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CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Russia and Ukraine agree prisoner swap, but little other progress in Istanbul talks
Russia War in Ukraine The Middle East Donald TrumpFacebookTweetLink Follow Russia and Ukraine agreed a prisoner swap during their third set of direct talks in Istanbul on Wednesday, but appeared to make little progress on ceasefire terms or a possible summit between their presidents – with their meeting ending after less than an hour. The meeting came days after US President Donald Trump gave Moscow a 50-day deadline to make peace or face 'very severe tariffs.' Russian President Vladimir Putin has not publicly acknowledged Trump's ultimatum, and Moscow has continued to pummel Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles while its ground troops grind forward in the east. Speaking after Wednesday's meeting, Ukraine's former defense minister Rustem Umerov – who led Kyiv's delegation – said he had proposed a summit by the end of August between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Putin and suggested the 'participation of (US) President Trump and (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdoğan will be most valuable.' However, Russia's delegate Vladimir Medinsky, a former culture minister and now a senior Putin aide, said such a meeting would be appropriate only to sign an agreement, Reuters reported. The two sides also remained at odds over the terms of any possible ceasefire, with Umerov saying Ukraine was seeking a 'full and unconditional ceasefire as a necessary basis for effective diplomacy,' while Russia called for a series of short ceasefires of between 24 and 48 hours, on the front line, to allow medical teams to pick up dead and wounded soldiers. The two sides did appear to find some common ground on prisoner exchanges, with Medinksy telling a press conference after the meeting that an exchange of around 250 Russian and 250 Ukrainian prisoners of war was being completed along the Ukrainian-Belarusian border. Medinsky said the two sides had also agreed 'that in the near future an exchange of at least 1,200 more prisoners of war from each side will be carried out.' The two previous rounds of talks in Istanbul, in May and June, helped facilitate the exchange of thousands of prisoners of war and the remains of dead soldiers, but also made little progress toward peace. In a message on Telegram on Wednesday, Zelensky said more than 1,000 Ukrainians had now been returned through 'all the stages of the recent Istanbul agreements.' 'Bringing all our people back is a priority for the state,' he said, 'And we will continue all efforts to ensure that all our people return from captivity.' Expectations were low before Wednesday's talks, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stressing that the two sides' negotiating positions remain 'diametrically opposed' and telling reports not to expect 'any miraculous breakthroughs.' Last month, Russian casualties hit a grim milestone, with the UK's Ministry of Defence estimating that Putin's war has likely cost Russia more than 1 million casualties since the start of its full-scale invasion in February 2022. That number tracked with an assessment the same month from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, DC, which put the number of casualties at 950,000 and predicted that 'Russia will likely hit the 1 million casualty mark in the summer of 2025.' Despite those losses, the Russian president has shown little sign of compromising on his maximalist war aim of dismantling Ukraine's sovereignty. In a long essay published months before the full-scale invasion, Putin falsely argued that Russia and Ukraine are one country; his comments suggesting to many that the war has been waged to make that a reality. In addition to Trump's fresh threat of new sanctions on Russia and other countries that purchase Russian oil if peace isn't reached in 50 days, the US also secured a deal to funnel new weapons to Kyiv through European allies. The moves were in stark contrast with previous approaches the US leader has taken with the conflict. Trump's reversal came after the European Union unveiled a new package of sanctions proposing to lower the price cap on Russian oil exports and introducing a full transaction ban on Russian banks and financial institutions in third countries that help Russia dodge existing sanctions. It is unclear whether Trump's latest decisions will sway Moscow's approach, but his about-face could provide a much-needed boost to Ukraine's military coffers, and signals his growing frustration with Putin. 'My conversations with him are very pleasant, and then the missiles go off at night,' Trump explained last week. Before the talks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated his call for a direct meeting with Putin, saying only a meeting of the two leaders can end the war. Katharina Krebs, Victoria Butenko and Anna Cooban contributed reporting.
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Why Does Anyone Think Trump Will Uphold His End of a Bargain With Columbia?
