World Briefing: February 17, 2025
BREAKING: Confirmed - US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tomorrow in Saudi Arabia. Yuri Ushakov, Kremlin’s chief foreign policy advisor, also attending. Kremlin says talks aiming to “restore the entire complex of Russia-U.S. relations” and possible settlement of war.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer says he is prepared to deploy troops to Ukraine if needed - ahead of an emergency summit that will be held later today by European leaders. The PM had written an article in the Daily Telegraph on Sunday in which he said he was willing to put "our own troops on the ground if necessary" adding "any role in helping to guarantee Ukraine's security is helping to guarantee the security of our continent and the security of this country".
Since Starmer’s statement, Sweden has said it is “ready to send troops” to enforce a truce in Ukraine
However, the former head of the British Army said that sending soldiers to Ukraine would “come at a considerable cost.” Lord Richard Dannat says that “frankly, we haven't got the numbers and we haven't got the equipment to put a large force onto the ground for an extended period of time at the present moment…We've got to have the right number of people with the right equipment and the right training, and start to fund that now." - BBC
A former British intelligence chief has warned that any peacekeeping force sent to Ukraine after the war must have “a very clear mandate” to ensure that any ceasefire agreement between Kyiv and Moscow holds. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, ex-MI6 boss Sir John Sawers explains that the border between Russia and Ukraine would be a “very substantial frontline to police”. And, in the event that troops are overrun, Sawers suggests that this “could cost British lives”, but also “our capacity to uphold the peace that we are there to keep”. He added: “We have to be very clear what the mission is, what the rules of engagement are should the Russians attack," he adds. "Do we fight back or do we simply report it to some other body?"
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv has not been invited to attend U.S.-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia over ending Moscow's war on Ukraine. Speaking on February 15, Zelenskyy also said Ukraine would not engage with Russia before consulting with its European allies. “We don’t have any papers, any invitations, and it's something strange for me to speak in this case, in this format, if before we don't have any negotiations between us and our strategic partners," he said during the Munich Security Conference. "As I remember, Russia is not our strategic partner." Zelenskyy on February 16 arrived in the United Arab Emirates seeking to boost economic ties after attending the Munich conference. He said he would also travel to neighboring Saudi Arabia, but Ukrainian officials said he had no plans to meet with U.S. or Russian officials there. Mykhaylo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Zelenskyy, said that "there are no negotiators who will represent Ukraine in Saudi Arabia." He added: “Today, there is nothing on the negotiating table that could be discussed. Russia is not ready for negotiations," he told Ukrainian TV - RFE/RL
France confirms it would host a summit of European leaders on Monday to discuss the Ukraine war and European security as the continent tries to respond concretely to Trump's unilateral approach to the conflict.” (Macron) will convene the main European countries to discuss European security," French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told France Inter radio, adding that the meeting would be a working session that should not be "over-dramatised". The French residency said Sunday that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would attend the meeting. The French presidency added on Sunday that the government leaders of Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark would also be attending - France 24
My analysis: events are happening at a head-spinning pace. Goodness gracious - there’s even talk this morning of lifting western sanctions on Russia and restoring gas flows with Europe! One wonders what sort of message that send to autocrats around the world?
And at noon Ukraine time, news dropped that the US Secretary of State will meet his Russian counterpart in Saudi Arabia tomorrow. It will mark the first known high level in-person contact between Moscow and Washington since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky, who’s also in the Gulf region, has not been invited to attend
But a key observation from here on the ground on Ukraine is that while Donald Trump and his circle continue to pitch Russian President Vladimir Putin as a man of peace, his forces continue to commit war crimes. That includes targeting the southern city of Mykolaiv and depriving some 100,000 people of power and heating - amid a brutal and prolonged cold snap. The feeling here is that the time for talk is over - Europe has to quickly get its act together and step in to fill the security void left by the withdrawal of the U.S. A huge worry here is that Washington, in pursuing its rapprochement with Moscow, could cease - literally overnight- providing Kyiv with vital intelligence (ie targeting information to strike within Russia) and dismantle its protective missile shield over Ukraine
Based on passports obtained by Ukrainian hackers, information from Cuba, numerous videos, and reports of some Cubans killed in combat, it is estimated that around 5,000 Cuban soldiers are fighting for Russia, Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat, co-founder of the Cuban Democratic Directorate, a U.S.-based NGO advocating for democratic change in communist Cuba, told RFE/RL Schemes. "This network could not function without the Cuban regime's approval." If that figure is accurate, it would amount to under half the number of soldiers from North Korea reportedly participating in Russia's war with their government's open backing -- most notably in the effort to counter Ukraine's shock offensive in Russia's Kursk region. But unlike North Koreans, Cuban fighters in Russia have left a significant social media footprint, with many openly embracing the Kremlin's militarism and ideology, a Schemes investigation found. Those posts helped Schemes identify hundreds of mercenaries, find previously unreported training facilities with the aid of satellite imagery, and discover the location and the nature of some of the Cubans' military activities in Russia and on Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory. They also raise questions about how hard Cuba's pro-Russian government is "working to neutralize and dismantle a human trafficking network," as its Foreign Ministry claimed in September 2023, when evidence of Cubans fighting in the war was beginning to emerge. - RFE/RL
The Internal Revenue Service is preparing to give a team member working with Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency access to sensitive taxpayer data, people familiar with the matter said. The systems at the I.R.S. contain the private financial data tied to millions of Americans, including their tax returns, Social Security numbers, addresses, banking details and employment information. “Waste, fraud and abuse have been deeply entrenched in our broken system for far too long,” Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said. “It takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it.” - NYT
The Trump administration is revoking a recent Biden-era extension of temporary deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in the United States, according to an unpublished Department of Homeland Security document the Miami Herald has obtained. During an interview with the Fox News program Fox and Friends on Wednesday morning, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed that she has rescinded an 18-month extension of Temporary Protected Status for Venezuela that President Joe Biden made days before leaving the White House. That extension had been announced by Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. The New York Times first reported the roll back on Tuesday night - Miami Herald
A representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) dismissed criticism of some in Israel that’s its nothing more than a taxi service for released Israeli hostages which it has transported from Gaza into Israeli territory. She told the BBC World Service that the operations are complex and even involved explosives experts to ensure the transfers are safe
The Trump administration is in talks with a private shipping-container company to provide temporary space to house and process thousands of migrants slated for deportation, according to people familiar with the matter. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is in discussions with Phoenix-based Willscot about leasing the company’s mobile structures to house undocumented detainees, the people said. Willscot’s products are commonly used as construction-site storage and office space. The Trump administration might opt to deploy a handful of containers for medical or administrative space at migrant detention facilities, the people said. They are also likely to house some of the thousands of migrants at facilities along the southern border or at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where Trump, via executive order, is looking to send up to 30,000 migrants with criminal records - Semafor
Muhsin Hendricks, considered the world’s “first openly gay imam”, has been shot dead near the southern city of Gqeberha, South African police have said. The imam, who ran a mosque intended as a safe haven for gay and other marginalised Muslims, was in a car with another person on Saturday when a vehicle stopped in front of them and blocked their exit, police said. “Two unknown suspects with covered faces got out of the vehicle and started firing multiple shots at the vehicle,” the Eastern Cape force said in a statement “Thereafter they fled the scene, and the driver noticed that Hendricks, who was seated at the back of the vehicle was shot and killed.” A police spokesperson confirmed to AFP the authenticity of a video on social media that purported to show a targeted killing in Bethelsdorp near Gqeberha, formerly known as Port Elizabeth - The Guardian
