US targets more ICC judges including over Israel
'The Court is a national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare against the United States and our close ally Israel,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement, using a term popular with President Donald Trump's supporters.
Rubio said that the four people targeted from the tribunal based in The Hague had sought to investigate or prosecute nationals from the United States or Israel 'without the consent of either nation.'
The four include Judge Nicolas Guillou of France, who is presiding over a case in which an arrest warrant was issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel urges ICC to drop arrest warrants against PM
The case was brought forward by the State of Palestine, which is not recognized by Washington but, unlike Israel or the United States, has acceded to the statute that set up the tribunal in The Hague.
Guillou, a veteran jurist, had worked for several years in the United States assisting the Justice Department with judicial cooperation during Barack Obama's presidency.
Also targeted in the latest US sanctions was a Canadian judge, Kimberly Prost, who was involved in a case that authorized an investigation into alleged crimes committed during the war in Afghanistan, including by US forces.
Under the sanctions, the United States will bar entry of the ICC judges to the United States and block any property they have in the world's largest economy – measures more often taken against US adversaries than individuals from close allies.
Rubio also slapped sanctions on two deputy prosecutors – Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji and Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal.
The State Department said the two were punished by the United States for supporting 'illegitimate ICC actions against Israel,' including by supporting the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.
The Trump administration has roundly rejected the authority of the court, which is backed by almost all European democracies and was set up as a court of last resort when national systems do not allow for justice.
Trump on Friday welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin to Alaska even though Putin faces an ICC arrest warrant, a factor that has stopped him from traveling more widely since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
Rubio slapped sanctions on four other ICC judges in June.
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Express Tribune
5 hours ago
- Express Tribune
Drop scene at Alaska
Alaska has certainly been a pinnacle of political drama. American President Donald Trump announced a meet-up with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, one week before, on Truth Social. Alaska was special because it is cold and far-off and had been a possession of the Russian Empire from 1732 to 1867, and also because the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute, and the ICC, which has issued Putin's arrest warrants. The hearts of the world audience throbbed with the idea of world's two most powerful men meeting in a far-off, snow-clad fairyland, where Zeus Trump was surely going to end the battle of Titanomachy in Tartarus Ukraine with the help of Prometheus Zelensky, subduing Titan Putin with his thunderbolt sanctions to a complete defeat or at least a ceasefire drop-scene. But reality is different from wishfulness. And the reality is that Putin is wining at the warfront. Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhian have been annexed as of 2022; and Crimea as of 2014. Kherson is over two-thirds occupied, and Russian forces are gaining more areas mile-by-mile in their continuous pursuit. Moreover, Putin's narrative of a cultural and historic unification in the people of Ukraine and Russia resounds stronger with the people of the conflict zone than Zelensky's claim that entering NATO and EU is the sovereign right and need of Ukraine. Theoretically, wars end only when both sides perceive that peace is more beneficial for them than continuation of war. And war aims of both sides keep changing based on battlefield outcomes. The domestic political factors also matter; and on the Ukrainian side they are reflected by a war-torn battle zone, with millions of refugees and internally displaced, war deaths in hundreds of thousands, destruction of infrastructure and livelihoods and constant fear of attacks — all things pointing to the people's likely frustration and anger. The Russians on the other side have not lost any area, and their war gains have bolstered their national image and pride as a daunting military power that can stand against NATO and the US. So, while Putin's stature has risen from a strongman to a successful strategist, Zelensky's has dwarfed to that of an opportunist, seeking guarantees from the US and EU, because after billions of dollars of aid and military equipment already given, he has proven to be strategically unviable. Comparing today's Ukraine War with the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan, it is clear that they were won by indigenous freedom-fighting forces committed to the cause of their nation and land; whereas here the people's commitment seems missing, simply because they feel that they have been drawn into an unnecessary war (resulting in minimal trust in Zelensky as their leader) and that Russia is not an enemy. So, as the war outcomes continually favour Russia, it does not perceive any benefit in ending the war without having the deal it wants. And as the Alaska Summit approached, Trump must have known that Putin was not in the mood to surrender. Rather, he was likely to ask for a deal that ensures Ukraine's disconnection from NATO/EU membership; Russia's keeping of territories it has annexed; and exclusion of any Western guarantees that promise the presence of any Western militaries in Ukraine. Or, going a step further, Putin could also ask for Zelensky's removal and the reinstatement of a pro-Russia regime as was before 2014. Trump also knew that he was to defend a weak Zelensky, one