily involved in taking the Ukrainian cities of Soledar and Bakhmut.

    At times, Wagner forces seemed to be the only ones on the Russian side winning battles with the Ukrainians.

    But Prigozhin was often critical of Russian military leadership and the support it was giving his troops.

    In one particularly grim video from early May, Prigozhin stood next to a pile of dead Wagner fighters and took aim specifically at Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of the Russian armed forces Gen. Valery Gerasimov.

    “The blood is still fresh,” he says, pointing to the bodies behind him. “They came here as volunteers and are dying so you can sit like fat cats in your luxury offices.”

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  • North Korea, China and Russia commemorate ‘victory’ 70 years ago, while aligning on Ukraine | CNN

    North Korea, China and Russia commemorate ‘victory’ 70 years ago, while aligning on Ukraine | CNN

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    Seoul, South Korea
    CNN
     — 

    Delegations from Russia and China, North Korea’s key allies in the Korean War, gathered in Pyongyang this week to celebrate North Korea’s “Victory Day” in the war that ravaged the Korean Peninsula seven decades ago as they align over another very contemporary conflict – Russia’s devastating invasion of Ukraine.

    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gave Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu – an architect of Moscow’s assault on Ukraine – a tour of a defense exposition in Pyongyang on Wednesday, with images from North Korean media showing them walking past an array of weaponry, from Pyongyang’s nuclear-capable ballistic missiles to its newest drones.

    At a state reception for Shoigu and the Russian delegation, in a reference to the war in Ukraine, North Korean Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam expressed Pyongyang’s full support “for the just struggle of the Russian army and people to defend the sovereignty and security of the country,” according to a report from the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

    In remarks of his own, Shoigu then said the Korean People’s Army (KPA) has “become the strongest army in the world” and pledged continued cooperation to keep it that way.

    Also Wednesday, at a reception for the Chinese delegation led by Politburo member Li Hongzhong, senior North Korean official Kim Song Nam thanked Chinese forces for joining in the Korean War, saying North Korea “would not forget forever the heroic feats and merits of the bravery soldiers who recorded a brilliant page in the history.”

    Ankit Panda, Stanton senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said the presence of the Chinese and Russian delegations at the armistice anniversary “underscores the importance Pyongyang attaches to its relationships with both countries.”

    “Shoigu’s presence is particularly notable: a sign of just how close Pyongyang and Moscow have become since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year,” Panda said.

    Thursday is the 70th anniversary of the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War, one of the first international conflicts of the Cold War era.

    In the fall of 1950, China sent a quarter million troops into the Korean Peninsula, supporting its North Korean ally and pushing back the combined forces of South Korea, the United States and other countries under the United Nations Command.

    More than 180,000 Chinese troops died in the Korean War, or what Beijing calls the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.

    Russia’s predecessor, the Soviet Union, also supported North Korea during the war, with combat support like Soviet aircraft engaging US jets and with supplies of heavy weaponry like tanks.

    Despite Pyongyang’s claims of a victory, the war it launched in 1950 ended in a stalemate, with the current demilitarized zone along the 38th parallel in much the same location as it was before the war.

    The Korean War armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, ending hostilities although a true peace deal has never been signed.

    After the war, the US, which anchored the UN Command that supported South Korea, kept a large contingent of troops in the South at a range of Army and air bases. The US’ Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, is the largest overseas US military base.

    Meanwhile, Moscow over the decades has been a staunch ally for North Korea, especially as the two share a joint animosity toward the West. The same can be said for the Chinese Communist Party, especially under China’s current leader Xi Jinping.

    Panda noted how both Moscow and Beijing, permanent members of the UN Security Council, have defended Pyongyang’s interests before the world body as Western powers led by the US have tried to put further sanctions on North Korea.

    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Pyongyang on July 26, 2023.

    Now the three authoritarian nuclear powers are putting up a united front over Ukraine, a former Soviet state which Russia invaded in February 2022 after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared it was historically Russian territory.

    That invasion soon stumbled as Ukrainians put up a fierce defense of their homeland and as Western powers scrambled to send weapons and ammunition to Kyiv while Moscow burned through its own stocks and looked to allies like Iran and North Korea to resupply.

    US officials said last year that North Korea was selling millions of rockets and artillery shells to Russia for use on the battlefield in Ukraine.

