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Biden: Putin’s nuclear threat brings risk of ‘Armageddon’

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Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine has brought the world closer to “Armageddon” than at any time since the Cold-War Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. President Joe Biden said.

Putin celebrated his 70th birthday to a chorus of fawning praise from officials. But with his seven-month invasion unravelling, public events appeared more muted than just a week ago, when he staged a huge concert on Red Square to proclaim the annexation of nearly a fifth of Ukrainian land, Reuters reported.

In a clear repudiation of Putin’s record, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Russia’s most prominent human rights group, Memorial, which Moscow has shut down over the past year. A Ukrainian human rights group and a campaigner against abuses by the pro-Russian government in Belarus were also awarded.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Kyiv’s forces were swiftly recapturing more territory, including more than 500 sq km in the south where they burst through a second major front this week.

Russia’s failings on the battlefield have brought unusual public recrimination from Kremlin allies, with one Russian-installed leader in occupied Ukrainian territory going so far as to suggest Putin’s defence minister should have shot himself.

Biden said the prospect of defeat could make Putin desperate enough to use nuclear weapons, the biggest risk since U.S. President John Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev faced off over missiles in Cuba in 1962.

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis,” Biden said in New York. “For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat to the use of nuclear weapons, if in fact things continue down the path they’d been going.”

Putin was “not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons, because his military is, you might say, is significantly underperforming,” Biden said.

Concern so far has been over the prospect of Russia deploying a so-called “tactical” nuclear weapon – a short-range device for use on the battlefield – rather than the “strategic” weapons on long-range missiles that Washington and Moscow have stockpiled since the Cold War.

But Biden suggested it made little difference: “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a vocal supporter of the war, led birthday tributes for Putin with a prayer for God to “grant him health and longevity, and deliver him from all the resistances of visible and invisible enemies”.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya, a once-breakaway region Putin reconquered in war 20 years ago, congratulated “one of the most influential and outstanding personalities of our time, the number one patriot in the world, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin”.

Ukrainian forces have advanced swiftly since bursting through the Russian front in the northeast at the start of September, and in the south this week.

Since Putin proclaimed the annexation a week ago, Ukraine has recaptured the main Russian bastion in northern Donetsk, and a swath of territory on the west bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson.

Ukrainian rescuers had retrieved 11 bodies and rescued 21 people from the rubble of buildings destroyed in missile attacks there, the State Emergency Service said in a statement. Reuters journalists saw bodies being carried out of the rubble.

Russia’s RIA news agency reported that a Ukrainian missile had hit a bus in the Russian-controlled city of Kherson, killing four and wounding three civilians.

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Israel consulted US on its strikes in Gaza, White House told Fox News

Dozens of people were killed in the aftermath of a series of the most violent air attacks on Gaza by Israel since a ceasefire was reached on January 19

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The administration of President Donald Trump was consulted on Monday by Israel on its deadly strikes in Gaza, a White House spokesperson told Fox News’ “Hannity” show.

“The Trump administration and the White House were consulted by the Israelis on their attacks in Gaza tonight,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a Fox News interview.

Palestinian medics in Gaza reported dozens of people were killed in the aftermath of a series of the most violent air attacks by Israel on the Palestinian enclave since a ceasefire was reached on January 19 between Israel and Hamas militants.

A senior Hamas official said Israel had unilaterally overturned the ceasefire agreement, Reuters reported.

“As President Trump has made it clear – Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel, but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay. All hell will break loose,” the White House spokesperson said.

Trump had previously publicly issued a warning using similar words, saying Hamas should release all hostages in Gaza or “let hell break out.”

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages.

Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed over 48,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also triggering accusations of genocide and war crimes that Israel denies. 

The assault has internally displaced nearly Gaza’s entire 2.3 million population and caused a hunger crisis.

Trump has also been condemned over his plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza and for the U.S. to take over the enclave. 

Rights groups, the U.N., Palestinians and Arab states have said Trump’s proposal, which he has put across as a re-development plan, would amount to ethnic cleansing.

Washington separately launched a new wave of airstrikes on Saturday in Yemen in which it said dozens of members of the Houthi movement were left dead. 

The Houthis said at least 53 people were killed. Reuters could not independently verify those casualty numbers.

