Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was shut out of high-level US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia, while a heavily sanctioned Russia gained the geopolitical optics it craved. Without a single concession from Moscow, the U.S. accepted Russia’s proposal to lift restrictions on its diplomatic properties. “Restoring functionality to their respective missions is crucial to progress,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after four and a half hours of talks. During a press conference Tuesday in Ankara, alongside his Turkish counterpart, a tired and frustrated Zelensky announced he’s postponing a planned official visit to Saudi Arabia to March. Saudi state media (see below) portrayed the talks the government hosted as an enormous breakthrough, taking credit for bridging the U.S.-Russia divide.
In fact, little had come out of the talks on Tuesday led from the U.S. side by Rubio and from the Russian side, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. (Putin aide Yuri Ushakov summed up the 4.5 hours of talks as “not bad, not bad.”). But the U.S. delegation confirmed that territory and security guarantees will be on the table in future negotiations.
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Immediately after the talks, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov rejected the idea of foreign troops on the ground in Ukraine to guarantee that peace holds. “The deployment of troops from the same Nato countries, but under a different flag - EU or their national flags - changes nothing. Of course, this is unacceptable for us.”
After the talks ended, Ukraine saw no sign that Russia intends to halt daily missile and drone attacks. By the evening, large waves of Russian drones began swarming over many oblasts of Ukraine. Loud explosions were heard in Kyiv and Odesa, and a hospital was reportedly damaged in the southern Ukrainian port city. On Wednesday morning, the Odesa mayor said hundreds of homes were without power, heating and water. Four people were injured.
Donald Trump appeared to have cast doubt on Zelensky’s legitimacy - some might say pulling the rug from under him - when he told reporters that the Ukrainian president has approval ratings close to four percent and that if he wants a seat at the negotiating table he should hold elections. Trump also claimed Zelensky told him he doesn’t know where half of the $350 billion of US aid went. In January, the New York Times cited Zelensky’s approval rating at around 50 percent. And according to credible estimates, the U.S. has given Ukraine closer to $175 billion.
Zelensky says the cost of the war in Ukraine so far is $320bn, saying Kyiv and US have different numbers on this. About $120bn has come from Ukraine taxpayers, and $200bn from the US and EU, he adds. The US supplied $67bn in weapons as well as budget support, he says. Trump has previously said the US wants the equivalent of $500bn worth of rare earth minerals from Ukraine in exchange for its continued support. “It’s not $500bn – that’s not a serious conversation,” Zelensky says. He says that the US alleges 90% of support for Ukraine comes from them, but “the truth is somewhere else”.
“Mr. Trump’s approach to Ukraine resembles that of a slumlord: he is reportedly demanding repayment (up to half a trillion U.S. dollars for U.S. aid) without offering any security guarantees... One source described Mr. Trump’s approach as “pay us first, then feed your children.””
Pope Francis has “bilateral pneumonia” and continues to receive medical care at a hospital in Rome, the Vatican announced on Tuesday. “Laboratory tests, chest X-ray, and the Holy Father’s clinical condition continue to present a complex picture,” the Vatican said on Tuesday. The pope has a “polymicrobial infection” that arose during a recent bout with bronchitis and complicates the pope’s treatment, the Vatican added. The detection of pneumonia after chest x-rays requires “further drug therapy.” The 88-year-old Pope is reported to be in “fair” condition, and is said to be eating breakfast, reading the newspapers and even doing some work from the hospital - NPR
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Tuesday said that, over the weekend, it accidentally fired “several” agency employees who are working on the federal government’s response to the H5N1 avian flu outbreak. In a statement, the agency said it is trying to quickly reverse the firings. The error is the latest in the Trump administration’s attempts to rapidly shrink the size of the government by conducting mass firings of federal workers — an effort that is being carried out by tech billionaire Elon Musk and the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, which is heavily staffed by people who have no experience in government. On Friday, the administration tried to notify some nuclear safety employees who were fired last week that they are now due to be reinstated — but struggled to find them because they didn’t have their new contact information - NBC News
Pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai is physically breaking down in a Hong Kong prison and “time is running out” for him if the U.S. and Britain do not push for his release, his son said. Jimmy Lai, a British-Chinese dual citizen and supporter of the pro-democracy protests that swept Hong Kong in 2019, was arrested under the Beijing-imposed national security law in August 2020. The 77-year-old founder of the now-closed Apple Daily newspaper pleaded not guilty in January last year to charges of collusion with foreign forces and sedition. The law, imposed in June 2020, punishes what Beijing broadly defines as secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign collusion with up to life in jail. Lai’s son Sebastien urged global leaders including U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to take urgent action, as his father faces his fourth year of solitary confinement, which has been condemned, by U.N. experts. “His body is breaking down ... It’s akin to torture,” Sebastien Lai told Reuters ahead of Tuesday’s Human Rights and Democracy summit in Geneva. “Time is running out for my father.” - Reuters
New government regulations on social media in Vietnam give authorities increased powers to prevent dissent and control the news, along with the tools to more easily track down critics and silence them, according to an analysis released Tuesday. Vietnam’s authorities implemented “Decree 147” in December, tightening regulations on social media companies like Facebook, X, YouTube and TikTok in a bid to further stifle criticism, said Ben Swanton, one of the authors of the report by The 88 Project, a group focused on human rights and free speech issues in Vietnam. “Any challenge to the government and the Communist Party, any significant challenge to their official narrative of events, is perceived by them as a situation that is getting out of control,” he said in an interview from Thailand. Among other things, the decree requires users to verify their accounts with phone numbers or national ID cards that must be provided to the government upon request, and for the social media companies to store their data in Vietnam. It also prevents social media users from engaging in citizen journalism or posting information about suspected government wrongdoing, and requires companies to remove posts deemed illegal within 24 hours. The decree requires companies to allow authorities access to their internal search engines so that it can identify offending content - CBS News
Top UK universities are providing advanced security training for students from countries known for torture and human rights abuses, without conducting proper checks, an investigation has alleged. A new report by campaign group Freedom from Torture reveals that at least 12 universities, including University College London, as well as Cambridge and Huddersfield universities, have offered specialist courses in areas such as covert investigation and counter-terrorism to students from countries where security forces have been accused of serious human rights violations. The investigation found that universities had “almost nothing in place” to assess the risk of their courses being used by individuals involved in repression. Universities have become more dependent on deals with foreign institutions and international students to subsidise the cap on tuition fees for UK students. The University of Cambridge provided police management training to Hong Kong officers between 2017 and 2020, during a period when Hong Kong police were accused of human rights violations during pro-democracy protests. The university said it terminated the contract when “the Chinese Government stepped in to restrict democratic freedoms.” The University of Huddersfield has maintained a partnership with Bahrain’s Royal Academy of Police – nicknamed the “torture hub” by critics – providing courses in investigative psychology and cyber security. The relationship continues despite Bahrain being described as a “highly repressive state” where torture is “systematic and widespread” according to UN experts “Education is a fundamental right and can be a powerful tool for good,” said Kolbassia Haoussou, a director at Freedom from Torture. “But [our] investigation reveals that postgraduate security courses are at risk of ending up in the wrong hands and unintentionally strengthening the capabilities of authoritarian regimes.” - Byline Times
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