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Americans and Canadians are punching and booing each other in the wake of President Donald Trump’s taunts about making Canada a US state — at least on the ice hockey rink.Canadians have a long history of taking their national team hockey seriously. But with Trump goading their country and questioning its sovereignty, the temperature ahead of Thursday’s NHL Four Nations Face-Off tournament final is decidedly icy.”We hear the comments. We feel like we’re being mocked,” said Cedric Bernard, out playing recreational hockey on a Montreal rink.”Our way of honoring ourselves (as Canadians) is to win at hockey,” added Bernard, leaning on his hockey stick with pucks scattered around his skates. Canada fell short in an opening round match on Saturday, which the United States won 3-1. But both teams advanced to the final after eliminating Finland and Sweden and for Canada, the revenge match is on.The first meeting did not go smoothly.There were three fights in the first nine seconds, an emotionally charged opening that many linked to the ugly politics.The first fight was instigated by US winger Matthew Tkachuk, who made clear he did not appreciate fans in Montreal booing the American anthem, a protest that has become common at sporting events in Canada since Trump signed an executive order detailing tariffs on Canadian imports.Dan Guiry, a stand-up comic and bartender in Toronto, recalls his reaction to the mayhem at Saturday’s game, was, “You want to go to war? Let’s do this!” Guiry, 40, suggested the drama on the ice reflects the broader jolt to Canada since Trump’s election in November. Political leaders have said Trump’s trade war threats and verbal assaults on Canadian sovereignty should be a “wake up call” for a nation that had grown complacent, believing its relationship with its superpower southern neighbor would always remain stable. “We’ve got to wake the heck up as a country and as a hockey team,” Guiry said. – The Summit Series -Before Saturday’s match, a Toronto Star op-ed carried a headline that said Canada vs. the US  “is more than a game, and more political than the Summit Series ever was.”That legendary series featured eight head-to-head matches in 1972 between Canada and the Soviet Union, which had become a major hockey power — something few Canadians understood until the Soviet’s shocking 7-3 win in the first game.The series, which Canada ultimately won, was charged by Cold War tensions but there “was never really a question of whether Canada would cease to exist,” wrote Star columnist Bruce Arthur on Saturday. Today, however, “the United States has become a threat to our way of life,” Arthur wrote. “The hockey game’s big.”Serge Savard, a renowned Montreal Canadiens player and executive, was on Canada’s team in the Summit Series. And he told AFP he understands the national furor over Trump’s mockery.”When we’re told we should be the 51st state and that someone is going to annex Canada these are insulting words,” he said. But Savard criticized disrespecting the Star-Spangled Banner, saying “the flag and the anthem, regardless of the country, is something sacred.”- Staying silent -Thursday’s final is in Boston, so the 20,000-capacity arena will be packed with Americans and US team general manager Bill Guerin says he’d “love it if President Trump was in attendance.”Whether or not Trump is there, the Republican is already seeking to make inroads into Canadian politics — and ice hockey.Two of the sport’s greatest ever players, Canadians Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr have expressed support for Trump.Gretzky was at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago election victory party in November and Trump has said he encouraged Gretzky to be “governor” of an annexed US-Canadian state.Orr, who lives in the United States, publicly endorsed Trump in a full page newspaper add before the 2020 election.  Both Gretzky and Orr have not responded to Trump’s Canada mockery, earning a scathing rebuke in The Globe and Mail, days before Trump’s inauguration.Trump “is treating Canada — historic friend, great trading partner, ally in war and peace — like an enemy. Are you, our two greatest hockey legends, going to speak out and stand up for Canada, or will you remain silent?”