who has already hinted that a settlement involving territorial concessions might be conceivable if backed by Western guarantees. Clearly, Zelensky is not depending upon the resolve of his people or of his fighters, but upon maneuvering the EU and US so as to extract maximum possible benefits and guarantees – one of which would be ensuring his staying in power. But to Zelensky's detriment, neither the EU nor the US is in a position to do him much good. Three days after Alaska, Zelensky was in the White House along with Ursula von der Leyen, Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz, Keir Starmer. The room was decorated with a large map of Ukraine, with all Russian occupied territories painted in red — a clear message of what Zelensky will have to give away. All the guests were repeating one rhetoric — that a ceasefire is required before talks with Putin, and that security guarantees are a must for Ukraine. To that, Trump simply uttered that there would be no ceasefire and that the EU would have to fulfil the security guarantees. But the EU knows well that it cannot go on with the war or any guarantees without US backing. How can they guarantee anything in a war they have utterly lost even with US aid and leadership. Neither the EU nor any of its members has an appetite to fight a war on their own. The truth was that the US had dragged the EU into this war in the first place, as it was their ambition to extend NATO right up to Russian borders, and for that Victoria Nuland was tasked to select a US puppet like Zelensky, who would ask for NATO/EU membership the day he comes to power. So, losing the Ukraine battlefront is a combined defeat for the US, the EU — and rather of the whole West. It is a stamp on the decline of Western hegemony and relevance in global matters. The fact that Europe's strongest people — Ursula von der Leyen, Macron, Merz and Starmer — rushed to the White House and returned empty handed tells the whole story. For now, Putin has said that he is willing to take Luhansk and Donetsk and freeze fighting in the rest of the territories for a peace deal, but it is probable that once that is achieved, he will ask for more and more — until Zelensky is no more on the scene! Because the eventual goal for Russia will be to have a complete pro-Russian regime in Ukraine, one with no will to tilt towards the West. The bigger global shift to be feared here is a wider shift in Europe's security architecture, which was previously totally aligned and subservient to the US against a perceived enemy — Russia. Now that the US has backfooted from its commitment to Europe, the latter may reassess Russia as a security provider rather than an enemy — for security perhaps against the US!
Express Tribune
5 hours ago
- Express Tribune
Putin demands Ukraine surrender Donbas and abandon NATO bid, sources say
Firefighters work at the site of a residential area hit by a Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the town of Dobropillia, Donetsk region, Ukraine March 8, Reuters Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters. The Russian president met Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday for the first Russia-US summit in more than four years and spent almost all of their three-hour closed meeting discussing what a compromise on Ukraine might look like, according to the sources who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. Speaking afterwards beside Trump, Putin said the meeting would hopefully open up the road to peace in Ukraine - but neither leader gave specifics about what they discussed. Read More: Russia seeks say in Ukraine peace deal In the most detailed Russian-based reporting to date on Putin's offer at the summit, Reuters was able to outline the contours of what the Kremlin would like to see in a possible peace deal to end a war that has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people. In essence, the Russian sources said, Putin has compromised on territorial demands he laid out in June 2024, which required Kyiv to cede the entirety of the four provinces Moscow claims as part of Russia: Dontesk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine - which make up the Donbas - plus Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south. Kyiv rejected those terms as tantamount to surrender. In his new proposal, the Russian president has stuck to his demand that Ukraine completely withdraw from the parts of the Donbas it still controls, according to the three sources. In return, though, Moscow would halt the current front lines in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, they added. Russia controls about 88% of the Donbas and 73% of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, according to US estimates and open-source data. Moscow is also willing to hand over the small parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk regions of Ukraine it controls as part of a possible deal, the sources said. Putin is sticking, too, to his previous demands that Ukraine give up its NATO ambitions and for a legally binding pledge from the US-led military alliance that it will not expand further eastwards, as well as for limits on the Ukrainian army and an agreement that no Western troops will be deployed on the ground in Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force, the sources said. The district her village is in - Huairou - and neighbouring Miyun district, just on the outskirts of Beijing, received a year's worth of rain in a single week. Yet the two sides remain far apart, more than three years after Putin ordered thousands of Russian troops into Ukraine in a full-scale invasion that followed the annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and prolonged fighting in the country's east between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops. Ukraine's foreign ministry had no immediate comment on the proposals. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has repeatedly dismissed the idea of withdrawing from internationally recognised Ukrainian land as part of a deal, and has said the industrial Donbas region serves as a fortress holding back Russian advances deeper into Ukraine. "If we're talking about simply withdrawing from the east, we cannot do that," he told reporters in comments released by Kyiv on Thursday. "It is a matter of our country's survival, involving the strongest defensive lines." Joining NATO, meanwhile, is a strategic objective enshrined in the country's constitution and one which Kyiv sees as its most reliable security guarantee. Zelenskiy said it was not up to Russia to decide on the alliance's membership. The White House and NATO didn't immediately respond to requests for comment on the Russian proposals. Political scientist Samuel Charap, chair in Russia and Eurasia Policy at RAND, a US-based global policy think-tank, said any requirement for Ukraine to withdraw from the Donbas remained a non-starter for Kyiv, both politically and strategically. "Openness to 'peace' on terms categorically unacceptable to the other side could be more of a performance for Trump than a sign of a true willingness to compromise," he added. "The only way to test that proposition is to begin a serious process at the working level to hash out those details." Trump: Putin wants to see it ended Russian forces currently control a fifth of Ukraine, an area about the size of the American state of Ohio, according to U.S. estimates and open-source maps. The three sources close to the Kremlin said the summit in the Alaskan city of Anchorage had ushered in the best chance for peace since the war began because there had been specific discussions about Russia's terms and Putin had shown a willingness to give ground. "Putin is ready for peace - for compromise. That is the message that was conveyed to Trump," one of the people said. The sources cautioned that it was unclear to Moscow whether Ukraine would be prepared to cede the remains of the Donbas, and that if it did not then the war would continue. Also unclear was whether or not the United States would give any recognition to Russian-held Ukrainian territory, they added. A fourth source said that though economic issues were secondary for Putin, he understood the economic vulnerability of Russia and the scale of the effort needed to go far further into Ukraine. Also Read: US Treasury official slams India for 'profiteering' off cheap Russian oil Trump has said he wants to end the "bloodbath" of the war and be remembered as a "peacemaker president". He said on Monday he had begun arranging, opens new tab a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, to be followed by a trilateral summit with the US president. "I believe Vladimir Putin wants to see it ended," Trump said beside Zelenskiy in the Oval office. "I feel confident we are going to get it solved." Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that Putin was prepared to meet Zelenskiy but that all issues had to be worked through first and there was a question about Zelenskiy's authority to sign a peace deal. Putin has repeatedly raised doubts about Zelenskiy's legitimacy as his term in office was due to expire in May 2024 but the war means no new presidential election has yet been held. Kyiv says Zelenskiy remains the legitimate president. The leaders of Britain, France and Germany have said they are sceptical that Putin wants to end the war. Security guarantees for Ukraine Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff was instrumental in paving the way for the summit, and the latest drive for peace, according to two of the Russian sources. Witkoff met Putin in the Kremlin on August 6 with Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov. At the meeting, Putin conveyed clearly to Witkoff that he was ready to compromise and set out the contours of what he could accept for peace, according to two Russian sources. If Russia and Ukraine could reach an agreement, then there are various options for a formal deal - including a possible three-way Russia-Ukraine-U.S. deal that is recognised by the UN Security Council, one of the sources said. Another option is to go back to the failed 2022 Istanbul agreements, where Russia and Ukraine discussed Ukraine's permanent neutrality in return for security guarantees from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, the sources added. "There are two choices: war or peace, and if there is no peace, then there is more war," one of the people said.
Business Recorder
6 hours ago
- Business Recorder
Netanyahu says Israel to begin Gaza ceasefire negotiations to end war, release hostages
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel will begin immediate negotiations for the release of all hostages held in Gaza and an end to the nearly two-year-old war on terms acceptable to Israel. Speaking to soldiers serving in Gaza, Netanyahu said he was meeting commanders to approve plans for capturing Gaza City and defeating Hamas. 'At the same time I have issued instructions to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all our hostages and an end to the war on terms acceptable to Israel,' he said, adding: 'We are in the decision-making phase.' Netanyahu says new Gaza offensive will start soon The Israeli military maintained its pressure on Gaza City into Thursday. On Wednesday, the military called up 60,000 reservists in a sign that the government was pressing ahead with the plan, despite international condemnation. Calling up tens of thousands of reservists is likely to take weeks, giving time for mediators to attempt to bridge gaps over a new temporary ceasefire proposal that Hamas has accepted, but the Israeli government has yet to officially respond to. The proposal calls for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of 10 living hostages being held in Gaza by Hamas militants and of 18 bodies. In turn, Israel would release about 200 long-serving Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. The Israeli government has stated that all of the remaining 50 hostages held by militants in Gaza must be released at once. Israeli officials believe that around 20 of them are still alive.