    And while China has not supplied Russia with weaponry, it has remained steadfastly in Moscow’s corner as the war in Ukraine drags into its 18th month, with Xi deepening his relationship with Putin and echoing the Kremlin’s rhetoric over the conflict.

    After the brief mutiny in Russia by the Wagner mercenary group last month, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson expressed support for the Putin regime.

    “As Russia’s friendly neighbor and comprehensive strategic partner of coordination for the new era, China supports Russia in maintaining national stability and achieving development and prosperity,” an online statement said.

    Meanwhile, the Russian and Chinese militaries have been active in the waters off the Korean Peninsula, with their latest joint exercise, Northern/Interaction-2023, bringing together naval and air forces from both countries in drills aiming to “strengthen both sides’ capabilities of jointly safeguarding regional peace and stability and responding to various security challenges,” according to the People’s Liberation Army’s English website.

    Those exercises in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan occurred as South Korea and the US were conducting military displays of their own, including a US Navy nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarine making a port call in South Korea for the first time in four decades.

    Pyongyang’s armistice commemorations were expected to continue Thursday with a military parade in the capital. North Korea typically marks key moments in its history with displays of its newest weaponry.

    One such weapon that may be on display is the Hwasong-18 ICBM, a solid-fueled, nuclear-capable missile that North Korea claims could hit anywhere in the United States. It has tested that missile twice this year, most recently earlier this month.

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  • The risks are rising for Western firms in Russia. So why are so many staying put? | CNN Business

    The risks are rising for Western firms in Russia. So why are so many staying put? | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a slew of Western companies left in protest. But some of the world’s biggest firms — including Nestlé, Heineken and snack maker Mondelez — stayed put.

    More than a year later, companies that chose to remain in Russia are in an increasingly sticky position: Leaving has become costlier and more complex, while staying has grown riskier.

    Companies now find themselves caught between Western sanctions and public outrage on the one hand, and an increasingly hostile Russian government on the other. The Kremlin is making it more difficult for Western firms to sell their Russian assets — and imposing steep discounts and punitive taxes when they do.

    The experience of French yoghurt maker Danone

    (DANOY)     and Danish brewer Carlsberg

    (CABGY)     provides a chilling example of the kind of far-reaching state intervention that could befall other foreign firms hoping to beat a retreat from Russia.

    Both companies had been finalizing sales to local buyers when President Vladimir Putin signed an order nationalizing their local assets earlier this month.

    Carlsberg said the development meant the prospects for the sale of its Baltika Breweries — one of Russia’s largest consumer goods companies — were now “highly uncertain.”

    The “window of opportunity to exit Russia is almost closed,” Maria Shagina, a sanctions expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told CNN. “Western companies are now caught between a rock and a hard place.”

    More than 1,000 foreign companies have exited or suspended operations in Russia since the war broke out, according to researchers at Yale University.

    Spurred by sweeping Western sanctions, oil companies, automakers, technology firms, consultancies and banks led the initial wave of departures. McDonald’s

    (MCD)     sold more than 800 local restaurants, writing off well over $1 billion in the process.

    BP

    (BP)    , meanwhile, took a $24.4 billion charge for giving up its 19.75% shareholding in Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil company. The move also took a bite out of the British energy giant’s oil and gas reserves.

    But even after the mass exodus of major corporations, the Yale researchers estimate that more than 200 companies from around the globe continue to do business as usual in Russia.

    An additional 178 firms are “buying time,” meaning they have suspended new investments and scaled back their operations but still have a presence in the country.

    Unilever

    (UL)    , Nestlé, Mondelēz and Procter & Gamble

    (PG)     — the world’s biggest consumer goods companies — fall into this category.

    Nescafé coffee, produced by Nestlé, in a store in Moscow in March 2022

    While the exact reasons each company gives for staying vary, common themes include concern for the welfare of employees and their families in Russia, as well as obligations to local partners, including farmers. The companies also say they are delivering vital supplies to ordinary people and some argue that abandoning their Russian assets would only boost the Kremlin’s war chest by giving it easy access to new sources of revenue.

    To be sure, selling up is not straightforward and comes with hefty penalties. Companies are obliged to sell their assets at a 50% discount to market value and pay the Kremlin a sizable fee. US companies would need permission from the Treasury to pay such a fee, according to guidance issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control in March.

