Rolls-Royce, Blue Peter badges and a mosaic from Zelenskyy: Buckingham Palace shares reveals the gifts given to the Royal Family
According to the records, which cover official gifts to most members of the Royal Family from 2020 to 2023, the monarch was given the luxury vehicle by the King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.
The Rolls-Royce Cullinan Series II is not for personal use; instead, it's for official purposes including state occasions.
Given to the King in May 2023, it retails for $443,575 - or around £329,545.
Other gifts for the King during the month of his coronation include a feather crown, two beaded chest pieces and two carved staffs from Amazonian Indigenous leaders Uyunkar Domingo Peas Nampichkai and Atossa Soltani.
Former US president Joe Biden and then-first lady Jill Biden also gifted Charles a leather folder containing printed letters between Queen Elizabeth II and former president Dwight D Eisenhower.
In April that year, the King and Queen Camilla received two gold Blue Peter badges from Blue Peter presenters during a visit to Liverpool before the city hosted Eurovision.
And during an audience with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy in February, the King was presented with a framed mosaic, a scrolled document about St Sophia Cathedral, and a signed Ukrainian ship's flag.
Other royal gifts include Queen Elizabeth II receiving a Cedar of Lebanon tree from Pope Francis in 2022 - the year of her Platinum Jubilee.
During a visit to the Coronation Street set in Greater Manchester in 2021, she received a cobble from the original set in a presentation case, two gin glasses with Manchester skyline silhouette design and a selection of themed gifts including a book entitled 60 Years Of Coronation Street and a bottle of Coronation Street gin.
In 2020, Prince William and Catherine, then the Duchess of Cambridge, were both gifted a toiletries set from the president of Ireland, Michael D Higgins, and his wife Sabina Higgins.
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Official gifts to the Royal Family can be worn and used, but are not considered the royals' personal property. The royals also do not pay tax on them.
They can eat any food they are given, and perishable official gifts with a value under £150 can be given to charity or staff.
Gifts cannot be sold or exchanged and eventually become part of the Royal Collection, which is held in trust for successors and the nation.
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Los Angeles Times
12 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Land swaps with Russia are not only unpopular in Ukraine. They're also illegal
KYIV, Ukraine — A peace deal that requires Kyiv to accept swapping Ukrainian territory with Russia would not only be deeply unpopular. It also would be illegal under its constitution. That's why President Volodymyr Zelensky has categorically rejected any deal with Moscow that could involve ceding land after President Trump suggested such a concession would be beneficial to both sides, ahead of his meeting Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Zelensky said over the weekend that Kyiv 'will not give Russia any awards for what it has done,' and that 'Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier.' The remarks came after Trump said a peace deal would involve swapping of Ukrainian territories by both sides 'to the betterment of both.' For Zelensky, such a deal would be disaster for his presidency and spark public outcry after more than three years of bloodshed and sacrifice by Ukrainians. Moreover, he doesn't have the authority to sign off on it, because changing Ukraine's 1991 borders runs counter to the country's constitution. For now, freezing the front line appears to be an outcome the Ukrainian people are willing to accept. A look at the challenges such proposals entail: Russia occupies about a fifth of Ukraine, from the country's northeast to the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed illegally in 2014. The front line is vast and cuts across six regions — the active front stretches for at least 680 miles — but if measured from along the border with Russia, it reaches as far as 1,430 miles. Russia controls almost all of the Luhansk region and almost two-thirds of Donetsk region, which together comprise the Donbas, as the strategic industrial heartland of Ukraine is called. Russia has long coveted the area and illegally annexed it in the first year of the full-scale invasion, even though it didn't control much of it at the time. Russia also partially controls more than half of the Kherson region, which is critical to maintain logistical flows of supplies coming in from the land corridor in neighboring Crimea, and also parts of the Zaporizhzhia region, where the Kremlin seized Europe's largest nuclear power plant. Russian forces also hold pockets of territory in Kharkiv and Sumy regions in northeastern Ukraine, far less strategically valuable for Moscow. Russian troops are gaining a foothold in the Dnipropetrovsk region. These could be what Moscow is willing to exchange for land it deems more important in Donetsk, where the Russian army has concentrated most of its effort. 