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a review of the department’s 2026 budget so as to reallocate $50 billion in funds, the Pentagon said Wednesday, following reports that he had directed deep, multi-year cuts to military spending.US media said Hegseth directed senior Defense Department leaders to plan for cuts that could slash the defense budget by eight percent annually, or some $290 billion within the next five years.The Pentagon did not directly deny those reports, but instead described an effort aimed at removing funding from programs favored by former president Joe Biden and using it on those advocated by his successor Donald Trump.”Secretary Hegseth has directed a review to identify offsets from the Biden administration’s FY26 budget that could be realigned from low-impact and low-priority Biden-legacy programs to align with President Trump’s America First priorities for our national defense,” Robert Salesses, performing the duties of deputy secretary of defense, said in a statement.”The department will develop a list of potential offsets that could be used to fund these priorities, as well as to refocus the department on its core mission of deterring and winning wars. The offsets are targeted at eight percent of the Biden Administration’s FY26 budget, totaling around $50 billion, which will then be spent on programs aligned with President Trump’s priorities,” the statement said.A report from the Washington Post meanwhile described a memo from Hegseth — dated Tuesday — that ordered the development of plans for eight percent to be cut from the defense budget in each of the next five years.- ‘Revive the warrior ethos’ -Hegseth’s memo said the proposed cuts must be drawn up by February 24, and include 17 categories that Trump wants exempted, including operations at the US border with Mexico and modernization of nuclear weapons and missile defense, the newspaper reported.It also called for funding for Indo-Pacific Command and Space Command, but did not do so for others such as European Command, which has led the way on US strategy throughout the war in Ukraine, the Post reported.The Defense Department “must act urgently to revive the warrior ethos, rebuild our military, and reestablish deterrence,” Hegseth wrote in the memo, according to the Post. “Our budget will resource the fighting force we need, cease unnecessary defense spending, reject excessive bureaucracy, and drive actionable reform including progress on the audit,” he reportedly continued.The Pentagon’s budget for 2025 is some $850 billion and the cuts described in the memo, if implemented in full, would reduce that figure by tens of billions each year to some $560 billion by the end of the five years.Trump has vowed to slash government spending, and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — which is tasked with carrying out that effort — reportedly visited the Pentagon last week.Hegseth signaled support for DOGE’s work at the Pentagon in a Tuesday post on X: “Let’s get to work. DOGE the waste; Double-Down on warriors,” he wrote.

The US government on Wednesday moved to kill New York’s nascent congestion pricing scheme designed to ease traffic and finance public transport by imposing tolls on drivers in Manhattan — a first-in-the-nation plan President Donald Trump had vowed to quash. The $9 daytime toll for motorists entering areas of Manhattan south of Central Park was introduced in early January after being approved at the last minute before the inauguration of the Republican president — a native New Yorker.  In a letter to New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy terminated approval for the pilot program, sparking an immediate backlash from city officials. “New York State’s congestion pricing plan is a slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners,” Duffy said, according to a statement. He criticised the program for funding public transit over roads and accused it of hurting small businesses and commercial flows into the United States’ largest city. Trump celebrated the move on his Truth Social network, posting: “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!” Hochul hit back, posting on X her support of the program, saying it was proving a success and gaining backers “every day”.”We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king,” she wrote. “We’ll see you in court.” In a press conference, she said the move was “an attack on our sovereignty and independence from Washington.”The city’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority quickly filed a lawsuit to challenge the order.  “The MTA filed papers in federal court to ensure that the highly successful program — which has already dramatically reduced congestion, bringing reduced traffic and faster travel times,  while increasing speeds for buses and emergency vehicles — will continue notwithstanding this baseless effort to snatch those benefits away,” CEO Janno Lieber said in a statement.At the time the toll went into effect, some 700,000 vehicles entered the congestion zone every day, and gridlock meant cars could travel just seven miles per hour (11 kilometers per hour) on average, according to officials. The congestion pricing plan also aimed to combat air pollution. Environmental non-governmental group Evergreen Action criticized the Trump administration action as a “reckless, illegal move to dismantle critical climate and economic policies.”Similar driver-tolling schemes have been operated for years in other megacities, including London and Stockholm, but opposition and legal challenges ahead of implementation in New York highlighted the difficulty of charging drivers in a country where the car is king.

