Top US and Russian Diplomats Discuss Next Steps on Ukraine

Russia has momentum in many areas of the front in Ukraine. Handout / Russian Defense Ministry/AFP
Russia has momentum in many areas of the front in Ukraine. Handout / Russian Defense Ministry/AFP
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Top US and Russian Diplomats Discuss Next Steps on Ukraine

Russia has momentum in many areas of the front in Ukraine. Handout / Russian Defense Ministry/AFP
Russia has momentum in many areas of the front in Ukraine. Handout / Russian Defense Ministry/AFP

The top US and Russian diplomats discussed Saturday the "next steps" to end the war in Ukraine, hours after Kyiv's allies agreed to exert pressure on Moscow.
Despite recent tensions between US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, Kyiv has agreed in principle to a US-brokered 30-day unconditional ceasefire -- if Moscow halts its attacks in eastern Ukraine.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin has not, however, agreed to any truce, instead setting conditions that were beyond what was called for in the US agreement with Ukraine.
The ceasefire proposal by Trump's team comes as Russia has momentum in many areas of the front in Ukraine.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in a call on Saturday, "discussed next steps", State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said.
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has stressed his desire to end the three-year-old conflict, and has made a spectacular rapprochement with Putin.
The statement gave no details on when the next round of US-Russia talks hosted by Saudi Arabia would begin.
But Rubio and Lavrov also "agreed to continue working towards restoring communication between the United States and Russia," Bruce added.
'Moment of truth'
The call came after a virtual summit hosted by London earlier on Saturday.
At those talks, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told some 26 fellow leaders that they should focus on how to strengthen Ukraine, protect any ceasefire and keep up the pressure on Moscow.
Starmer said Putin would eventually have to "come to the table".
"Putin is trying to delay -- saying there must be a painstaking study before a ceasefire can take place," he added.
Military leaders from about 30 countries met in Paris on March 11 to discuss plans for a peacekeeping force in Ukraine, and will meet again Thursday in Britain.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday called for unified action to ensure Russia accepts the proposed ceasefire.
"This is a moment of truth because if Russia does not sincerely commit to peace, President Trump will toughen sanctions and retaliation, and so that will completely change the dynamic," Macron told French regional papers in an interview posted late Saturday.
"Russia must respond clearly and the pressure must be clear, in conjunction with the United States, to obtain this ceasefire," he said in a statement to AFP.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that Russia had to show "it is willing to support a ceasefire leading to a just and lasting peace."
But Zelensky warned that Russia wanted to achieve a "stronger position" militarily ahead of any ceasefire, more than three years since it invaded Ukraine.
"They want to improve their situation on the battlefield," Zelensky told journalists in Kyiv.
Troops
Starmer and Macron have said they are willing to put British and French troops on the ground in Ukraine, but it is not clear if other countries are keen on doing the same.
Russia has rejected the idea of foreign soldiers acting as peacekeepers in Ukraine.
But Macron said Saturday: "If Ukraine asks allied forces to be on its territory, it is not up to Russia to accept or not."
Starmer has said he welcomes any offer of support for the coalition, raising the prospect that some countries could contribute logistics or surveillance.
Trump on Saturday appointed Keith Kellogg as special envoy to Ukraine.
A former national security advisor during Trump's first term, Kellogg had previously been described as a special envoy for both Ukraine and Russia.
But he was excluded from recent talks in Saudi Arabia on ending the war, with NBC News in the United States citing a senior Russian official who said that Putin considered him too pro-Ukraine.
Fighting continues, and Moscow has regained swathes of land this week in the Kursk border region.
In Russia, three civilians were injured on Saturday night when Ukrainian drones struck in the town of Gubkin and the village of Dolgoe in the Belgorod region, officials said on Telegram.



Doctor Deported to Lebanon Had Photos ‘Sympathetic’ to Hezbollah on Phone, US Says

A general view of The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, US, July 27, 2021. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi/File Photo
A general view of The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, US, July 27, 2021. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi/File Photo
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Doctor Deported to Lebanon Had Photos ‘Sympathetic’ to Hezbollah on Phone, US Says

A general view of The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, US, July 27, 2021. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi/File Photo
A general view of The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, US, July 27, 2021. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi/File Photo

US authorities on Monday said they deported a Rhode Island doctor to Lebanon last week after discovering "sympathetic photos and videos" of the former longtime leader of Hezbollah and its fighters in her cell phone's deleted items folder.

Alawieh had also told agents that while in Lebanon she attended the funeral last month of Hezbollah's slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, whom she supported from a "religious perspective" as a Shiite.

The US Department of Justice provided those details as it sought to assure a federal judge in Boston that US Customs and Border Protection did not willfully disobey an order he issued on Friday that should have halted Dr. Rasha Alawieh's immediate removal.

The 34-year-old Lebanese citizen, who held an H-1B visa, was detained on Thursday at Logan International Airport in Boston after returning from a trip to Lebanon to see family. Her cousin then filed a lawsuit seeking to halt her deportation.

In its first public explanation for her removal, the Justice Department said Alawieh, a kidney specialist and assistant professor at Brown University, was denied re-entry to the United States based on what CBP found on her phone and statements she made during an airport interview.

"It's a purely religious thing," she said about the funeral, according to a transcript of that interview reviewed by Reuters. "He's a very big figure in our community. For me it's not political."

Western governments including the United States designate Hezbollah a terrorist group. The Lebanese armed group is part of the "Axis of Resistance", an alliance of Iran-backed groups across the Middle East that also includes the Palestinian movement Hamas, which sparked the Gaza war by attacking Israel almost a year ago on Oct. 7.

Based on those statements and the discovery of photos on her phone of Nasrallah and Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, the Justice Department said CBP concluded "her true intentions in the United States could not be determined."

Alawieh and a lawyer for her cousin did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In Monday's filing, the Justice Department also defended CBP officials against claims by the cousin's legal team that Alawieh was flown out of the country on Friday evening in violation of an order issued by US District Judge Leo Sorokin that day.

The judge had issued an order barring Alawieh's removal from Massachusetts without 48 hours' notice. Yet she was put onto a flight to France that night and is now back in Lebanon.

The judge on Sunday had directed the government to address "serious allegations" that his order was willfully violated ahead of a hearing that had been scheduled for Monday.

That hearing was canceled on Monday at the request of the cousin's lone remaining attorney, after lawyers at the law firm Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer representing her pro bono withdrew, citing "further diligence" about the quickly-moving case.

A lawyer with that firm said she had gone to the airport on Friday and shown a CBP officer a copy of Sorokin's order on her laptop before Alawieh's Air France flight departed, and another CBP official in a declaration on Monday said he was made aware that occurred before taking Alawieh to the boarding area.

But the Justice Department said the notification needed to be received through standard channels and be received by the agency's legal counsel for their review and guidance, which did not happen.

"CBP takes court orders seriously and strives to always abide by a court order," Justice Department attorneys wrote.

The Justice Department's filing was later sealed by Sorokin at the request of a lawyer for the cousin. Reuters reviewed it from a public terminal in the courthouse before access was further restricted.