Three powerful businessmen—two Americans and a Russian—hunched over a laptop in Miami Beach last month, ostensibly to draw up a plan to end Russia’s long and deadly war with Ukraine.
But the full scope of their project went much further, according to people familiar with the talks. They were privately charting a path to bring Russia’s $2 trillion economy in from the cold—with American businesses first in line to beat European competitors to the dividends.
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Drew Hinshaw
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Taiwan is making the most of the U.S.’s policy of “strategic ambiguity,” even as President Trump’s stance raises concern for some in Taipei.
Joyu Wang
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It was a pre-Thanksgiving afternoon that few Americans could have imagined: U.S. troops defending themselves in a gunfight in the streets of the American capital.
A witness took photos of the ambush of the two National Guard troops that shows the suspect—an Afghan refugee with whom the Central Intelligence Agency had once worked—with a revolver in hand, U.S. National Guardsmen shooting back and fallen Guard members on the ground.
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Michael R. Gordon
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Iran has sent the Lebanese militia Hezbollah hundreds of millions of dollars over the past year via money exchanges and other businesses in Dubai, as Tehran seeks new ways to funnel money to its ally, people familiar with the matter said.
Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, is in desperate need of funds to rebuild and rearm its militia and pay other costs stemming from its bruising fight with Israel last year, the people said. Its smuggling routes through Syria were disrupted by the fall of the Iran-aligned Assad regime a year ago, and Lebanese authorities have made strides cracking down on couriers bringing suitcases of cash through the Beirut airport.
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Dov Lieber
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U.S. adversaries are using President Trump’s eagerness to strike deals as a chance to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its allies and undermine the Washington-led security order that has for years held them in check.
In Europe, Russia is seeking to exploit Trump’s desire to halt the war in Ukraine and strike business deals with Moscow by shaping a peace plan that meets many of its strategic objectives, including winning chunks of Ukrainian territory and closing off any hope Kyiv had of joining NATO.
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Jason Douglas
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When President Trump decided to send Pentagon representatives to Ukraine in an attempt to resuscitate stalled peace talks, he turned to an unexpected source: Army Secretary Dan Driscoll.
Driscoll, a friend and former law-school classmate of Vice President JD Vance, vaulted to a new diplomatic role last week when he delivered to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a U.S.-led proposal to end the war. On Monday, he traveled to Abu Dhabi to meet with a Russian delegation and with the Ukrainian officials again, clinching a promise that Kyiv would sign a peace deal Trump has sought since the campaign trail. Russia hasn’t signed off on the plan.
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[ad_2] Lara Seligman,UTENA, Lithuania—Some 1,500 paramilitaries descended on this industrial city in northeastern Lithuania late last month, taking up positions at government buildings and around critical infrastructure to prepare for what many in this frontier city now fear: a Russian invasion.
Clad in military fatigues and armed with rifles loaded with blank cartridges, members of the Lithuanian Rifleman’s Union, or LRU, a state-funded paramilitary group, spent several days training to repel a possible enemy attack.
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Eve Hartley
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The White House is defending special envoy Steve Witkoff over a reportedly leaked conversation in which he told a Russian official that praising President Trump would help smooth over a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the war in Ukraine.
Witkoff also suggested that Putin call Trump ahead of a White House visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a conversation that gave the Kremlin an opportunity to press the case against giving Kyiv Tomahawk cruise missiles.
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Alexander Ward
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Sanctions can strike the often-radical Islamist network a piece at a time.
The Editorial Board
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KYIV, Ukraine—Nataliia Melnychenko stood outside a residential building hit by a Russian drone early Tuesday, with dark circles under her eyes. She hadn’t slept since the drone struck her building at 2:30 a.m.
“I’ve learned over these years that Russian missile strikes usually follow every attempt at peace initiatives,” said Melnychenko. “On top of Russian attacks, we now also have pressure from our allies,” she added.
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James Marson
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Army Secretary Dan Driscoll met with a Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi on Monday and Tuesday, a sign that talks to end the war in Ukraine have hit a new phase involving direct negotiations with the Russians.
Driscoll, fresh off peace talks in Kyiv and Geneva with Ukrainian officials, landed in Abu Dhabi on Monday to meet with the Russians, according to U.S. officials. After holding initial meetings, he planned to conduct more substantive engagements with the delegation on Tuesday, the officials said.
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Lara Seligman
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The Colombian military said Monday it had opened an investigation into allegations that senior army and intelligence officials advised the leader of an armed drug-trafficking group about how to secretly buy weapons and evade military scrutiny.
The revelations, reported by the major Colombian media outlet, Caracol, have stoked fears that former guerrilla fighters who now smuggle cocaine have infiltrated high levels of the security forces under President Gustavo Petro, a former member of a leftist guerrilla organization. Petro has feuded with President Trump over U.S. airstrikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean and overseen fraying relations with the U.S. over soaring drug-crop cultivation and cocaine trafficking.
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Kejal Vyas
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WASHINGTON—It started with an October order from President Trump to his national security team: Come up with a plan to end the Ukraine war just as they had halted the fighting in Gaza.
On a flight back from the Middle East, in the afterglow of brokering a deal between Israel and Hamas, envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner began writing the first draft of what would eventually become a 28-point peace framework to end the four-year war, according to U.S. officials and a person familiar with the situation.
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Robbie Gramer
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President Trump on Monday touted “big progress” on talks to end the Ukraine war, and Kyiv is doubtless willing to make painful concessions to avoid surrender or U.S. abandonment. No one wants the war to end more than the Ukrainians who are fighting and dying.
But the crucial issue continues to be what kind of peace? So it’s worth describing the conditions that would create a peace with honor in Ukraine and deter a new war whenever Vladimir Putin chooses to invade again.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday described the U.S. peace offer as a “living, breathing document,” and we welcome the red pen to the original 28-point plan that bent hard toward Vladimir Putin. That document would leave a neutered Ukraine that is banned from associating with Western security institutions and vulnerable to a new invasion.
The overriding goal of any peace is letting Ukraine survive as an independent nation that can determine its own future. If its people want to align with Russia, so be it. But every indication is that they want to align with the West, including the European Union and NATO.
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The Editorial Board
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In an unusual diplomatic move, Chinese leader Xi Jinping initiated a phone call with President Trump on Monday, discussing Taiwan and Ukraine as Washington, Kyiv and Moscow try to hammer out a plan to end the war.
China has provided crucial diplomatic and economic support to Russia since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Now as Trump pushes to make a decisive move to end the war, Beijing is seeking to play a more visible role.
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[ad_2] Lingling WeiHASAKAH, Syria—In a wing of the notorious Al Sina prison in northeastern Syria, where some of the world’s most dangerous inmates are held, guards wearing balaclavas stood along a corridor lined with cells. A prisoner pressed his face to a small, square hole in one of the cell doors. Behind him, some 20 other prisoners in brown jumpsuits sat barefoot on the floor.
“Is Biden still the U.S. president?” he asked a visiting journalist. The prisoner, a British Islamic State member, didn’t get an answer.
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Sudarsan Raghavan
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