US President Donald Trump’s decision to designate eight Latin American drug trafficking groups as “terrorist” organizations has raised speculation about possible military action on foreign soil.What are the ramifications of the order targeting six Mexican drug cartels, Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and Mara Salvatrucha, the street gang with close links to Central America?- Is military intervention likely? -The cartels’ designation as terrorist groups “means they’re eligible for drone strikes” wrote tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has been given a prominent role in the Trump administration, on his social media platform X.Experts, however, said that bombing Mexican cartels or sending troops over the border still appeared unlikely, although Trump’s unpredictability makes it impossible to completely rule out.The idea “used to be something that was found in a niche, very much on the fringes, and now it is at the center of the discussion,” said Cecilia Farfan-Mendez, an analyst at the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation.Trump’s negotiating style is to push his counterparts to the “extreme,” said Steven Dudley, co-director of the InSight Crime think tank.”The extreme is military invasion, of course, so what he’s looking for is middle ground,” Dudley said.Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institute, believes that unilateral US military strikes against the cartels would risk dealing “a tremendous setback” to the fight against fentanyl smuggling.”Mexico would consider this act an invasion, and whatever law enforcement cooperation that does exist would grind to a halt,” she wrote in an article for Foreign Affairs magazine.- Will it reduce fentanyl trafficking? -The strength of fentanyl means that both its ingredients and pills can be transported in tiny quantities and still be profitable, according to experts.”You don’t need a truck, a boat, a plane, you need human beings,” and the millions of people crossing the Mexican-US border every day make it “impossible” to control smuggling, Dudley said.Farfan-Mendez said that Trump’s strategy, focused on blaming and coercing Mexico, avoids addressing fentanyl as a health crisis that kills tens of thousands of Americans every year.”If the goal is to prevent these deaths, this designation is not going to save more lives. It requires a public health policy,” she said.Felbab-Brown said that asking Mexico to completely halt the influx of fentanyl into the United States was “an unachievable demand.”  – Will it enable US to dismantle cartels? -According to Trump’s executive order, it is US policy “to ensure the total elimination of these organizations’ presence in the United States and their ability to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States through their extraterritorial command-and-control structures.”Dudley doubts that the cartels can be eliminated, either by deploying more troops on the ground or by using legal tools, because they are “sophisticated and very dispersed” organizations, capable of quickly recomposing.”It cannot be solved by capturing a single person… or by dismantling an entire organization,” he said.According to Felbab-Brown, unilateral US military strikes “would almost certainly fail to destroy the cartels.”Replacements for leaders who were killed would be quickly found and the cartels “have repeatedly demonstrated a capacity to re-create damaged drug labs within days,” she added.- What are the risks for US companies? -The designation “theoretically allows US authorities to impose penalties on entities and individuals that provide material support to cartels, including companies paying extortion fees under duress,” according to the Mexican political risk consultancy EMPRA.According to Dudley, the broad legal scope of the decree means that “in the hands of irresponsible authorities” it could be “extremely dangerous.”If the Mexican subsidiary of a US company pays extortion to a cartel, the parent company could be accused of “material support” for terrorism, he said.”Providing even a pencil, a toy, or a cup of coffee can trigger severe criminal and financial penalties,” Felbab-Brown said.

