Zelenskyy rejects Trump's proposal that Ukraine could swap territories with Russia
'The answer to Ukraine's territorial question is already in the constitution of Ukraine,' Zelenskyy said in a message on Telegram early Saturday. 'No one will and no one can deviate from it. Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier.'
His comments came after Trump announced on social media that a long-awaited meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin had been scheduled for next week in Alaska.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
‘Texas law does not apply in Illinois': Gov. JB Pritzker draws line in sand as FBI ‘hunts down' runway Democrats
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Sunday refuted claims that President Donald Trump could force Texas Democrats to return to their state and cooperate with a Republican redistricting effort, insisting FBI agents had no jurisdiction to enforce Texas law in his state. Three members of the Texas state legislature left the state to dodge warrants for their arrest, a ploy by the state's Republican governor to force their attendance on a vote to redraw congressional district lines. Republicans are seeking to redraw lines and gerrymander up to five congressional seats for their party in Congress. The largely unprecedented mid-decade effort threatens to kick off a national redistricting war between Republicans and Democrats with real, tangible consequences for party representation and the kinds of politicians sent to Washington. By leaving the state and refusing to appear at the legislature, the lawmakers forced a halt to the special legislative session called by Abbott to handle the redistricting process. The governor and his allies have threatened to continue calling those sessions until quorum is reached and the redistricting effort concludes. 'We're providing them a safe haven, a place for them to visit and stay, breaking quorum, because they're heroes that are standing up not just for their own constituents and for the people of Texas and their rights but also for the rights of people all across the country,' Pritzker told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday. In Illinois, Pritzker said his administration is refusing to cooperate with Texas authorities and says that he won't allow FBI officials to participate in illegal actions. 'Texas law does not apply in the state of Illinois, and there's no federal law that would allow the FBI to arrest anybody that's here visiting our state,' said the governor. He went on to attack both Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Trump, whom Pritzker said Abbott was trying to impress with an 'illegal' effort to boost GOP numbers in the House of Representatives — where Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' passed in July by only a one-vote margin. 'They know that they're going to lose in 2026 the Congress, and so they're trying to steal seats,' Pritzker claimed. '[T]he map that they put together, it violates the Voting Rights Act, and it violates the Constitution.' '[Trump] knows he's going to lose the Congress in 2026,' the governor continued. 'That's why he's going to his allies and hoping that they can save him. And we've all got to stand up against this. This is — it's cheating. Donald Trump is a cheater. He cheats on his wives. He cheats at golf. And now he's trying to cheat the American people out of their votes.' While Pritzker would claim that Abbott and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who is running for re-election in a tight primary against a MAGA-backed opponent, were 'grandstanding' he would not rule out harboring his own similar national ambitions in the same interview. Pressed by Kristen Welker, Pritzker wouldn't say one way or the other whether he planned to run for president in 2028. The governor, a billionaire, is widely viewed as one of the Democratic Party's best-positioned candidates to run for the White House given his Midwestern ties, ability to self-finance and growing national profile. Cornyn told a local radio station in Texas this past week that agents in two Texas FBI offices were assigned to the effort, without giving specifics of their given roles or what orders they were under. Pritzker did tell Welker that he was focused on his 2026 re-election campaign, but added: 'I can't rule anything out.' The governor is one of several Democratic state leaders who've publicly suggested that they would consider their own redistricting efforts — explicitly to aid Democrats — were Republicans to go forward with their plan in Texas to do the opposite. Kathy Hochul, in New York, called for the dissolution of her state's Independent Redistricting Commission (NYIRC) while telling reporters that it would be illegal for Trump to weaponize the FBI against Texas lawmakers. Hochul also fired back at Cornyn, telling reporters that the FBI did not have the legal authority to 'hunt down' the three members of Texas's state legislature who absconded to break quorum. 'First of all, I have a lot of respect for the FBI, but I guarantee there are far more important pursuits that they should be engaging in, like human trafficking, breaking up drug cartels, stopping terrorist attacks here in New York City,' she told MSNBC. 'So I think this is an abuse of the power of the FBI to direct them to go after duly elected officials in the United States of America,' the governor said. 'If we've fallen that far, that makes our fight even more important, that all people stand up and say, 'we're not going to let you take away our democracy, and you're not going to hunt down our elected officials.''
Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
US-Russian ballerina reflects on release from Russian penal colony after year-long ordeal
An American ballerina imprisoned in Russia for more than one year has opened up about her agonizing ordeal and how President Trump gave her a "warm" welcome upon her return home. "I'm really happy to be here, and I'm really happy to be back in America," Ksenia Karelina, a dual Russian and U.S. citizen, shared on Fox News' "My View with Lara Trump." Karelina was detained in Jan. 2024 when she had traveled to Russia, her home country, to visit her family. The ballerina, who worked as an esthetician at a Los Angeles spa, had been accused of treason over a 2022 donation totaling $51.80 that she made to a U.S. charity supporting victims of the war in Ukraine. She was sentenced to 12 years in a Russian labor camp. "Right when I landed in my homeland, that's when everything started. I was going through border control for the paperwork check. They asked if I had another passport. I said that I do, and they asked for the passport, and they saw the other passport is an American passport. They took both documents, and they say they're going to talk with me separate, and it was 11 hours of the first examination overnight," Karelina said. Russia invaded Ukraine in Feb. 2022, after having previously taken Crimea in 2014. Russia is estimated to have suffered nearly one million casualties with 250,000 killed, and Ukraine has seen as many as 400,000 casualties total with 60,000-100,000 believed to be killed, according to a Feb. 2025 CSIS report. Karelina shared that Russian authorities told her she was facing a lifetime sentence over the so-called "treason." The dual national said that, at first, the whole experience was surreal to her. "You don't really realize it could be real," Karelina said. "You can imagine about prison just watching the movies or something, it's that, but more." The ballerina said her parents were patriotic citizens of Russia, as she was as well, and it was devastating to her family that the country that they loved captured their own daughter. She told Lara Trump that her family had to focus on supporting each other in order to survive the ordeal. Karelina said she drew inspiration from a book about a saint who survived in the desert in order to endure the endless days trapped inside the walls of her prison cell. "You just need to survive somehow, and you just drag day to day… I had this phrase in my head… 'Just one more step, just do one more step, just one more step,' and that's how you drag through this, at first especially," she said. Karelina said she and her boyfriend, Chris Van Heerden, wrote letters back and forth throughout her ordeal in the penal colony. She said he was her "hero" who never stopped fighting for her. The ballerina said that Van Heerden never expressed any doubt that she would be freed. On April 10, 2025, her boyfriend was proved correct when Karelina was released in a prisoner swap. After her release, Karelina met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, which she likened to meeting an old friend. "Never in my life I would imagine being in the Oval Office shaking President Trump's hand. It felt so warm, it felt almost like stopping by at someone you knew for a while. He was very warm, he was very simple, very welcoming. He was funny. He joked right away… it felt overwhelming, and now I can tell more than ever if not for President Trump, I'd still be in a Russian prison, but he really does care about regular citizens," Karelina said. The ballerina said she is now working to help free Olga Jezler, a 35-year-old United States permanent resident, who has been imprisoned in Russia for the last three years. She also expressed hope for an end to the war in Ukraine. "People shouldn't die with no reason. I really hope everything's going to be peaceful soon."
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump demands homeless ‘immediately' move out of Washington DC to make nation's capital ‘more beautiful'
President Donald Trump has demanded that the homeless 'immediately' move out of Washington, D.C. to make the nation's capital 'more beautiful.' Trump reiterated his Saturday announcement that he's set to hold a press conference at the White House on Monday, adding on Truth Social on Sunday that 'I'm going to make our Capital safer and more beautiful than it ever was before.' 'The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,' he continued. 'We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don't have to move out. We're going to put you in jail where you belong.' The president went on to say that 'It's all going to happen very fast, just like the Border. We went from millions pouring in, to ZERO in the last few months. This will be easier — Be prepared! There will be no 'MR. NICE GUY.' We want our Capital BACK.' Trump's promise to jail criminals in Washington comes as the city's mayor, Muriel Bowser, has noted that there's no recent increase in crime. Trump didn't outline what legal authority he would use to evict people from the capital — the president only controls federal lands and buildings in the District of Columbia. Trump also took to Truth Social on Saturday to say that he was hosting a press conference that would put a stop to violent crime in Washington. The president's Sunday post included images of tents and garbage on the streets of the capital. The Community Partnership is an organization working to reduce homelessness in Washington, a city of 700,000 people. According to the group, on any given night, there are roughly 3,782 people experiencing homelessness. However, most of them are in emergency shelters or transitional housing, while about 800 are unsheltered or 'on the street,' according to the group. On Friday, a White House official said that extra federal law enforcement officers were being deployed in Washington after a group of teenagers reportedly attacked a young Trump administration staffer during an attempted carjacking, angering Trump. Appearing on MSNBC on Sunday, Bowser said Washington was "not experiencing a crime spike." "It is true that we had a terrible spike in crime in 2023, but this is not 2023," she said. "We have spent over the last two years driving down violent crime in this city, driving it down to a 30-year low." The capital's police department reported that violent crime in the first seven months of this year was down by 26 percent compared with 2024. Overall, crime was down roughly seven percent. Bowser noted that the president is 'very aware' of Washington's work alongside federal law enforcement after she met with him at the White House some weeks ago. The mayor added on Sunday that Trump can call in the National Guard if he so chooses. The administration recently did so over the objection of local officials in response to immigration protests in Los Angeles. Congress controls Washington's budget following its establishment in 1790, using land from Maryland and Virginia. However, D.C. residents choose their own mayor and city council. If Trump wanted to take control of D.C., Congress would likely have to pass legislation revoking the law that put in place the local elected leaders, which the president then would have to sign for it to take effect. Solve the daily Crossword