    Western sanctions against almost 2,000 individuals and entities further complicate the picture, making it hard to find legitimate buyers.

    “We do not intend to further contribute to the capacity of the Russian state,” Unilever CEO Hein Schumacher told journalists Tuesday.

    With that objective in mind, the company — which paid 3.8 billion rubles ($42.2 million) in taxes to the Russian government in 2022 — had not been able to find a “viable solution” involving a sale of its operations in the country, he added.

    Deserting its business in Russia, which has €800 million ($884 million) in assets, including four factories, would only increase the risk of nationalization, which leaves Unilever with no other option but to keep operating, Schumacher said.

    “None of the options are actually good but… operating in a constrained manner is the least bad.”

    A spokesperson for Nestlé, which has six factories and around 7,000 employees in Russia, told CNN it had “drastically reduced” its range of products in the country to provide only “essential and basic foods for the local people.”

    Procter & Gamble did not respond to a request for comment, but the company previously said it would “focus on basic health, hygiene and personal care items needed by the many Russian families who depend on them in their daily lives.”

    Mondelez said in June that it planned to “have the Russia business stand-alone with a self-sufficient supply chain” by the end of the year. “If we suspended our full operations, we would risk turning over our full operations to another party who could use the full proceeds for their own interests,” it added.

    But the Kremlin’s actions toward Danone and Carlsberg — and before them German energy company Uniper and Finland’s Fortum Oyj, whose Russian utilities were seized in April — highlight that even companies staying put could find themselves targeted for nationalization.

    For Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, who leads the team tracking foreign companies’ responses to the war, leaving is the only legitimate choice. “The idea is to increase the level of discomfort, so [the Russian people] start to ask who the author of their misfortune is,” Sonnenfeld told CNN earlier this month.

    — Olesya Dmitracova contributed reporting.

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  • Overnight Russian strikes on Odesa cause significant structural damage, destroy church | CNN

    Overnight Russian strikes on Odesa cause significant structural damage, destroy church | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Russian strikes on Odesa overnight damaged at least at least six residential buildings, a Ukrainian Orthodox Church and “architectural monuments,” according to Ukraine’s southern Operational Command.

    “Dozens of cars were damaged, facades and roofs of many buildings in the city were damaged and windows were blown out,” it said in a statement on Telegram.

    “Several craters have been formed in the city. There are power outages, which may hamper traffic and the route of public transport may be changed.”

    The strikes on Saturday night killed at least one person, the statement said, and left at least 19 hurt.

    “Another 19 people including four children were injured. Eleven adults and three children were hospitalized while the rest are being treated on an outpatient basis,” the statement said.

    Ukraine has been struggling in the past week to repel a wave of Russian strikes against Odesa – its air defenses unable to cope with the types of missiles that Moscow has used to pummel the region.

    By Friday residents endured at least four nights of bombardment.

    A CNN team on the ground began hearing explosions on Thursday, with near continuous strikes lasting at least 90 minutes – followed by air raid sirens on Friday as Russian troops fired more missiles from the Black Sea.

    In a statement on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned Moscow’s latest strikes on Odesa.

    “Missiles against peaceful cities, against residential buildings, a cathedral… There can be no excuse for Russian evil,” Zelensky said. “As always, this evil will lose and there will definitely be a retaliation to Russian terrorists for Odesa. They will feel this retaliation,” he said, adding that those injured were being provided with medical assistance.

    “I am grateful to everyone who is helping people and to everyone who is with Odesa in their thoughts and emotions. We will get through this. We will restore peace. And for this, we must defeat the Russian evil.”

    His words come as local military commanders reported at least two deaths following Russian overnight strikes in the Kharkhiv region, among them a 57-year-old woman and 45-year-old man killed in the Dvorichna district by shelling.

    “Over the past day, the enemy has been massively shelling settlements in Kharkiv, Chuhuiv, Kupyansk and Izium districts with artillery, mortars and aircraft,” Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv region military administration, said on Telegram.

    Civilian industry buildings including at least three houses and outbuildings were also damaged as a result of the attacks on Kupyansk with rocket launchers, cannon artillery and mortars.

    “Our defenders are holding their positions in the Kupyansk sector. The enemy has made no progress,” Syniehubov said.

