Politics
In meeting with Zelensky, Trump says he believes Putin wants Ukraine war to end
- Zelensky accuses Russia of attacks to undermine Trump talks.
- US president pressures Ukraine to compromise.
- European leaders seek strong security guarantees for Ukraine.
US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States would “help out” Europe in providing security for Ukraine as part of any deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, as he and President Volodymyr Zelensky began a hastily arranged White House meeting to discuss a path to peace.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office with Zelensky seated beside him, Trump also expressed hope that Monday’s summit could eventually lead to a trilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding that he believes Putin wants the war to end.
Trump said that a peace agreement for the war in Ukraine is attainable as he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders.
Trump said that all would prefer an immediate ceasefire but that he was optimistic that an agreement can be reached to deter aggression in Ukraine.
Trump said he expected the Russian leader to release over 1,000 Ukrainian prisoners soon after a trilateral meeting was set up with the Ukrainian leader.
“I think you’ll see that President Putin really would like to do something also,” Trump said at the start of a meeting with Zelensky and seven European leaders, forecasting some “really positive moves” after a trilateral meeting was agreed.
“I know there’s over 1,000 prisoners, and I know they’re going to release them. Maybe they’re going to release them very soon, like immediately, which I think is great,” Trump said.
Zelensky and a group of European leaders arrived in Washington facing increased pressure from Trump to reach a resolution to end the war on terms more favorable to Moscow, after Trump and Putin met in Alaska on Friday for nearly three hours.
“We need to stop this war, to stop Russia and we need support – American and European partners,” Zelensky told reporters.
Trump interrupts talks to call Putin: Germany’s Bild
Trump interrupted his talks in Washington with European leaders to call Putin, Germany’s Bild newspaper reported.
Bild said the meetings are due to resume after the call, which Trump had initially said would take place afterwards.
The leaders of Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Finland and the European Union are accompanying the Ukrainian President on his Washington trip, as well as the secretary-general of NATO.
Trump greets Zelensky
Trump greeted Zelensky outside the White House, shaking his hand and expressing delight at Zelensky’s black suit, a departure from his typical military clothes. When a reporter asked Trump what his message was to the people of Ukraine, he said twice, “We love them.”
Zelensky thanked him, and Trump put his hand on Zelensky’s back in a show of affection before the two men went inside to the Oval Office, where their last meeting in February ended in disaster after Trump dressed Zelensky down in front of television cameras.
This time, the leaders of Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Finland, the European Union and NATO joined Zelensky to demonstrate solidarity with Ukraine and push for strong security guarantees in any post-war settlement.
Trump is pressing for a quick end to Europe’s deadliest war in 80 years, and Kyiv and its allies worry he could seek to force an agreement on Russia’s terms after the president on Friday in Alaska rolled out the red carpet – literally – for Putin, who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
The European leaders will meet with Trump afterwards in the White House’s East Room at 3pm EDT (1900 GMT), according to the White House. Such a high-level gathering at the White House on such short notice appears to be unprecedented in recent times.
Russian attacks overnight on Ukrainian cities killed at least 10 people, in what Zelensky called a “cynical” effort to undermine talks.
Trump has rejected accusations that the Alaska summit had been a win for Putin, who has faced diplomatic isolation since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“I know exactly what I’m doing, and I don’t need the advice of people who have been working on all of these conflicts for years, and were never able to do a thing to stop them,” Trump wrote on social media.
Trump’s team has said there will have to be compromises on both sides to end the conflict. But the president himself has put the burden on Zelensky to end the war, saying Ukraine should give up hopes of getting back Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, or of joining the NATO military alliance.
Zelensky “can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,” Trump said on social media.
Putin’s proposals
Zelensky has already all but rejected the outline of Putin’s proposals from the Alaska meeting. Those include handing over the remaining quarter of its eastern Donetsk region, which is largely controlled by Russia. Ukrainian forces are deeply dug into the region, whose towns and hills serve as a crucial defensive zone to stymie Russian attacks.
Any concession of Ukrainian territory would have to be approved by a referendum.
Zelensky is also seeking an immediate ceasefire to conduct deeper peace talks, a position that his European allies have also backed. Trump previously favored that idea but reversed course after the summit with Putin, instead indicating support for Russia’s preference to negotiate a comprehensive deal while fighting rumbles on.
Ukraine and its allies have taken heart from some developments, including Trump’s apparent willingness to provide post-settlement security guarantees for Ukraine. A German government spokesperson said on Monday that European leaders would seek more details on that in the talks in Washington.
The war, which began with a full-scale invasion by Russia in February 2022, has killed or wounded more than a million people from both sides, including thousands of mostly Ukrainian civilians, according to analysts, and destroyed wide swaths of the country.
Russia has been slowly grinding forward on the battlefield, pressing its advantages in men and firepower. Putin says he is ready to continue fighting until his military objectives are achieved.
Officials in Ukraine said a drone attack on a residential complex in the northern city of Kharkiv killed at least seven people, including a toddler and her 16-year-old brother. Strikes in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia killed three people, they said.
Russia says it does not deliberately target civilians, and the Defense Ministry’s daily report did not refer to any strike on Kharkiv.
Local resident Olena Yakusheva said the attack hit an apartment block that was home to many families. “There are no offices here or anything else, we lived here peacefully in our homes,” she said.
Ukraine’s military said on Monday that its drones had struck an oil pumping station in Russia’s Tambov region, leading to the suspension of supplies via the Druzhba pipeline.