 

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Trump and Putin expected to speak this week as US pushes for Russia-Ukraine ceasefire

Trump has warned that unless a ceasefire is reached, the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv has the potential to spiral into World War Three.

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U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to speak with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin this week on ways to end the three-year war in Ukraine, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN on Sunday after returning from what he described as a “positive” meeting with Putin in Moscow, Reuters reported.

“I expect that there will be a call with both presidents this week, and we’re also continuing to engage and have conversation with the Ukrainians,” said Witkoff, who met with Putin on Thursday night, adding that he thought the talk between Trump and Putin would be “really good and positive.”

Trump is trying to win Putin’s support for a 30-day ceasefire proposal that Ukraine accepted last week, as both sides continued trading heavy aerial strikes through the weekend and Russia moved closer to ejecting Ukrainian forces from their months-old foothold in the western Russian region of Kursk.

Trump said in a social media post on Friday that there was “a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end.” He also said he had “strongly requested” that Putin not kill the thousands of Ukrainian troops that Russia is pushing out of Kursk.

Putin said he would honor Trump’s request to spare the lives of the Ukrainian troops if they surrendered. The Kremlin also said on Friday that Putin had sent Trump a message about his ceasefire plan via Witkoff, expressing “cautious optimism” that a deal could be reached to end the conflict.

In separate appearances on Sunday shows, Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, emphasized that there are still challenges to be worked out before Russia agrees to a ceasefire, much less a final peaceful resolution to the war, read the report.

Asked on ABC whether the U.S. would accept a peace deal in which Russia was allowed to keep stretches of eastern Ukraine that it has seized, Waltz replied, “Are we going to drive every Russian off of every inch of Ukrainian soil?” He added that the negotiations had to be grounded in “reality.”

Rubio told CBS a final peace deal would “involve a lot of hard work, concessions from both Russia and Ukraine,” and that it would be difficult to even begin those negotiations “as long as they’re shooting at each other.”

Trump has warned that unless a ceasefire is reached, the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv has the potential to spiral into World War Three.

His administration took steps last week to induce further cooperation on a ceasefire. On Saturday, Trump said that General Keith Kellogg’s role had been narrowed from special envoy for Ukraine and Russia to only Ukraine, after Russian officials sought to exclude him from peace talks.

A license allowing U.S. energy transactions with Russian financial institutions expired last week, according to the Trump administration, raising pressure on Putin to come to a peace agreement over Ukraine, Reuters reported.

The U.S. Treasury Department is looking at possible sanctions on Russian oil majors and oilfield service companies, a source familiar with the matter said, deepening steps already taken by Biden.

 

 

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Trump says he still has good relations with leader of ‘nuclear power’ North Korea

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U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he still has a good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, with whom he held several summits during his first term, and referred to North Korea once again as a “nuclear power.”

Asked by reporters during an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte whether he had plans to reestablish relations with Kim, Trump said: “I would … I have a great relationship with Kim Jong Un, and we’ll see what happens, but certainly he’s a nuclear power,” Reuters reported.

On January 20, when he was inaugurated for his second term, Trump said North Korea was a “nuclear power,” raising questions about whether he would pursue arms reduction talks rather than denuclearization efforts that failed in his first term in any re-engagement with Pyongyang.

After referring to Russia and China’s nuclear arsenals, Trump said: “It would be a great achievement if we could bring down the number. We have so many weapons, and the power is so great.

“And number one, you don’t need them to that extent. And then we’d have to get others, ’cause, as you know, in a smaller way – Kim Jong Un has a lot of nuclear weapons, by the way, a lot, and others do also. You have India, you have Pakistan, you have others that have them, and we get them involved.”

Asked if Trump remarks represented any shift in policy towards North Korea’s nuclear weapons, a White House official said: “President Trump will pursue the complete denuclearization of North Korea, just as he did in his first term.”

On February 15, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Japanese and South Korean counterparts reaffirmed their “resolute commitment to the complete denuclearization” of North Korea in accordance with U.S. Security Council Resolutions.

Last week, Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister Kim Yo Jong criticized the Trump administration for stepping up "provocations" and said it justified North Korea increasing its nuclear deterrent. This week North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles, its first since Trump took office.

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