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.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he was immediately rushing badly needed weaponry to Ukraine as he signed into law a $95 billion war aid measure that also included assistance for Israel, Taiwan and other global hot spots.
The announcement marked an end to the long, painful battle with Republicans in Congress over urgently needed assistance for Ukraine, with Biden promising that U.S. weapons shipment would begin making the way into Ukraine “in the next few hours.”
“We rose to the moment, we came together, and we got it done," Biden said a White House event to announce the bill signing. "Now we need to move fast, and we are.”
But significant damage has been done to the Biden administration’s effort to help Ukraine repel Russia’s invasion during the funding impasse that dates back to August, when the Democratic president made his first emergency spending request for Ukraine. Even with a burst of new weapons and ammunition, it's unlikely Ukraine will immediately recover after months of setbacks.
Biden immediately approved sending Ukraine $1 billion in military assistance, the first installment from about $61 billion allocated for Ukraine. The package includes air defense capabilities, artillery rounds, armored vehicles and other weapons to shore up Ukrainian forces who have seen morale sink as Russian President Vladimir Putin has racked up win after win.
Meanwhile, Ukraine for the first time has begun using long-range ballistic missiles provided secretly by the United States, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area overnight, American officials confirmed Wednesday. The U.S. is providing more of the Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, in the new military package, according to one official who was not authorized to comment and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Still, longer term, it remains uncertain if Ukraine, after months of losses and massive damage to its infrastructure, can make enough progress to sustain American political support before burning through the latest influx of money.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan cautioned that even as new U.S. aid flows into Ukraine, it's possible that Russia will continue to make tactical gains in the weeks ahead.
“The fact is that it’s going to take some time for us to dig out of the hole that was created by six months of delay,” he said.
Tucked into the measure is a provision that gives TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, nine months to sell it or face a nationwide prohibition in the United States. The administration and a bipartisan group of lawmakers have called the social media site a growing national security concern, which ByteDance denies.
The bill includes about $26 billion in aid for Israel and about $1 billion in humanitarian relief for Palestinians in Gaza as the Israel-Hamas war continues. Biden said Israel must ensure the humanitarian aid for Palestinians in bill reaches the Hamas-controlled territory “without delay.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., delayed the aid package for months as members of his party's far right wing, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, threatened to move to oust him if he allowed a vote to send more assistance to Ukraine. Those threats persist.
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has complained that European allies have not done enough for Ukraine. While the former president stopped short of endorsing the funding package, his tone has shifted in recent days, acknowledging that Ukraine's survival is important to the United States.
Many European leaders have long been nervous that a second Trump term would mean decreased U.S. support for Ukraine and NATO. The European anxiety was heightened in February when Trump in a campaign speech warned NATO allies that he “would encourage” Russia to "do whatever the hell they want” to countries that don't meet defense spending goals if he returns to the White House.
It was a key moment in the debate over Ukraine spending. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg quickly called out Trump for putting “American and European soldiers at increased risk.” But in reality, the White House maneuvering to win additional funding for Ukraine started months earlier.
Biden, the day after returning from a trip to Tel Aviv following Hamas militants' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, used a prime-time address to make his pitch for the funding.
At the time, the House was in chaos because the Republican majority had been unable to select a speaker to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who had been ousted weeks earlier at the urging of restive legislators on the right.
Far-right Republicans have adamantly opposed sending more money for Ukraine, with the war appearing to have no end in sight. Biden in August requested more than $20 billion to keep aid flowing into Ukraine, but the money was stripped out of a must-pass spending bill.
By late October, Republicans finally settled on Johnson, a low-profile Louisiana Republican whose thinking on Ukraine was opaque, to serve as the next speaker. Biden during his congratulatory call with Johnson urged him to quickly pass Ukraine aid and began a monthslong, largely behind-the-scenes effort to bring the matter to a vote.
In private conversations with Johnson, Biden and White House officials leaned into the stakes for Europe if Ukraine were to fall to Russia. On explicit orders from Biden, White House officials also avoided directly attacking Johnson over the stalled aid.
Biden praised Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., saying in the end they “stepped up and did the right thing.”
“History will remember this moment," he said.
At frustrating moments during the negotiations, Biden urged his aides to “just keep talking, keep working,” according to a senior administration official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal discussions.
So they did. In a daily meeting convened by White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, the president's top aides would brainstorm possible ways to better make the case about Ukraine’s dire situation in the absence of aid.
The White House also sought to accommodate Johnson and his various asks. For instance, administration officials at the speaker's request briefed Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Ralph Norman, R-S.C., two conservatives who were persistent antagonists of Johnson.
In public, the administration deployed a strategy of downgrading intelligence that demonstrated Russia's efforts to tighten its ties with U.S. adversaries China, North Korea and Iran to fortify Moscow's defense industrial complex and get around U.S. and European sanctions.
The $61 billion can help triage Ukrainian forces, but Kyiv will need much more for a fight that could last years, military experts say.
Realistic goals for the months ahead for Ukraine — and its allies — include avoiding the loss of major cities, slowing Russia's momentum and getting to Kyiv additional weaponry that could help them go on the offensive in 2025, said Bradley Bowman, a defense strategy and policy analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington.
“I think Ukrainian success is not guaranteed,” Bowman said, "but Russian success is if we stop supporting Ukraine."
Biden lamented that the package did not include money to bolster U.S. border security. The White House had proposed including in the package provisions it said would have helped stem the tide of migrants and asylum seekers coming to the U.S. Republicans, however, rejected the proposal at the urging of Trump, who did not want to give Biden the win on an issue that’s been an albatross for the Democratic administration.
Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor, Haleluya Hadero, Mary Clare Jalonick and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
President Joe Biden speaks before signing a $95 billion Ukraine aid package that also includes support for Israel, Taiwan, and other allies, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden speaks before signing a $95 billion Ukraine aid package that also includes support for Israel, Taiwan, and other allies, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden speaks before signing a $95 billion Ukraine aid package that also includes support for Israel, Taiwan, and other allies, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden speaks before signing a $95 billion Ukraine aid package that also includes support for Israel, Taiwan, and other allies, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden speaks before signing a $95 billion Ukraine aid package that also includes support for Israel, Taiwan, and other allies, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden speaks before signing a $95 billion Ukraine aid package that also includes support for Israel, Taiwan, and other allies, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
FILE - President Joe Biden speaks about a $95 billion aid package that would help Ukraine in their war against Russia, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Feb. 13, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
