Saudi Arabia Praises Alaska Summit, Backs Diplomatic Means to Resolve Russia-Ukraine Crisis
In the light of this, the Saudi Foreign Ministry's statement said that the Kingdom welcomed the Alaska Summit, which took place between the US President, Donald Trump, and the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, on Friday.
Moreover, Saudi Arabia reiterated its continued support for diplomatic dialogue to resolve international disputes and conflicts.
On Friday, Trump and Putin met in Anchorage, Alaska, to discuss ways to end the ongoing war in Ukraine. However, the high-stakes summit did not result in a breakthrough. 'There's no deal until there's a deal,' Trump said following the meeting.
The US President described the talks as 'productive.' In a joint press conference, Trump said: 'Many points were agreed to. There are just a very few that are left. Some are not that significant. One is probably the most significant, but we have a very good chance of getting there.'
Meanwhile, Putin said that the talks were a 'starting point' for resolving the conflict in Ukraine and improving ties with the US. He also extended an invitation to Trump for another meeting in Moscow.
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Arab News
7 minutes ago
- Arab News
Hijacked satellites and orbiting space weapons: In the 21st century, space is the new battlefield
WASHINGTON: As Russia held its Victory Day parade this year, hackers backing the Kremlin hijacked an orbiting satellite that provides television service to Ukraine. Instead of normal programing, Ukrainian viewers saw parade footage beamed in from Moscow: waves of tanks, soldiers and weaponry. The message was meant to intimidate, and it was also an illustration that 21st century war is waged not just on land, sea and air but also in cyberspace and the reaches of outer space. Disabling a satellite could deal a devastating blow without a single bullet, and it can be done by targeting the satellite's security software or disrupting its ability to send or receive signals from Earth. 'If you can impede a satellite's ability to communicate, you can cause a significant disruption,' said Tom Pace, CEO of NetRise, a cybersecurity firm focused on protecting supply chains. He served in the Marines before working on cyber issues at the Department of Energy. 'Think about GPS,' he said. 'Imagine if a population lost that, and the confusion it would cause.' Satellites are the short-term challenge More than 12,000 operating satellites now orbit the planet, playing a critical role not just in broadcast communications but also in military operations, navigation systems like GPS, intelligence gathering and economic supply chains. They are also key to early launch-detection efforts, which can warn of approaching missiles. That makes them a significant national security vulnerability, and a prime target for anyone looking to undermine an adversary's economy or military readiness — or to deliver a psychological blow like the hackers supporting Russia did when they hijacked television signals to Ukraine. Hackers typically look for the weakest link in the software or hardware that supports a satellite or controls its communications with Earth. The actual orbiting device may be secure, but if it's running on outdated software, it can be easily exploited. As Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2022, someone targeted Viasat, the US-based satellite company used by Ukraine's government and military. The hack, which Kyiv blamed on Moscow, used malware to infect tens of thousands of modems, creating an outage affecting wide swaths of Europe. National security officials say Russia is developing a nuclear, space-based weapon designed to take out virtually every satellite in low-Earth orbit at once. The weapon would combine a physical attack that would ripple outward, destroying more satellites, while the nuclear component is used to fry their electronics. US officials declassified information about the weapon after Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, issued a public warning about the technology. Turner has pushed for the Department of Defense to provide a classified briefing to lawmakers on the weapon, which, if deployed, would violate an international treaty prohibiting weapons of mass destruction in space. Turner said such a weapon could render low-Earth orbit unusable for satellites for as long as a year. If it were used, the effects would be devastating: potentially leaving the US and its allies vulnerable to economic upheaval and even a nuclear attack. Russia and China also would lose satellites, though they are believed to be less reliant on the same kinds of satellites as the US Turner compared the weapon, which is not yet ready for deployment, to Sputnik, the Russian satellite that launched the space age in 1957. 'If this anti-satellite nuclear weapon would be put in space, it would be the end of the space age,' Turner said. 'It should never be permitted to go into outer space. This is the Cuban Missile Crisis in space.' Mining the moon and beyond Valuable minerals and other materials found on the moon and in asteroids could lead to future conflicts as nations look to exploit new technologies and energy sources. Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy announced plans this month to send a small nuclear reactor to the moon, saying it's important that the US do so before China or Russia. 'We're in a race to the moon, in a race with China to the moon,' Duffy said. 'To have a base on the moon, we need energy and some of the key locations on the moon. ... We want to get there first and claim that for America.' The moon is rich in a material known as helium 3, which scientists believe could be used in nuclear fusion to generate huge amounts of energy. While that technology is still decades away, control over the moon in the intervening years could determine which countries emerge as superpowers, according to Joseph Rooke, a London-based cybersecurity expert who has worked in the UK defense industry and is now director of risk insights at the firm Recorded Future. 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The US military operates an unmanned space shuttle used to conduct classified military missions and research. The craft, known as the X-37B, recently returned to Earth after more than a year in orbit. The Space Force called access to space a vital national security interest. 'Space is a warfighting domain, and it is the Space Force's job to contest and control its environment to achieve national security objectives,' it said in the statement. American dominance in space has been largely unquestioned for decades following the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union. But the new threats and competition posed by Russia and China show the need for an aggressive response, US officials say. The hope, Turner said, is that the US can take steps to ensure Russia and China can't get the upper hand, and the frightening potential of space weapons is not realized. 'You have to pay attention to these things so they don't happen,' Turner said.