Politics
Tajikistan says five Chinese nationals killed in cross-border attacks from Afghanistan in past week
- China advises companies, personnel to evacuate border area.
- Embassy says Chinese citizens targeted in armed attack on Sunday.
- Another border attack on Friday killed three citizens: embassy.
Five Chinese nationals have been killed and five more injured in Tajikistan in attacks launched from neighbouring Afghanistan over the past week, Tajik authorities and China’s embassy in the Central Asian country said on Monday.
China’s embassy in Dushanbe, the capital, advised Chinese companies and personnel to urgently evacuate the border area.
It said that Chinese citizens had been targeted in an armed attack close to the Afghan border on Sunday. On Friday, it said that another border attack — which Tajik authorities said had involved drones dropping grenades — had killed three Chinese citizens.
Tajikistan, a mountainous former Soviet republic of around 11 million people with a secular government, has tense relations with the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan. It has previously warned of drug smugglers and illicit gold miners working along the remote frontier.
China, which also has a remote, mountainous border with Tajikistan, is a major investor in the country.
There was no immediate response on Monday from the authorities in Afghanistan to the Tajik statement.
But Afghanistan’s foreign ministry last week blamed an unnamed group, which it said was out to create instability, and said it would cooperate with Tajik authorities.
Tajik President Emomali Rahmon’s press service said on Monday that Rahmon had met with the heads of his security agencies to discuss how to strengthen border security.
It said that Rahmon “strongly condemned the illegal and provocative actions of Afghan citizens and ordered that effective measures be taken to resolve the problem and prevent a recurrence of such incidents.”
Tajikistan endured a brutal civil war in the 1990s after independence from Moscow, during which Rahmon initially rose to power. The country is closely aligned with Russia, which maintains a military base there.
Millions of Tajiks, a Persian-speaking nation, live across the border in Afghanistan, with Tajikistan historically having backed Afghan Tajiks opposed to the Taliban.
A man in India’s south brutally killed his estranged wife at a women’s hostel and took a selfie with her dead body, according to NDTV.
The victim, identified as Sripriya, employed at a private firm in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, had separated from her husband, Balamurugam, who was from Tirunelveli.
Police said the suspect arrived at the hostel on Sunday afternoon, concealing a sickle in his clothes, and was seeking to meet her.
They had an argument soon after the couple met, and the feud turned into a violent attack by Balamurugan, who drew the sickle and hacked the woman to death.
Furthermore, the police said he then took a selfie with her body and shared it on his WhatsApp status, accusing her of “betrayal”.
The incident spread panic and chaos in the hostel.
Following the brutal murder, the suspect did not escape from the spot but waited until the police arrived, and he was arrested at the crime scene. The murder weapon was recovered.
The initial investigation suggested that he suspected his wife of being in a relationship with another man.
- Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand witness large scale devastation.
- At least 176 people perish in Thailand and three in Malaysia.
- Indonesia’s death toll reaches 502 with 508 more still missing.
PALEMBAYAN: Rescue teams in western Indonesia were battling on Monday to clear roads cut off by cyclone-induced landslides and floods, as improved weather revealed more of the scale of a disaster that has killed close to 700 people in Southeast Asia.
Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have seen large scale devastation after a rare tropical storm formed in the Malacca Strait, fuelling torrential rains and wind gusts for a week that hampered efforts to reach people stranded by mudslides and high floodwaters.
At least 176 have been killed in Thailand and three in Malaysia, while the death toll climbed to 502 in Indonesia on Monday with 508 missing, according to official figures.
Under sunshine and clear blue skies in the town of Palembayan in Indonesia’s West Sumatra, hundreds of people were clearing mud, trees and wreckage from roads as some residents tried to salvage valuable items like documents and motorcycles from their damaged homes.
Men in camouflage outfits sifted through piles of mangled poles, concrete and sheet metal roofing as pickup trucks packed with people drove around looking for missing family members and handing out water to people, some trudging through knee-deep mud.
Months of adverse, deadly weather
The government’s recovery efforts include restoring roads, bridges and telecommunication services.
More than 28,000 homes have been damaged in Indonesia and 1.4 million people affected, according to the disaster agency.
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto visited the three affected provinces on Monday and praised residents for their spirit in the face of what he called a catastrophe.
“There are roads that are still cut off, but we’re doing everything we can to overcome difficulties,” he said in North Sumatra.
“We face this disaster with resilience and solidarity. Our nation is strong right now, able to overcome this.”
The devastation in the three countries follows months of adverse and deadly weather in Southeast Asia, including typhoons that have lashed the Philippines and Vietnam and caused frequent and prolonged flooding elsewhere.
Scientists have warned that extreme weather events will become more frequent as a result of global warming.
Marooned for days
In Thailand, the death toll rose slightly to 176 on Monday from flooding in eight southern provinces that affected about three million people and led to a major mobilisation of its military to evacuate critical patients from hospitals and reach people marooned for days by floodwaters.
In the hardest-hit province of Songkhla, where 138 people were killed, the government said 85% of water services had been restored and would be fully operational by Wednesday.
Much of Thailand’s recovery effort is focused on the worst-affected city Hat Yai, a southern trading hub which on November 21 received 335 mm (13 inches) of rain, its highest single-day tally in 300 years, followed by days of unrelenting downpours.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has set a timeline of seven days for residents to return to their homes, a government spokesperson said on Monday.
In neighbouring Malaysia, 11,600 people were still in evacuation centres, according to the country’s disaster agency, which said it was still on alert for a second and third wave of flooding.
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