Global stocks were under pressure Wednesday after US President Donald Trump broadened his tariff threats, leaving European bourses lower even as the S&P 500 notched a fresh record.Trump warned the previous day that he would impose tariffs “in the neighborhood of 25 percent” on auto imports and a similar amount or higher on semiconductors and pharmaceuticals.”Understandably this has helped drive European carmakers lower, with the likes of Mercedes-Benz, BMW and VW losing ground,” said Joshua Mahony, chief market analyst at Scope Markets. European markets all dropped, with London hit by higher-than-expected inflation figures.Tariff threats also knocked auto firms and semiconductor manufacturers in Tokyo, dragging the index into the red.Wall Street indices veered in and out of negative territory throughout the session before finishing higher.The S&P 500 rose 0.2 percent to its second straight closing high.”A new high, even by the narrowest of margins, is still a new high, and all new highs are positive,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research. “The resilience of the market remains encouraging, adding confidence to the continuation of its upward trajectory.”China — a key target in Trump’s tariffs policy — told the World Trade Organization on Tuesday that the United States risked triggering inflation, market distortions and even a global recession.The tariff threats added to market uncertainty since Europe and Kyiv were excluded from the first high-level talks between the US and Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine.Frankfurt’s DAX 40 index set another record high during morning trading, but broke a two-week winning streak ahead of weekend elections.”The uncertainty surrounding the election is likely to negatively impact short-term price developments,” said CMC Markets analyst Konstantin Oldenburger.Asian markets struggled for direction, with Hong Kong dragged lower by tech firms after Chinese internet giant Baidu’s fourth-quarter earnings saw a fall in revenue and a warning of near-term pressures.The sector has helped the Hang Seng Index surge around 15 percent since the turn of the year, spurred by the emergence of Chinese startup DeepSeek’s new chatbot that has upended the AI universe.President Xi Jinping’s meeting with China’s top business leaders this week — including Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma — added to the optimism amid hopes of a fresh boost for the private sector.The Shanghai stock market rose while Taipei was weighed by a sell-off in chip giant TSMC.In other company news, Swiss mining and commodity trading giant Glencore dropped more than six percent on London’s FTSE 100 after it reported a net loss for 2024.Shares in Dutch medical device maker Philips dropped more than 11 percent on the Amsterdam stock exchange after it posted worse-than-expected losses. – Key figures around 2130 GMT -New York – Dow: UP 0.2 percent at 44,627.59 (close)New York – S&P 500: UP 0.2 percent at 6,144.15 (close)New York – Nasdaq Composite: UP 0.1 percent at 20,056.25 (close)London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.6 percent at 8,712.53 (close)Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 1.2 percent at 8,110.54 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 1.8 percent at 22,433.63 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.3 percent at 39,164.61 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.1 percent at 22,944.24 (close)Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.8 percent at 3,351.54 (close)Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.0428 from $1.0446 on TuesdayPound/dollar: DOWN at $1.2582 from $1.2613Dollar/yen: DOWN at 151.40 from 152.06 yenEuro/pound: FLAT at 82.81 pence West Texas Intermediate: UP 0.6 percent at $72.25 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: UP 0.3 percent at $76.04 per barrelburs-jmb/jgc

A US federal judge peppered a top member of Donald Trump’s Justice Department with questions Wednesday during a hearing over the office’s extraordinary move to drop corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.The department’s request prompted a wave of protest resignations within the Justice Department and at the mayor’s office amid allegations that it was a quid pro quo in exchange for Adams agreeing to enforce the Republican president’s immigration crackdown — a claim the mayor denies.Judge Dale Ho made no decision on the effort to abandon the graft case against Adams during the 90-minute hearing, asking for “patience” as he weighs what he called a “somewhat unusual situation.””It’s not in anyone’s interest for this to drag on,” Ho said, but “I’m not going to shoot from the hip right here on the bench.”He acknowledged the scope of his power to contradict the Justice Department on the matter was “narrow.”Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove appeared alone before the judge to defend his office’s demand, which he said was necessary so Adams can focus on “protecting the city.”Bove’s likely superior, Todd Blanche, who is awaiting Senate confirmation to become the deputy attorney general, sat in the front row of the courtroom packed with media and legal experts.Both Bove and Blanche were on the team that defended Trump as he was criminally convicted for business fraud in a New York state court last year.Bove said the ongoing case against Adams “interferes with the president’s efforts in the national security realm.”He and Alex Spiro, the mayor’s lawyer, said the indictment stripped Adams of his security clearance and he was thus unable to participate in a federal task force on immigration “in a full, candid, complete way.”Bove said the case was impeding the mayor’s ability to govern and campaign to keep his position.That argument contradicts what Adams — who is up for reelection in November, with a competitive Democratic primary in June — has been insisting for months: that the fraud and bribery charges are not distracting from his mayoral duties to the largest US city.Ho asked Adams under oath a series of questions, notably to ensure the mayor understood the charges would not necessarily be put to bed forever — the federal government, including the Trump administration, could revive them.”Yes I understand,” Adams said. “And judge, I have not committed a crime, and I don’t see them bringing it back.”- Calls for Adams to resign -If his presence in the courtroom was a show of measured intimidation, Bove held nothing back in a statement later.”I went to New York today to show the men and women of the Justice Department as well as the American people that I am personally committed to our shared fight: ending weaponized government, stopping the invasion of criminal illegal aliens, and eliminating drug cartels and transnational gangs from our homeland,” he said.”For those who do not support our critical mission, I understand there are templates for resignation letters available on the websites of the New York Times and CNN.”There was no counterweight present at the hearing to the viewpoints of Bove and Adams’s legal team: the acting US attorney in Manhattan, Danielle Sassoon, along with the lead prosecutor on the case both dramatically resigned last week.The latter, Hagan Scotten, told Bove in his blistering letter that only a “fool” or a “coward” would comply with the department’s demand to drop the charges against Adams.Adams left Wednesday’s hearing with a smile and thumbs up.But the embattled mayor is facing growing pressure from high-ranking figures to resign, as the suggestion that he is beholden to the Trump administration triggers widespread condemnation, including from voters.Governor Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove Adams from office, met with “key leaders” Tuesday to discuss what she called a “path forward with the goal of ensuring stability for the City of New York.”Bove’s stunning incursion into an ongoing anti-corruption case of a public official has rattled the legal community, as sweeping shakeups at the Justice Department have seen top officials fired, demoted or reassigned.More than 800 former federal prosecutors released an open letter Monday condemning recent actions by Trump’s Justice Department that are not based on “the facts and the law” but appear intended “to serve solely political purposes.”

An 86-year-old Missouri man who pleaded guilty to shooting a Black teenager who rang his doorbell by mistake has died ahead of his sentencing, prosecutors said Wednesday.Andrew Lester, who is white, pleaded guilty on Friday to felony assault for the shooting of Ralph Yarl, who was 16 years old at the time.Yarl recovered from his wounds and is now attending a university in Texas.Lester had been scheduled to be sentenced on March 7 but Zachary Thompson, the prosecuting attorney for Clay County, said he had died.”While the legal proceedings have now concluded, we acknowledge that Mr Lester did take responsibility for his actions by pleading guilty in this case,” Thompson said.Yarl was shot twice, once in the head and once in the arm, in April 2023 when he rang the doorbell at the wrong house while trying to pick up his twin brothers from a play date at a friend’s home in Kansas City.Lester told the authorities he believed someone was trying to break into his home.Then-president Joe Biden spoke with Yarl on the phone following the shooting.”No parent should have to worry that their kid will be shot after ringing the wrong doorbell,” Biden said. “We’ve got to keep up the fight against gun violence.”Deadly shootings are a regular occurrence in the United States, a country of around 330 million people that is awash with an estimated 400 million guns.But Yarl’s case sparked a particular outcry as the nation continues to grapple with a long history of a lack of accountability for violence against African Americans.