Al Arabiya
37 minutes ago
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Three killed, over a dozen injured in overnight Russian strike on Ukraine's Kharkiv
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Arab News
2 hours ago
- Arab News
Russia agrees on security guarantees to Kyiv but Moscow also needs them, Russian diplomat says
NEW YORK: Russia agrees that any future peace agreement on Ukraine must provide security guarantees to Kyiv but Moscow also needs credible security assurances, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's envoy to international organizations in Vienna, said early on Monday. 'Many leaders of #EU states emphasize that a future peace agreement should provide reliable security assurances or guarantees for Ukraine,' Ulyanov said on X. 'Russia agrees with that. But it has equal right to expect that Moscow will also get efficient security guarantees,' he added. Ulyanov's statement confirmed Trump envoy Steve Witkoff's earlier statement that Putin agreed at his summit with President Donald Trump that the United States and its European allies could offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling NATO's collective defense mandate as part of an eventual deal to end the war. Witkoff, who took part in the talks Friday at a military base in Alaska, said it 'was the first time we had ever heard the Russians agree to that' and called it 'game-changing.' 'We were able to win the following concession: that the United States could offer Article 5-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO,' Witkoff told CNN's 'State of the Union.' Witkoff offered few details on how such an arrangement would work. But it appeared to be a major shift for Putin and could serve as a workaround to his deep-seated objection to Ukraine's potential NATO membership, a step that Kyiv has long sought. It was expected to be a key topic Monday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and major European leaders meet with Trump at the White House to discuss ending the 3 1/2-year conflict. 'BIG PROGRESS ON RUSSIA,' Trump said Sunday on social media. 'STAY TUNED!' On Sunday night, however, Trump seemed to put the onus on Zelensky to agree to concessions. 'President Zelensky of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,' he wrote. 'Remember how it started. No getting back Obama given Crimea (12 years ago, without a shot being fired!), and NO GOING INTO NATO BY UKRAINE. Some things never change!!!' Hammering out a plan for security guarantees Article 5, the heart of the 32-member transatlantic military alliance, says an armed attack against a member nation is considered an attack against them all. What needed to be hammered out at this week's talks were the contours of any security guarantees, said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also participated in the summit. Ukraine and European allies have pushed the US to provide that backstop in any peace agreement to deter future attacks by Moscow. 'How that's constructed, what we call it, how it's built, what guarantees are built into it that are enforceable, that's what we'll be talking about over the next few days with our partners,' Rubio said on NBC's 'Meet the Press.' It was unclear, however, whether Trump had fully committed to such a guarantee. Rubio said it would be 'a huge concession.' The comments shed new light on what was discussed in Alaska. Before Sunday, US officials had offered few details even as both Trump and Putin said their meeting was a success. Witkoff also said Russia had agreed to enact a law that it would not 'go after any other European countries and violate their sovereignty.' 'The Russians agreed on enshrining legislatively language that would prevent them from — or that they would attest to not attempting to take any more land from Ukraine after a peace deal, where they would attest to not violating any European borders,' he said on 'Fox News Sunday.' Europe welcomes US openness to security guarantees European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, speaking in Brussels alongside Zelensky, applauded the news from the White House as a European coalition looks to set up a force to police any future peace in Ukraine. 'We welcome President Trump's willingness to contribute to Article 5-like security guarantees for Ukraine and the 'coalition of the willing' — including the European Union — is ready to do its share,' she said. Zelensky thanked the US for signaling that it was willing to support such guarantees but said much remained unclear. 'There are no details how it will work, and what America's role will be, Europe's role will be and what the EU can do — and this is our main task: We need security to work in practice like Article 5 of NATO,' he said. French President Emmanuel Macron said the substance of security guarantees to secure any peace arrangement will be more important than whether they are given an Article 5-type label. At the White House meeting, Macron said European leaders will ask the US to back their plans to beef up Ukraine's armed forces with more training and equipment and deploy an allied force away from the front lines. 'We'll show this to our American colleagues, and we'll tell them, 'Right, we're ready to do this and that, what are you prepared to do?'' Macron said. 'That's the security guarantee.' Defending Trump's shift from ceasefire to peace deal Witkoff and Rubio defended Trump's decision to abandon a push for a ceasefire, arguing that the Republican president had pivoted toward a full peace agreement because so much progress had been made at the summit. 'We covered almost all the other issues necessary for a peace deal,' Witkoff said, without elaborating. 'We began to see some moderation in the way they're thinking about getting to a final peace deal.' Rubio, appearing on several TV news shows Sunday, said it would have been impossible to reach any truce Friday because Ukraine was not there. 'Now, ultimately, if there isn't a peace agreement, if there isn't an end of this war, the president's been clear, there are going to be consequences,' Rubio said on ABC's 'This Week.' 'But we're trying to avoid that.' Rubio, who is also Trump's national security adviser, also voiced caution on the progress made. 'We're still a long ways off,' he said. 'We're not at the precipice of a peace agreement. We're not at the edge of one. But I do think progress was made toward one.' Land swaps are on the table Among the issues expected to dominate Monday's meeting: What concessions Zelensky might accept on territory. In talks with European allies after the summit, Trump said Putin reiterated that he wants the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up the Donbas, European officials said. It was unclear among those briefed whether Trump sees that as acceptable. Witkoff said the Russians have made clear they want territory as determined by legal boundaries instead of the front lines where territory has been seized. 'There is an important discussion to be had with regard to Donetsk and what would happen there. And that discussion is going to specifically be detailed on Monday,' he said. Zelensky has rejected Putin's demands that Ukraine give up the Donbas region, which Russia has failed to take completely, as a condition for peace. In Brussels, the Ukrainian leader said any talks involving land must be based on current front lines, suggesting he will not abandon land that Russia has not taken. 'The contact line is the best line for talking, and the Europeans support this,' he said. 'The constitution of Ukraine makes it impossible, impossible to give up territory or trade land.'
