World
Putin hosts Lukashenko, calls Ukraine counter-offensive a failure
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine’s counteroffensive “has failed” as he hosted Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, his close ally, for talks in St Petersburg on Sunday, Reuters reported.
“There is no counteroffensive,” Russian news agencies quoted Lukashenko as saying.
Putin replied: “It exists, but it has failed.”
Ukraine began its long-anticipated counter-offensive last month but has so far made only small gains against well entrenched Russian forces who control more than a sixth of its territory after nearly 17 months of war.
U.S. General Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday the Ukrainian drive was “far from a failure” but would be long, hard and bloody.
A Telegram channel linked to Lukashenko quoted him as saying in a jocular tone that fighters of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group who are now training Belarus’s army were keen to push across the border into NATO member Poland, read the report.
“The Wagner guys have started to stress us – they want to go west. ‘Let’s go on a trip to Warsaw and Rzeszow’,” he was quoted as saying. There was no indication that Lukashenko was seriously entertaining that idea.
On Thursday, the Belarusian defence ministry said Wagner fighters had started to train Belarusian special forces at a military range just a few miles from the Polish border.
Poland is moving extra troops towards the border with Belarus in response to the arrival of the Wagner forces who relocated there after staging a short-lived mutiny in Russia last month, Reuters reported.
Putin, in response, warned Poland on Friday that any aggression against Belarus would be considered an attack on Russia. He said Moscow would use all means it has to react to any hostility towards Minsk.
Russia and Belarus are linked in a partnership called the “union state” in which Moscow is by far the dominant player. But Lukashenko has proved his usefulness to Putin since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, allowing Russia to use his country as a launch pad at the start of the war.
He has subsequently let Russian forces train at his military bases, conducted frequent joint exercises and taken delivery of tactical nuclear weapons which Putin has placed in Belarus in a move broadly condemned in the West, Reuters reported.
The Kremlin also credited Lukashenko with brokering last month’s deal to end the Wagner mutiny, which Putin said had briefly threatened to tip Russia into civil war.
Putin said the two leaders would meet on Sunday and Monday and would discuss security and other issues “in great detail and in depth”.
Lukashenko has not committed his small army to join Russia’s war, but the risk of a new attack from Belarusian soil compels Ukraine to protect its northern border, stretching its forces as it tries to step up its counteroffensive in the east and south of the country.
World
Israel rejects Trump’s 15-point plan for Gaza, PM Netanyahu says
Israel has rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace 15-point plan for Gaza, and will not withdraw until Hamas fully disarms, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, Reuters reported.
World
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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
