The White House has rejected a Vladimir Putin-backed effort to hold a referendum in eastern Ukraine on the region's future, distancing itself from the idea in the aftermath of President Donald Trump's controversial summit with the Russian leader.
U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hand with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of the press conference after their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, Monday, July 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, said the two leaders had discussed the possibility of a referendum in separatist-leaning eastern Ukraine during their Helsinki summit.
But Trump's National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis said Friday that agreements between Russia and the Ukrainian government for resolving the conflict in the Donbas region do not include any such option and any effort to organize a "so-called referendum" would have "no legitimacy."
In this July 16, 20198, photo, U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin arrive for a news conference at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland. Trump has asked national security adviser John Bolton to invite Putin to Washington in the fall. That's the latest update Thursday from White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders following Trump's meeting with Putin earlier this week in Finland. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
The back-and-forth came as the White House outlined the agenda for a proposed second summit between Trump and Putin — in Washington this fall — that would focus on national security. Moscow signaled its openness to a second formal meeting between the two leaders as criticism of Trump over his first major session with his Russian counterpart kept up in the U.S.
Trump left the White House for his New Jersey golf club for the weekend. Once he got there, he returned to Twitter to complain about news coverage of Monday's meeting.
President Donald Trump boards Air Force One, Friday, July 20, 2018, in Andrews Air Force Base, Md., en route to Morristown Municipal Airport, in Morristown, N.J., and on to Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
"I got severely criticized by the Fake News Media for being too nice to President Putin," he tweeted. "In the Old Days they would call it Diplomacy. If I was loud & vicious, I would have been criticized for being too tough."
A White House official said the next Trump-Putin meeting would address national security concerns they discussed in Helsinki, including Russian meddling. The official did not specify if that meant Russia's interference in U.S. elections. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss planning, said the talks would also cover nuclear proliferation, North Korea, Iran and Syria.
One stop Putin almost surely won't make is Capitol Hill.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi urged House Speaker Paul Ryan to make clear that Putin wouldn't be invited to address Congress if he visits Washington.
President Donald Trump waves as he walks across the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, July 20, 2018, to board Marine One for a short trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., en route to Bedminster N.J., for the weekend. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
She said Trump's "frightened fawning over Putin is an embarrassment and a grave threat to our democracy."
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had a sunnier view of the likely second get-together.
He said at the United Nations he was "happy that the two leaders of two very important countries are continuing to meet. If that meeting takes place in Washington, I think it is all to the good. Those conversations are incredibly important."
It was not clear whether such a meeting would take place before or after the November congressional elections in the U.S.
A White House meeting would be a dramatic extension of legitimacy to the Russian leader, who has long been isolated by the West for activities in Ukraine, Syria and beyond and is believed to have interfered in the 2016 presidential election that sent Trump to the presidency. No Russian leader has visited the White House in nearly a decade.
U.S. officials have been mum on what, if anything, the two leaders agreed to in Helsinki during a two-hour, one-on-one meeting. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said Thursday he had yet to be briefed on the private session.
The Russian government has been somewhat more forthcoming.
"This issue (of a referendum) was discussed," Antonov said, adding that Putin made "concrete proposals" to Trump on solutions for the four-year, Russian-backed insurgency in eastern Ukraine, which has killed more than 10,000 people. He did not elaborate on what Putin's solutions would be.
The move may be seen as an effort to sidestep European peace efforts for Ukraine and increase the pressure on the Ukrainian government in its protracted conflict with pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region.
In a sign of support for the Ukraine government, the Pentagon said Friday it would provide $200 million in additional training, equipment and advisory assistance to Ukraine's military.
Trump tweeted Thursday that he looked forward a "second meeting" with Putin and defended his performance at Monday's summit, in which the two leaders conferred on a range of issues including terrorism, Israeli security, nuclear proliferation and North Korea.
"There are many answers, some easy and some hard, to these problems ... but they can ALL be solved!" Trump tweeted.
In Moscow, Antonov said it is important to "deal with the results" of the first summit before jumping too fast into a new one. But he said, "Russia was always open to such proposals."
The White House is still trying to clean up post-summit Trump statements on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump's public doubting of Russia's responsibility in a joint news conference with Putin on Monday provoked withering criticism from Republicans as well as Democrats and forced the president to make a rare public admission of error.
Then on Thursday, the White House said Trump "disagrees" with Putin's offer to allow U.S. questioning of 12 Russians who have been indicted for election interference in exchange for Russian interviews with the former U.S. ambassador to Russia and other Americans the Kremlin accuses of unspecified crimes. Trump initially had described the idea as an "incredible offer."
The White House backtrack came just before the Senate voted overwhelmingly against the idea.
A third man has been detained in a bribery case involving one of Russia's most senior defense officials, Moscow's court service said Thursday.
It said businessman Alexander Fomin is suspected of paying bribes to Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, who was detained on Wednesday, as well as Ivanov's associate, Sergei Borodin. All of the men are to remain in custody until at least June 23.
It is rare for such a high-ranking official to be accused of a crime in Russia. Ivanov, an ally of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, was jailed pending an investigation and trial on charges of bribery, court officials said in a statement. He was in charge of military construction projects and was previously accused of living a lavish lifestyle in anti-corruption investigations conducted by the team of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. It is unclear what sparked the decision to charge him with bribery.
Ivanov, 48, was sanctioned by both the United States and European Union in 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. President Putin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Wednesday that the construction projects that were overseen by Ivanov will continue.