The Trump administration has ordered senior US military leaders to plan for expansive cuts that could slash the defense budget by eight percent annually, or some $290 billion within the next five years, US media reported Wednesday.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Pentagon to develop the deep reductions, The Washington Post reported, citing a memo.The Pentagon’s budget for 2025 is some $850 billion. Lawmakers across the political spectrum agree that the massive spending is needed to deter threats, especially from China and Russia. The cuts, if implemented in full, would reduce that figure by tens of billions each year to some $560 billion by the end of the five years.The report did not give details of where the cuts would be made in the world’s biggest military, but an earlier Post report said that junior civilian workers, not uniformed personnel, were being targeted.The news — which comes after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency reportedly visited the Pentagon last week — was likely to be met with stiff resistance from both the military and Congress.Trump on Wednesday signaled support for a House of Representatives bill that would increase the defense budget by $100 billion — a move at odds with the Hegseth-directed cuts.The planned reductions also run counter to calls by Trump and Hegseth for NATO members to increase their military spending to five percent of GDP a year.- ‘Revive the warrior ethos’ -The United States currently spends around 3.4 percent of its GDP on defense, and the five percent threshold would be even farther out of reach if the Pentagon’s budget is reduced.The stock prices of major US defense contractors were hit by the news, with Lockheed Martin dropping briefly before recovering, Northrop Grumann falling nearly two percent and Palantir closing down more than 10 percent. Hegseth’s memo said the proposed cuts must be drawn up by February 24, and include 17 categories that Trump wants exempted, including operations at the US border with Mexico and modernization of nuclear weapons and missile defense. It also calls for funding for regional headquarters such as Indo-Pacific Command and Space Command.But other major centers such as European Command, which has led the way on US strategy throughout the war in Ukraine, and also Africa Command and Central Command — which oversees operations in the Middle East — were absent from the list, the Post reported.The Defense Department “must act urgently to revive the warrior ethos, rebuild our military, and reestablish deterrence,” Hegseth wrote in the memo, dated Tuesday, according to the Post. “Our budget will resource the fighting force we need, cease unnecessary defense spending, reject excessive bureaucracy, and drive actionable reform including progress on the audit,” he reportedly continued.US President Donald Trump has vowed to slash government spending and end US support for Ukraine in its war against Russian invasion. 

US President Donald Trump called Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator” Wednesday, widening a personal rift with major implications for efforts to end the conflict triggered by Russia’s invasion three years ago.The United States has provided essential funding and arms to Ukraine, but Trump made an abrupt policy shift by opening talks with Moscow just weeks after he returned to the White House.”A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.Zelensky was elected in 2019 for a five-year term and has remained leader under martial law imposed as his country fights for its survival.Trump savaged Zelensky, saying “he refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing (Joe) Biden ‘like a fiddle.'””In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do.”Zelensky’s popularity has fallen, but the percentage of Ukrainians who trust him has never dipped below 50 percent since the conflict started, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).- Shock at Trump attack -Under Biden, the United States had lauded Zelensky as a hero and hammered Moscow with sanctions as Ukraine battled against advancing Russian soldiers.But Trump held a press conference on Tuesday in which he tore into the Ukrainian leader and repeated Kremlin narratives such as the claim that Ukraine started the war.Trump’s invective drew shock from Europe where German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was “wrong and dangerous” to call Zelensky a dictator.In Washington, Trump’s former vice president Mike Pence also issued a stinging rebuke.”Mr. President, Ukraine did not ‘start’ this war. Russia launched an unprovoked and brutal invasion claiming hundreds of thousands of lives,” he wrote on X.Zelensky reacted to Trump’s attacks by accusing him of succumbing to Russian “disinformation.””I believe that the United States helped (Vladimir) Putin to break out of years of isolation,” he added, in some of his sharpest criticism yet of the new US administration.And in Ukraine, Trump’s rhetoric was greeted by disbelief. “Blaming Ukraine for starting the war is some kind of absurdity. As Ukrainians, we cannot understand this,” soldier Ivan Banias told AFP on the freezing streets of Kyiv. In contrast, Putin hailed progress in talks with the United States.The Russian leader also claimed his troops had crossed into Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region — a first ground attack there since 2022 — but Kyiv swiftly denied the claim.Both sides are trying to improve their situation on the battlefield amid Trump’s push for a ceasefire.