In 1672, Charles II unilaterally suspended repayment of 1.2 million pounds to London's private bankers. Having run up this debt, and unable to finance a flotilla of ships to fight the Dutch, Charles became neither the first nor the last absolute monarch to break his word. James II, his sibling successor, went further, claiming royal prerogative to bypass laws and purge Protestant judges, generals and functionaries. The solemn oaths he made at his coronation, to respect Parliament and the Church of England, wound up being worth not very much. James ruled for less than four years, deserting after the Glorious Revolution began the era of parliamentary supremacy. Parliament would approve only those loans it would be willing to pay back with taxes, enabling deals with creditors now willing to lend. By restraining the monarch's power, it enabled the crown to make deals it couldn't otherwise get. In economic history, we teach the 1688 creation of parliamentary supremacy as a solution to what economists call 'commitment problems.' In the absence of a third party sufficiently strong to make sure all sides stick to their promises, the powerful can renege on the powerless. The powerless, seeing this, wisely choose to not contract with the powerful. Absolutist rulers are victims of their own lack of restraints; a sovereign who is too powerful cannot get inexpensive credit, because nothing stops the ruler from defaulting on any bond. President Trump, by smashing checks on his authority, has wound up undermining his own ability to make credible deals, including the one just reached with Columbia University, where I teach. The entities that have been striking deals with Mr. Trump, my own employer included, have not learned the lessons of the Glorious Revolution. Trade negotiators from longtime partner countries, government contractors, law firms, federal employees, permanent residents, the Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, even the Transportation Security Administration labor union are all experiencing contractual vertigo, finding out that the administration will not honor previous agreements. The first Trump administration renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement to get the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, but Mr. Trump has imposed tariffs on Mexico and Canada in violation of even that agreement. Parties thinking they can wheedle their way into a bargain with a capricious administration are bringing intuitions from the world of private deals, backstopped by the rule of law, into the very different realm of political bargains with absolutism-adjacent executive branches. I understand the desire for a deal. My colleagues and I have eagerly clicked on every news story hinting that Columbia's leaders might have secured the hundreds of millions of dollars the Trump administration has frozen or cut. Our community has borne devastating cuts, with researchers and administrative staff members laid off and participants in medical research losing access to treatment midcourse. On top of that, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detained a number of our students, and there have been endless leaks, doxxing attacks, campus lockdowns and computer hacks. All of this manifests as a never-ending stream of anxiety — financial, physical, moral — that narrows whatever intellectual horizons the research university is supposed to foster. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Post
3 hours ago
- New York Post
Europe won't pay its NATO share, COVID tied to bioweapons work and other commentary
Defense beat: Europe Won't Pay Its NATO Share President Trump's call for Europe to pay 5% of GDP for its defense has been much 'ballyhooed,' notes Gerard Baker at The Wall Street Journal, but the 'math agreed to by all members except Spain is on closer inspection a little fuzzy.' While some Euro nations such as Poland and Finland are 'serious about their defense,' Germany, France and Britain 'face economic, demographic, political and cultural challenges' that will make real change unlikely because the 'fiscal positions of most European countries' are simply too ugly for them to pay more. 'Budget restraint' in Labour-run Britain is impossible to impose, and European 'climate policies are blowing even larger holes in budgets.' Only 'economic growth' can get these countries on the right footing to afford to pay more for their own defense. Foreign desk: COVID Tied to Bioweapons Work 'A bioweapons expert likely to head the Trump administration's top Pentagon post for countering weapons of mass destruction has charged in a new report that the Covid-19 pandemic was probably the result of a military-research-related accident in a Chinese laboratory, and that work at that lab may have been part of research China was conducting in possible violation of a treaty banning biological weapons,' reports City Journal's Judith Miller. The report, by Robert Kadlec, 'adds to the growing consensus' that COVID 'was the result of a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and not a naturally occurring outbreak of a deadly virus originating in animals.' But the report is strong grounds for Team Trump to start 'prioritizing U.S. intelligence efforts aimed at Chinese bioweapons research.' Mideast journal: Iran's Long Road Back to Nukes The '19 senior Iranian nuclear scientists' Israel assassinated during the 12-Day War had 'nuclear knowledge spanning decades' — much 'centered on explosives, nuclear coding, and ballistic missiles,' cheers Adam Kredo at The Washington Free Beacon, citing a new intelligence assessment by a leading nonproliferation organization. The scientists' 'average age was 60,' suggesting 'Israel targeted the most experienced crop of engineers.' Plus, the Jewish state 'successfully destroyed' Iran's nuclear 'technological blueprints.' Indeed, the attacks 'evaporated decades of nuclear know-how, striking at the heart of Tehran's weapons program in a way kinetic attacks could not.' The result: 'Recovering may be far more difficult and take far longer.' From the right: Poll Flags Border Ignorance A new CBS poll suggests 'significant numbers of Americans, even now, are not fully informed' about immigration under President Trump, marvels the Washington Examiner's Byron York. The poll found 56% of respondents disapprove of Trump's immigration approach, but it also asked a factual question: whether Trump's policies are making the number of migrants crossing the border 'go up, go down, or not change.' Only 64% 'gave the obviously correct response — Trump has made the number of migrants crossing' go down. 'And 8% said crossings have actually gone up, which was crazy wrong.' This reveals a 'lack of knowledge' of basic facts and 'could tell us something about the answers to all the other immigration questions in the CBS poll, and perhaps in other polls as well.' Education beat: Don't Use AI To 'Teach' The Computer Lab 'was that magical room' where students could experience 'the wonders of the Oregon Trail, Number Munchers, and Mavis Beacon,' reminisces Understanding America's Oren Cass. Back then, computers 'did not teach, they were a subject to be taught.' Yet 'the irresistible logic of technophilia determined that every child needed a computer' to 'compete in the global economy of tomorrow.' Today, the same is being said of AI: 'All students need to know how to use AI,' and 'AI should be integrated throughout the educational experience.' Trouble is, AI 'will offer counterproductive shortcuts for not only unengaged students, but also their teachers.' Kids need to understand that 'learning is not a technological function' but 'a habit of mind.' — Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