Moscow's court service said Fomin and Borodin contributed to Ivanov receiving a “particularly large bribe" — an offense punishable by up to 15 years in prison. As part of the case against Fomin and the deputy minister, the courts service added that Fomin did not pay for goods, work and services related to repairing and reconstructing buildings.
Russian state news agency Tass reported Wednesday that a Moscow businessman whose company is involved in construction gave testimony which incriminated the deputy defense minister. Tass did not name the individual who gave the evidence, but public records and Russian newspapers say that Alexander Fomin owns half of the company, called Olimpsitistroy.
In 2021, Ivanov awarded Fomin and the co-owner of Olimpsitistroy a state award called For Merit to the Fatherland for building medical centers, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported.
According to a court statement Wednesday, investigators told the judge that Ivanov conspired with third parties to receive a bribe in the form of unspecified property services “during contracting and subcontracting work for the needs of the Ministry of Defense.”
Ivanov’s lawyer, Murad Musayev, told the state news agency Tass on Wednesday that his client is accused of “taking a bribe in the form of free construction and repair work on supposedly his personal properties,” and in turn providing “assistance to companies that were contractors for the Defense Ministry.”
Another lawyer, Denis Baluyev, was quoted by state news agency RIA Novosti as saying Wednesday that Ivanov maintains his innocence.
According to the Defense Ministry’s website, Ivanov was appointed in 2016 by a presidential decree. He oversaw property management, housing and medical support for the military, as well as construction projects.
RIA Novosti quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Shoigu and President Vladimir Putin were informed of Ivanov’s arrest, which comes as Moscow’s war in Ukraine grinds through its third year.
Independent Russian news outlets reported Wednesday that the bribery charges were intended to hide more serious charges of treason and avoid scandal, citing two unidentified sources close to the Federal Security Service, or FSB.
Peskov dismissed the suggestion and described the reports as speculation. “There are a lot of rumors. We need to rely on official information,” he told journalists.
Musayev, Ivanov’s lawyer, also denied any other charges, telling RIA Novosti Ivanov faced only bribery allegations.
Before his arrest, Ivanov was seen attending a meeting with Shoigu and other top military brass. The move against Ivanov came nearly a month after Putin called on the FSB to “keep up a systemic anti-corruption effort” and pay special attention to state defense procurement.
Russian media reported that Ivanov oversaw some of the construction in Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city that was devastated by bombardment and occupied by Russian forces early in the war.
Zvezda, the official TV channel of the Russian military, reported in summer 2022 that the ministry was building an entire residential block in Mariupol and showed Ivanov inspecting construction sites and newly erected buildings.
That same year, the team of opposition leader Navalny alleged Ivanov and his family had been enjoying luxurious trips abroad, lavish parties and owned elite real estate. The activists also alleged that Ivanov’s wife, Svetlana, divorced him in 2022 to avoid sanctions and continued living a lavish lifestyle.
Few high-level officials have been prosecuted in Russia.
In April 2023, former Deputy Culture Minister Olga Yarilova was arrested and charged with embezzling more than 200 million rubles ($2.2 million). Yarilova, who held her post from 2018 to 2022, is on trial and facing a possible seven-year jail term.
Former Economics Minister Alexei Ulyukayev received an eight-year prison sentence in 2017 for accepting a $2 million bribe from one of Putin’s top associates. The high-profile trial was widely seen as part of infighting between Kremlin clans. Ulyukayev, now 68, was granted early release from prison in May 2022.
This photo taken and released by Basmanny District Court press service on Thursday, April 25, 2024, shows businessman Alexander Fomin standing in a glass cage in the Basmanny District Court in Moscow, Russia. Moscow's court service says a third man has been detained in a major bribery case involving a Russian deputy defense minister. It says businessman Alexander Fomin is suspected of paying bribes to Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov as well as Ivanov's associate, (Basmanny District Court press service via AP)
This photo taken from video released by Basmanny District Court press service on Thursday, April 25, 2024, shows businessman Alexander Fomin standing in a glass cage in the Basmanny District Court in Moscow, Russia. Moscow's court service says a third man has been detained in a major bribery case involving a Russian deputy defense minister. It says businessman Alexander Fomin is suspected of paying bribes to Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov as well as Ivanov's associate, (Basmanny District Court press service via AP)
This photo taken and released by Basmanny District Court press service on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, shows Sergei Borodin sitting in a glass cage in the Basmanny District Court in Moscow, Russia. An acquaintance of Timur Ivanov, 48, one of Russia’s 12 deputy defense ministers, idenfitied as Sergei Borodin was also arrested and ordered into pre-trial detention on the same charges, court officials said in a separate statement. Both men are to remain in custody until at least June 23. (Basmanny District Court press service via AP)
This photo taken and released by Basmanny District Court press service on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, shows Timur Ivanov, Russian deputy Defense Minister, standing in a glass cage in the Basmanny District Court in Moscow, Russia. Russia. Ivanov, a top Russian military official, was arrested on suspicion of accepting a bribe, The Investigative Committee, Russia's top law enforcement agency, reported Ivanov's detention on Tuesday without offering any details of the accusations against him, saying only that he is suspected of taking an especially large bribe. (Basmanny District Court press service via AP)
Third man is detained in a major bribery case that involves Russia's deputy defense minister
Third man is detained in a major bribery case that involves Russia's deputy defense minister
This handout photo taken from video released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Thursday, Jan 11, 2024, shows Timur Ivanov, deputy defense minister, in Moscow. Ivanov, a top Russian military official was arrested on suspicion of accepting a bribe, authorities said Tuesday, April 23, 2024. Ivanov, one of Russia's 12 deputy defense ministers, was sanctioned by both the United States and the European Union in 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service photo via AP)
