United News of Bangladesh

The U.S. State Department has begun evacuating nonessential diplomatic staff and their families from the American embassy in Israel as the conflict between Israel and Iran intensifies. President Donald Trump has also issued warnings about the potential for direct U.S. military involvement in the region. According to two U.S. officials speaking anonymously due to the sensitivity of the situation, a government aircraft transported several diplomats and their family members out of Israel on Wednesday. The exact number of individuals on the flight was not disclosed, nor was there confirmation of how many others may have left by land to neighboring Jordan or Egypt. Putin offers to mediate Iran-Israel conflict The evacuation flight took place just before U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee announced on social media platform X that the embassy was preparing plans to evacuate private American citizens using both air and sea routes. However, shortly after Huckabee’s statement, the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs posted a contradictory message on X, stating that there were “no announcements about assisting private U.S. citizens to depart at this time” from Israel or the Palestinian territories. The department did not clarify the conflicting messages but responded to inquiries by saying it is evaluating all possible options and will inform the American community if any new departure plans are confirmed. It added that it is currently providing information to U.S. citizens on available routes out of Israel and strongly advised them to leave the country as soon as it is safe. Regarding the diplomats, the State Department earlier said that, due to the deteriorating security situation and under the embassy’s “authorized departure” policy, mission personnel were beginning to exit Israel through various means. Under this policy, nonessential staff and all diplomatic family members are permitted to leave at the U.S. government’s expense. The evacuations, recent White House statements, and the deployment of U.S. military aircraft and naval vessels in and around the Middle East have fueled concerns that the United States may become more deeply involved in a broader regional conflict. Israel’s military warns people to evacuate the area around Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor On Wednesday, President Trump warned that while he does not want the United States to launch an attack on Iran, he is prepared to take action if required, particularly in relation to Iran’s nuclear program. He has increasingly signaled support for aligning with Israel should military engagement become necessary. In parallel, the State Department has intensified its advisories to U.S. citizens in Israel and other parts of the region, including Iraq. Last week, prior to Israel’s initial airstrikes on Iran, the department and the Pentagon issued notifications stating that all nonessential personnel at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad had been ordered to depart. Additionally, the Defense Department authorized the voluntary departure of military dependents stationed across various Middle Eastern locations. These alerts have become more urgent as the conflict escalates. Over the past weekend, the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem authorized nonessential personnel and families to leave and instructed all remaining staff to shelter in place until further notice. The embassy has remained closed since Monday and is expected to stay shut through Friday.    