'There'll be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody. To the good, for the good of Ukraine. Good stuff, not bad stuff. Also, some bad stuff for both,' Trump said Monday. Ukrainian forces are still active in the Kursk region inside Russia, but they barely hold any territory there, making it not as potent a bargaining chip as Kyiv's leaders had probably hoped when they launched the daring incursion across the border last year. Swapping Ukrainian controlled territory in Russia, however minuscule, will likely be the only palatable option for Kyiv in any land swapping scenario. Surrendering territory would see those unwilling to live under Russian rule to pack up and leave. Many civilians have endured so much suffering and bloodshed since pro-Moscow forces began battling the Ukrainian military in the east in 2014 and since the full-scale invasion in 2022. From a military standpoint, abandoning the Donetsk region in particular would vastly improve Russia's ability to invade Ukraine again, according to the Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War. Bowing to such a demand would force Ukraine to abandon its 'fortress belt,' the main defensive line in Donetsk since 2014, 'with no guarantee that fighting will not resume,' the institute said in a recent report. The regional defensive line has prevented Russia's efforts to seize the region and continues to impede Russia's efforts to take the rest of the area, ISW said. Ukraine's constitution poses a major challenge to any deal involving a land swap because it requires a nationwide referendum to approve changes to the country's territorial borders, said Ihor Reiterovych, a politics professor in the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. 'Changes in territorial integrity can be done only by the decision of the people — not the president, the cabinet of ministers or the parliament can change it,' he said. 'In the constitution it is written that only by referendum can changes to Ukraine's territory be conducted.' If during negotiations Zelensky agrees to swap territory with Russia, 'in the same minute he will be a criminal because he would be abandoning the main law that governs Ukraine,' Reiterovych said. Trump said he was 'a little bothered' by Zelensky's assertion over the weekend that he needed constitutional approval to cede to Russia the territory that it captured in its unprovoked invasion. 'I mean, he's got approval to go into a war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap?' Trump added. 'Because there'll be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody.' Oksana Markarova, Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., brought a copy of her country's constitution to her interview on Sunday with CBS' 'Face the Nation,' and described how the president is 'the guarantor of the constitution' and cannot give away land under Article 133. Zelensky is still trying to regain the people's trust that was damaged when he reversed course on a law that would have diminished the independence of Ukraine's anti-corruption watchdogs. The move was a red line for those citizens who are protective of the country's institutions and are suspicious of certain members of Zelensky's inner circle. Analysts like Reiterovych dismiss a land swap as a distraction. Freezing the conflict along the current front line is the only option Ukrainians are willing to accept, he said, citing recent polls. This option would also buy time for both sides to consolidate manpower and build up their domestic weapons industries. Ukraine would require strong security guarantees from its Western partners to deter future Russian aggression, which Kyiv believes is inevitable. Still, freezing the conflict will also be difficult for Ukrainians to accept. Along with the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the partial occupation of Luhansk and Donetsk after that, it would require accepting that the Ukrainian military is not able to retake lost territories militarily. Kyiv accepted its inability to retake these territories but never formally recognized them as Russian. A similar scenario could unfold in the new regions taken by Russian forces. It also is not a viable long-term solution. 'It is the lesser evil option for everyone and it will not provoke protests or rallies on the streets,' Reiterovych said. Kullab writes for the Associated Press. AP journalist Volodymyr Yurchuk contributed to this report.
The Hill
12 minutes ago
- The Hill
Watch live: White House holds briefing amid Trump's DC police takeover
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt will speak to reporters Tuesday afternoon as National Guard troops begin their deployment in Washington to crackdown on what President Trump has called 'violent crime' in the nation's capital. Trump on Monday activated the National Guard and announced he was putting the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) under federal control. He named Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Terry Cole to lead the effort. Democrats and local leaders have denounced the move. The briefing also comes just days before the president is expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska to discuss bringing an end to the Russia-Ukraine war that began over three years ago. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has pushed back on a proposed territory swap and urged his counterparts to allow Kyiv to be part of the conversation. The event is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. EDT.