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  • Ukraine hits Crimea ammunition dump, sparking evacuations and disrupting transport | CNN

    Ukraine hits Crimea ammunition dump, sparking evacuations and disrupting transport | CNN

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    Kyiv
    CNN
     — 

    Ukrainian forces hit an ammunition dump in Crimea, forcing an evacuation of the area and canceling train services, authorities in the annexed province say.

    It marks the latest in a series of recent strikes on Russian supplies and critical infrastructure in the occupied peninsula, which Ukraine ultimately wants to recapture.

    There has also been a wider escalation in the Black Sea area, with Russia pulling out of a crucial grain deal and for several nights pounding the southern city of Odesa.

    Videos posted on social media – and geolocated by CNN – shows thick black smoke rising not far from a railway station in the town of Oktyabrskoye in the center of Crimea. On one of the videos, at least three loud explosions can be heard.

    Sergey Aksyonov, the official installed by Russia to run Crimea, said a drone had struck an ammunition storage facility, prompting him to order the evacuation of everyone within a five-kilometer radius, and the cancellation of several train services.

    There were no initial reports of casualties, he said.

    The leader of the Crimean Tatar national movement in Ukraine said residents of the village of Büyük Onlar were ordered to move to another village about 7 miles away.

    “Residents of the village of Büyük Onlar, where explosions are intensifying as a result of a strike on the ammunition and military equipment warehouse of the Russian occupation army, are being urgently evacuated to the villages of the district,” said Refat Chubarov, who is currently working from Ukrainian-controlled territory outside of Crimea.

    It comes after Ukraine launched a drone attack on the bridge linking Crimea to Russia in the early hours of Monday, causing significant damage to part of the structure carrying road traffic.

    The crossing, also known as the Kerch Bridge, is a vital supply line for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine and a personal project for President Vladimir Putin.

    On Wednesday, an ammunition dump was hit in the east of the territory, also causing authorities to evacuate thousands of people living nearby. Unconfirmed reports suggested that attack might have been carried out using a Western-supplied Storm Shadow missile.

    Footage showed smoke and flames rolling over the site near Stary Krym in Crimea’s Kirorvsky district, where blasts were heard for at six hours after the initial explosion.

    And on Thursday, one person was killed when a Ukrainian drone struck four administrative buildings in the northwest of Crimea, Russian-backed authorities said.

    The Ukrainian military has been carrying out sustained attacks in Crimea with the goal of harassing the Russian Black Sea fleet and disrupting vital Russian supply lines.

    Reclaiming Crimea remains a goal for Ukraine and it is putting considerable effort into making Russia’s occupation as uncomfortable as possible.

    This week Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated it was an objective, calling Crimea “our sovereign territory, an unalienable part of our nation.”

    He described the Kerch bridge as a target that must be neutralized, calling it an “enemy facility built outside the law, outside international laws and all applicable norms.”

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  • Even with new armored vehicles from the US, progress is hard won on Ukraine’s southern front | CNN Politics

    Even with new armored vehicles from the US, progress is hard won on Ukraine’s southern front | CNN Politics

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    Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine
    CNN
     — 

    Tucked into a narrow tree line on Ukraine’s southern front, a young Ukrainian soldier wearing an American flag patch talks about how frightening it was the first time his team assaulted the densely mined Russian positions in the offensive launched a month ago.

    “The first day was the most difficult,” says the 19-year-old who goes by his call sign, “Kach.” “We didn’t know what to expect, what could happen, how events would unfold.”

    Nor did anyone really. After months of anticipation, Ukraine finally launched its “Spring Offensive” in early June. Everyone knew it would be tough going for the Ukrainians, having watched Russia dig in and build up formidable defenses over months. But even with no real expectation that the offensive would look like Ukraine’s lightening fast advance around Kharkiv last September, the hope among western officials was that Ukraine would be farther along and more successful than they are right now.

    But the offensive has proven more challenging than many expected, even with an arsenal of new western weaponry and equipment fueling the assault.

    Among the most-anticipated pieces of equipment was the American-made Bradley Fighting Vehicle, a critical addition to help infantry cross the dangerous and open terrain.

    Speaking to CNN, Kach is sitting inside his own Bradley. Just a few months ago, Kach was going through an accelerated US training course in Germany, where he and other Ukrainian soldiers were taught a more American, complex and nimble way of fighting.