The top diplomats from Russia and the U.S. met in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to begin talks on improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat down with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the Diriyah Palace in Riyadh. The meeting marks another pivotal step by the Trump administration to reverse U.S. policy on isolating Russia and is meant to pave the way for a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. US, Ukrainian officials head to Saudi Arabia as talks loom on ending Russia's war Trump earlier this month upended U.S. policy toward Ukraine and Russia by saying he and Putin had agreed to begin negotiations on ending the war. Ukrainian officials aren’t taking part in the meeting, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that his country won’t accept the outcome if Kyiv doesn’t take part. Rubio was accompanied by national security adviser Mike Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, while Lavrov sat next to Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan and national security adviser Musaed al Alban joined for the start of the meeting but were expected to leave early in the talks. Ushakov said the talks would be “purely bilateral” and would not include Ukrainian officials. The talks mark a significant expansion of U.S.-Russian contacts nearly three years into a war that has seen ties fall to the lowest level in decades. US defense chief suggests Ukraine should abandon hope of winning all territory back from Russia Lavrov and then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked briefly on the sidelines of a G-20 meeting in India nearly two years ago, and in the fall of 2022, U.S. and Russian spymasters met in Turkey amid Washington’s concerns that Moscow could resort to nuclear weapons amid battlefield setbacks. The recent U.S. diplomatic blitz on the war has sent Kyiv and key allies scrambling to ensure a seat at the table amid concerns that Washington and Moscow could press ahead with a deal that won’t be favorable to them. France called an emergency meeting of European Union countries and the U.K. on Monday to decide how to respond. Ahead of the talks, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund who the Kremlin said might join the meeting, underscored the importance of the meeting in comments to The Associated Press. “Good U.S.-Russia relations are very important for the whole world. Only jointly can Russia and the U.S. address lots of world problems, resolve for global conflicts and offer solutions,” Dmitriev, who said he and his team would focus on economic issues at the talks, told AP. The Saudi-owned satellite channel Al Arabiya, citing the Russian delegation, described Moscow’s priority as “real normalization with Washington.” Diriyah Palace sits across the street from Riyadh’s Diplomatic Quarter. It’s also just next to the Ritz Carlton hotel, which became famous in 2017 after de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman detained other princes and the country’s elite there as part of what the royal court called a crackdown on corruption, that also sidelined any potential challenge to his taking control of the kingdom. Russia releases imprisoned American Marc Fogel in what US calls a step toward the end of Ukraine war Hosting the talks is a major step toward a goal Prince Mohammed has pursued throughout the war — putting the kingdom in the middle of diplomatic negotiations. It has helped in prisoner negotiations and hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for an Arab League summit in the kingdom in 2023. Zelenskyy will likely travel to Saudi Arabia later this week. For Prince Mohammed, once described as a “pariah” by former President Joe Biden over the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, hosting such talks burnish the otherwise-tarnished image the West has for him. Ahead of the summit, the Saudi daily newspaper Okaz described the moment as the “world’s eye on Riyadh.” Writing in the London-based but Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al Awsat, journalist Mishari al-Dhaidi described the summit as “a major step on the international political chess arena, revealing the status of Saudi Arabia and its positive influence for the benefit of the people all the people,” he wrote. the neighboring United Arab Emirates, the prince also has maintained close relations to Russia throughout its war on Ukraine, both through the OPEC+ oil cartel and diplomatically as well. Hosting the summit also balances the harsh criticism recently levied by the kingdom’s tightly controlled media at President Donald Trump over his repeated comments that he wants the U.S. to “own” the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by the Israeli military offensive there since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. The Palestinians want Gaza and the West Bank for a future state, something backed by the wider Arab world and nearly all of the international community.

Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended Moscow’s participation in the last remaining nuclear arms control pact with the U.S., announcing the move Tuesday in a bitter speech where he made clear he would not change his strategy in the war in Ukraine. In his long-delayed state-of-the-nation address, Putin cast his country — and Ukraine — as victims of Western double-dealing and said it was Russia, not Ukraine, fighting for its very existence. “We aren’t fighting the Ukrainian people,” Putin said in a speech days before the war’s first anniversary on Friday. “The Ukrainian people have become hostages of the Kyiv regime and its Western masters, which have effectively occupied the country.” The speech reiterated a litany of grievances that the Russian leader has frequently offered as justification for the widely condemned military campaign while vowing no military let-up in a conflict that has reawakened fears of a new Cold War. On top of that, Putin sharply upped the ante by declaring that Moscow would suspend its participation in the so-called New START Treaty. The pact, signed in 2010 by the U.S. and Russia, caps the number of long-range nuclear warheads the two sides can deploy and limits the use of missiles that can carry atomic weapons. Putin also said that Russia should stand ready to resume nuclear weapons tests if the U.S. does so, a move that would end a global ban on such tests in place since the Cold War era. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described Moscow’s decision as “really unfortunate and very irresponsible.” “We’ll be watching carefully to see what Russia actually does,” he said during a visit to Greece. Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, and made a dash toward Kyiv, apparently expecting to quickly overrun the capital. But stiff resistance from Ukrainian forces — backed by Western weapons — turned back Moscow’s troops. While Ukraine has reclaimed many areas initially seized by Russia, the two sides have become bogged down in tit-for-tat battles in others. The war has revived the old Russia-West divide, reinvigorated the NATO alliance, and created the biggest threat to Putin’s more than two-decade rule. U.S. President Joe Biden, fresh off a surprise visit to Kyiv, was in Poland on Tuesday on a mission to solidify that Western unity — and planned his own speech.Observers were expected to scour Putin’s address for any signs of how the Russian leader sees the conflict, where he might take it and how it might end. While the Constitution mandates that the president deliver the speech annually, Putin never gave one in 2022, as his troops rolled into Ukraine and suffered repeated setbacks. Much of the speech covered old ground, as Putin offered his own version of recent history, discounting arguments by the Ukrainian government that it needed Western help to thwart a Russian military takeover. “Western elites aren’t trying to conceal their goals, to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ to Russia,” Putin said in the speech broadcast by all state TV channels. “They intend to transform the local conflict into a global confrontation.” He added that Russia was prepared to respond since “it will be a matter of our country’s existence.” He has repeatedly depicted NATO’s expansion to include countries close to Russia as an existential threat to his country. Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, who was in Ukraine on Tuesday, said she had hoped that Putin might have taken a different approach. “What we heard this morning was propaganda that we already know,” Meloni said in English. “He says (Russia) worked on diplomacy to avoid the conflict, but the truth is that there is somebody who is the invader and somebody who is defending itself.” Putin denied any wrongdoing, even as the Kremlin’s forces in Ukraine strike civilian targets, including hospitals, and are widely accused of war crimes. On the ground Tuesday, the Ukrainian military reported that Russian forces shelled southern cities of Kherson and Ochakiv while Putin spoke, killing six people. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lamented that Russian forces were “again mercilessly killing the civilian population.” Many observers predicted Putin’s speech would address Moscow’s fallout with the West — and Putin began with strong words for those countries that have provided Kyiv with crucial military support and warned them against supplying any longer-range weapons. “It’s they who have started the war. And we are using force to end it,” Putin said before an audience of lawmakers, state officials and soldiers who have fought in Ukraine. Putin also accused the West of taking aim at Russian culture, religion and values because it is aware that “it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield.” Likewise, he said Western sanctions would have no effect, saying they hadn’t “achieved anything and will not achieve anything.” Underscoring the anticipation ahead of the speech, some state TV channels put out a countdown for the event starting on Monday. Reflecting the Kremlin’s clampdown on free speech and press, this year it barred media from “unfriendly” countries, the list of which includes the U.S., the U.K. and those in the EU. Peskov said journalists from those nations will be able to cover the speech by watching the broadcast. He previously told reporters that the speech’s delay had to do with Putin’s “work schedule,” but Russian media reports linked it to the setbacks of Russian forces. The Russian president postponed the state-of-the-nation address before, in 2017. Last year, the Kremlin also canceled two other big annual events — Putin’s press conference and a highly scripted phone-in marathon where people ask the president questions. Analysts expected Putin’s speech would be tough in the wake of Biden’s visit to Kyiv on Monday. In his his own speech later Tuesday, Biden is expected to highlight the commitment of the central European country and other allies to Ukraine over the past year. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that Biden’s address would not be “some kind of head to head” with Putin’s. “This is not a rhetorical contest with anyone else,” said.  

There aren’t many elections of any kind in Russia that one sees or hears but the fact that Russians including Putin really love elections in the US.  US President Joe Biden has already complained that the Russians are already at work for the 2022 elections. He was speaking at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). He thinks Putin played  a big role in putting Trump into power.   He said such acts were "pure violation of our sovereignty," while speaking to about 120 representatives of the U.S. intelligence community at the ODNI headquarters. Apparently, Russia keeps popping up in the top secret Presidential Daily Brief which has caused such concern. Read:Will Russian hackers affect this year's US election? Of course, the concern is real because the Democrats think that the Russians were responsible –at least significantly- behind the electoral win of Donald Trump who many think was mentally unhinged. He has damaged US institutions and made the US a bit of a laughing stock, Democrats complain.  Hence they take the Putin threat quite seriously. So though many were surprised that Biden was discussing top secret issues, he was obviously doing so because it was making him nervous.    US security experts think that it’s nothing new and the US-Russia conflict post- dates to the ideological cold war. Socialism has died in erstwhile Russia but the dislike for the US is much more permanently camped.  

Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized influence operations to help Donald Trump in last November's presidential election, according to a declassified intelligence assessment that found broad efforts by the Kremlin and Iran to shape the outcome of the race but ultimately no evidence that any foreign actor changed votes or otherwise disrupted the voting process.

The Biden administration was quick to breathe new life into the last remaining treaty limiting U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons. The going will be slower when it turns to other arms control problems that are either festering or emerging as potential triggers of an international arms race.

The United States planned to close its consulate in Vladivostok, Russia, and to suspend operations at one in Yekaterinburg, U.S. State Department said on Friday.