- Moscow buoyed -Moscow has been buoyed by Tuesday’s talks in Saudi Arabia and Trump’s attacks on Zelensky.The talks “made the first step to restore work in various areas of mutual interests,” Putin told journalists while visiting a drone manufacturing plant in his native Saint Petersburg.Kyiv was not invited to the Riyadh talks as Moscow and Washington moved to sideline both Ukraine and Europe.Putin said that the United States’ allies “only have themselves to blame for what’s happening,” suggesting they were paying the price for opposing Trump’s return to the White House.Tensions between Zelensky and Trump over the new US position on the war had been building for weeks, before bursting into the open.But Zelensky sought to take a positive approach ahead of meeting Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, in Kyiv on Thursday.”It is very important for us that the meeting and our work with America in general be constructive,” Zelensky said, while adding, “it is a choice for everyone in the world — and for the powerful — to be with Putin or with peace.”Russia, which for years has railed against the US military presence in Europe, wants a reorganization of the continent’s security framework as part of any deal to end the Ukraine fighting.Putin on Wednesday said that Russia and the United States needed to work with each other if talks were to be successful.”It is impossible to solve many issues, including the Ukrainian crisis, without increasing the level of trust between Russia and the United States,” he said.burs/spm/bgs/bjt

US President Donald Trump called Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator” Wednesday, widening a personal rift with major implications for efforts to end the conflict triggered by Russia’s invasion three years ago.The United States had provided funding and arms to Ukraine, but in an abrupt policy shift since coming to power, Trump has opened talks with Moscow.”A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform of the Ukrainian leader, whose five-year term expired last year.Ukrainian law does not require elections during wartime.On Tuesday Trump held a press conference in which he criticized Zelensky, repeated several Kremlin narratives about the conflict and called for an end to the war.Zelensky in turn accused Trump of succumbing to Russian “disinformation,” including Trump blaming of Kyiv for having “started” the war and echoing Kremlin questions over Zelensky’s legitimacy.”He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing (Joe) Biden ‘like a fiddle,'” said Trump in the Truth Social post of Zelensky.”In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do,” the president added.Zelensky was elected in 2019 for a five-year term, but has remained leader under martial law imposed following the Russian invasion.His popularity has eroded, but the percentage of Ukrainians who trust him has never dipped below 50 percent since the conflict started, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).- ‘Doublethink’ -Trump has long held his party in lockstep, but moderate Republicans swiftly pushed back against his attack on Zelensky Wednesday. “Putin started this war. Putin committed war crimes. Putin is the dictator who murdered his opponents. The EU nations have contributed more to Ukraine. Zelensky polls over 50%. Ukraine wants to be part of the West, Putin hates the West,” congressman Don Bacon, from Nebraska, wrote on X. “I don’t accept George Orwell’s doublethink,” he added, referring to the author of the dystopian novel “1984.”New York Republican Mike Lawler said that Putin demanding elections in Ukraine was “both comical and self-serving.””Vladimir Putin is a vile dictator and thug, who has worked in a concerted effort with China and Iran to undermine and destabilize the United States, Europe, Israel, and the free world. He is not our friend, nor our ally,” he wrote, also on X. Trump’s staunch ally Senator Lindsey Graham, meanwhile, threaded the needle carefully, writing that he blames Putin “above all others” for the war — but adding on X that he still saw the US president as Ukraine’s “best hope.”Former vice president Mike Pence, who broke with Trump after his supporters stormed the US Capitol in 2021 in a bid to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden, also issued a rare public rebuke.”Mr. President, Ukraine did not ‘start’ this war. Russia launched an unprovoked and brutal invasion claiming hundreds of thousands of lives,” he wrote on X.