    Kach’s brigade, the 47th Mechanized Brigade, is the only one to have received the coveted Bradleys, 200 of which have been committed by the US.

    The armored fighting vehicles are so admired by Ukrainian soldiers that running around Kach’s team’s camp barking is “Bradley” – the brigade press officer’s 6-month-old rescue puppy.

    The Velcro flag patch on Kach’s chest was a parting gift from his American trainer in Germany, who told him it would bring good luck. But it was the thick armor, powerful machine guns, rockets and night vision capabilities on the Bradley that gave Kach a boost of confidence when ordered to assault the Russians.

    When the brigade did, the Russians were ready. Dense minefields had been laid, rows of winding trenches were dug. Russian artillery started to pick off the vehicles sent out to de-mine the area. On top of that, this southern direction of attack was perhaps the most predictable in the offensive: designed to try to punch through the Russian line, drive south and split the southern land bridge connecting Russian-occupied Crimea and Donbas before finally reaching the Sea of Azov.

    The 47th ran into trouble very quickly trying to pierce the Russian line in their newly acquired armor. Photos and videos showed charred armored vehicles, including Bradleys and a German Leopard tank. Oryx, a military analysis site based on open source information, reports that around three dozen Bradleys have been destroyed or damaged.

    “It’s not that hard to clear a minefield but it is very hard to clear a minefield when in doing so under fire and from different types of fire,” says Rob Lee, a military analyst who is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who just visited Ukraine.

    “Since the beginning of that campaign, they adapted and it’s largely become a dismounted infantry fight,” Lee says. “It’s extremely arduous, extremely tough. The burden is very heavy on individual infantry men.”

    There is no disagreement from rank-and-file troops, nor from their commanders, who admit the progress has been slower than they would like.

    In a southern town about 10 kilometers from the jagged line of contact – often called the “zero line,” the brigade’s 25th Separate Assault Battalion has set up a command post in a basement bunker. It’s filled with enormous floor-to-ceiling maps denoting Ukrainian and Russian battlefield positions. A large computer monitor tracks the fighting through incoming reports and dozens of drone feeds.

    One soldier updating the maps showed CNN a Russian map recently taken from a trench that had been cleared, detailing the Russian defenses in the area. Outside loud booms from Ukrainian artillery cannons sweep across the heavily damaged and now largely empty town.

    The drone feeds show the empty fields littered with anti-tank and -personnel mines, pockmarked with craters from artillery. The tree lines on the other side hide Russian forces camped out in trenches.

    “We need to break through the mine barriers so that equipment and infantry can pass,” says Tral, the commander of a demining – or “sapping” – platoon. Moments prior he had just returned to the command post from yet another treacherous mission on foot to destroy or de-fuse the mines blocking their way.

    They work slowly, Tral says, “everything is done gradually. Where we have already [cleared] passages, our troops are already entering there. We do not allow [the Russians] to enter where we have already demined the territory.”

    Tral shares a video from his phone showing a large explosion shooting dirt and shrapnel into the sky after a Russian mine was detonated. (Ukrainian soldiers often ask to go by just one name or their “call sign.”)

    “It’s hard,” he says, “very hard.”

    Another soldier in the basement, Stanislav, keeps his eyes fixed on the big monitor, pulling up different drone feeds from his sector. As he watches Ukrainian artillery shells landing near Russian positions, he will help coordinate between the artillery teams and other forces closer to where the shells land to direct the fire.

    “In this war artillery is the most valuable asset,” Stanislav says flatly, eying the feed. “There are a lot of Russians. In here and overall. They have more guns, they have more shells and they have more people so we must counter that with our … professionalism.”

    These days, that means the slow grind of the exposed troops fighting from trench to trench, assaulting tree line to tree line under heavy fire.

    “There are [soldiers] in trenches,” Stanislav says. “We can’t liberate land with artillery. There are people that are working there.”

    That work requires resilience and patience. The soldier with the Russian map points to a tree line, spreading his index and middle finger to represent the distance, roughly 300 meters, he says “this section took us one and a half months.”

    Under a desk is Bradley, the press officer’s puppy. When it’s time to go, he strains his leash refusing to go back outside because of the artillery firing.

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