The Hill
12 minutes ago
- The Hill
Give the Nobel Peace Prize to McCain, not Trump
As President Trump heads to Alaska for his momentous meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he seems to have one thing on his mind — not peace in Ukraine, but a prize for peace. Trump has been obsessed with winning the Nobel Peace Prize for some time now. Even those not cynical about the president must concede that his foreign policy moves to end conflicts are less about ending the conflicts and more about looking like is the one ending them. We will see what Trump demands of Putin in Alaska and if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will even have a seat at the table. But we do know that Trump is very keen to end the war because he thinks that the Nobel Committee will come calling if he does. Now some might argue, what's the big deal? If Trump wants the prize and it makes him eager to force solutions to end conflicts, then maybe he does deserve it. Yeah, he might be self-serving, but ultimately, we can see an end to conflicts in places like Ukraine, Gaza, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Caucasus and South Asia. And what would be wrong with that? Well, if it's a peace made in bad faith that will ultimately break apart, then there is a lot wrong with it. Allowing Russia to keep the territory it seized in its invasion and forcing Ukraine to go along with it, doesn't promote peace. It encourages war. It lets Russia and Putin claim that they were justified to invade and take territory. It bolsters their arguments against the sanctions and embargoes that have made them the pariah of the world. And it would also tell them that they could invade other places (Baltic states, Poland, Finland, Central Asian states) take territory and just nominate Trump for a peace prize when he tells them to stop, after they have taken what they wanted. World leaders have noticed and teased Trump with nominations for the peace prize just to get him eager to settle conflicts on their terms. The Pakistanis and the Israelis have presented Trump with official nominations, even though he had nothing to do with the cessation of hostilities in South Asia and the war in Gaza. Expect to see more of this. Meanwhile, there is a McCain who has been working for the last two years to feed starving populations around the world. Cindy McCain has been the executive director of the United Nations' World Food Program and has been advocating for the end of the blockade of humanitarian aid by the Israelis on the people of Gaza. She has met with officials around the world, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio to push for the end of the blockade. A Republican (even if some people aren't happy about it), McCain has been more outspoken about the treatment of Gazans than many Democrats. What makes McCain interesting is that, like many high-level political appointees, she initially sought to play it safe and not overtly talk about the plight of the Palestinians. Like many in the U.S. and Western Europe, she probably felt she had to walk a fine line, so as to not insult the Israeli government. She was even confronted by her own staff for not having spoken out enough. McCain could have just played it safe, but she listened to her staff and her own heart and has pushed for the end to famine, not just in Gaza but in Africa and other parts of the world. Now, we all know she isn't the only one. Chef José Andrés, the founder of the World Central Kitchen, may be even more deserving of the Peace Prize. His organization, which lost seven employees in an Israeli airstrike has helped mitigate the fallout from worldwide disasters, famines and wars. The common denominator between McCain and Andrés — and what separates them from Trump — is that their actions are more likely to ensure peace. Go anywhere in the world and people just want to have security, food, water and stability. The aims of the World Food Program and the World Central Kitchen do just that. Trump is trying to force ceasefires without solving the underlying reasons for conflicts which means the conflicts will eventually go on. It must be said that the Nobel Committee can just be content with Trump's politicking because they just want world leaders to just stop fighting, even if the underlying issues are not addressed. They have awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to dubious recipients in the past. Henry Kissinger, Yassir Arafat, Yitzak Rabin and Shimon Peres all got the award, even though it's hard to attach the word peace to their names. President Obama received the award early in his first term on the mere hope that he would bring peace. He went on to set new records with drone strikes in several Muslim-majority countries. And infamously, the Nobel was never awarded to Mahatma Gandhi, who inspired quite a few Nobel Laureates in their own quests for peace. So, we can't pretend that the award isn't a political award. There is definitely a lot of bias that comes to selecting the winner, and there will always be a controversy around the award. But the Nobel Committee can look at the current conflicts and decide what will ensure proper peace in the world. If it's a choice between bullying people into accepting injustice, or feeding children and working to bring stability to the world so that peace can prosper, I think the answer is clear. Jos Joseph is a published writer and is a graduate of the Harvard Extension School and Ohio State University. He is a Marine veteran who served in Iraq. He currently lives in Anaheim, Calif.
