World
Erdogan visits Ukraine hoping to play mediator with Russia
President Tayyip Erdogan is set to visit his counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine on Thursday after pitching Turkey as a mediator to ease tensions with Russia, and an official said he was not picking any sides in the crisis.
The Turkish official told Reuters that Ankara expects tensions to ease after the meeting in Kyiv. On Wednesday, Ankara and Kyiv said they would sign a free trade agreement and other deals.
Russia has denied any plans of invading Ukraine amid concern by many Western nations over its build up of more than 100,000 troops near the border, but has demanded sweeping security guarantees from the West.
Erdogan’s trip comes after visits by leaders of NATO members Britain, Poland, and the Netherlands to Kyiv amid the standoff. Turkey has good ties with Kyiv and Moscow but has said it would do what is necessary as a NATO member if Russia invades.
Ankara offered in November to help ease building tensions, and last month Turkish diplomatic sources said both Russia and Ukraine were open to the idea.
A separate Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Erdogan will call on both sides to exercise restraint, and added Ankara wanted to continue its cooperation with both of the “very important” countries.
Turkey’s “approach is not picking one side or standing against one country in the tensions,” the official said. “With Erdogan’s initiative and with some of the messages he will convey, we expect tensions to ease.”
Turkey shares the Black Sea with Ukraine and Russia. Erdogan has said conflict would be unacceptable in the region and warned Russia that an invasion would be unwise.
While forging cooperation with Russia on defence and energy, Turkey has opposed Moscow’s policies in Syria and Libya, as well as its annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014. It has also sold sophisticated drones to Ukraine and inked a deal to produce more near Kyiv, angering Russia.
Ukraine’s prime minister said on Wednesday that Ukraine and Turkey would sign a dozen agreements including a free trade deal during the talks in Kyiv.
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World
US Senate passes Russia sanctions championed by Graham; US House next
In a statement, the Ukrainian embassy in Washington welcomed passage, calling it “a timely and significant step that strengthens pressure on Russia.”
The U.S. Senate easily passed sweeping Russia sanctions legislation on Friday, advancing a long-delayed measure backed by late Senator Lindsey Graham and setting the stage for consideration by the House of Representatives within weeks, Reuters reported.
Graham, a South Carolina Republican who died last month, was among Kyiv’s most outspoken allies in Congress in its four-year-long war with Russia, and the bill aims to increase economic pressure on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
It also includes expanded sanctions on Iran sought by President Donald Trump as lawmakers pushed for a vote on the measure well over a year since it was introduced in 2025.
The Senate’s Republican leaders had not brought the bill up because of resistance from Trump, who had kept decisions on sanctions at the White House, not Congress, since starting his second term in January 2025.
The Senate voted 86-11 to pass the “Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026,” to sanction Russian officials and authorize stiff tariffs on China, India and other countries to reduce their dependence on Russian oil and gas.
In a statement, the Ukrainian embassy in Washington welcomed passage, calling it “a timely and significant step that strengthens pressure on Russia.”
However, broad support may not be enough to secure House passage, with some lawmakers and industries wary that new tariff powers for Trump could raise costs for U.S. importers and consumers while exposing Republicans to political blowback.
Representatives Gregory Meeks of New York and Don Beyer of Virginia said in a statement they still had “fundamental concerns” about the tariff powers for Trump, who has made them a central piece of his “America First” approach to foreign policy, read the report.
“What the bill does grant … are sweeping new tariff authorities that the president could weaponize with abandon, as he has repeatedly done in the past,” said Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Beyer, the senior Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee.
Trump’s fellow Republicans control only slim majorities in both the House and Senate.
Only one Senate Republican, Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted against the bill, likening tariffs to taxes on American consumers.
The chamber erupted into applause after Graham’s sister, Darline Graham, who was appointed to fill his seat, read out the final tally.
The Senate rejected an amendment sponsored by Paul and Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon that would have removed the tariff powers.
Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who also sought to change the tariff language, said he had received a written commitment from Trump’s U.S. trade representative, Jamieson Greer, to put guardrails on the tariff authorities, Reuters reported.
If it is approved by the House and signed into law by Trump, the measure would allow the president to impose tariffs of up to 100% on countries that are major consumers of Russian energy, including India, Japan and some countries in the European Union, and leave it to his discretion to lift them.
The legislation’s backers insist that the tariffs are narrow enough that they would do their intended job of reducing Russian energy revenue that funds its war on Ukraine without negative consequences.
Supporters called the legislation the best opportunity to support Ukraine, and the strong bipartisan Senate vote provided momentum for it to pass the House after it returns from its summer recess on August 31.
Graham had announced shortly before his sudden death on July 11 that he and Trump agreed finally to move forward with the legislation.
The legislation lets the president impose targeted tariffs on imported goods from countries that buy the vast majority of Russian oil or gas and enable Russia’s evasion of sanctions.
The bill limits these tariffs to the five largest importers of Russian crude oil or gas and the top five countries that aid Russia’s energy sanctions evasion. The measure includes a provision to prevent a lapse in sanctions authority that restricts funding for Iranian energy and weapons.
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World2 days agoUS Senate passes Russia sanctions championed by Graham; US House next
