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      Hamas Frees 6 Hostages as Israel Delays Palestinian Prisoner Release

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      The six Israelis were the last living captives set to be released in the first phase of the cease-fire. The agreement, strained for weeks, has an uncertain future.Hamas released six Israeli hostages from Gaza on Saturday, delivering the last living captives set to be freed in the first phase of a fragile cease-fire. That truce was already jolted this week when the militant group initially returned remains purportedly of an Israeli hostage that testing revealed to be someone else.Early Sunday, Israel announced that it would continue to delay the release of 620 Palestinian prisoners whom it had pledged to free on Saturday, demanding that Hamas first release more captives from Gaza and commit to releasing them without “humiliation ceremonies.” Hamas has been releasing hostages in performative ceremonies aimed at showing that it is still in control of Gaza, which many Israeli officials have condemned.The announcement, delivered in a statement from the prime minister’s office hours after the prisoner release had already been delayed without explanation, added tension to the shaky cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that is set to expire next week.On Thursday, Hamas had returned four bodies it said were those of hostages who had died in captivity, among them Shiri Bibas, an Israeli women who had been abducted with her two young children during the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, that began the war. Forensic testing by Israel determined that the body was not Ms. Bibas, however.Late Friday, Hamas transferred another body, which Israeli officials confirmed early Saturday as Ms. Bibas. Her kidnapping and death with her children have become a symbol of Israeli grief.The delivery of the wrong remains set off an uproar in Israel. Additionally, Israeli authorities, rejecting Hamas’s assertions that Ms. Bibas’s children were killed in Israeli airstrikes, said that their captors had killed them “with their bare hands.” The episode raised doubts about the next steps of the cease-fire agreement, including whether Saturday’s exchange would proceed as planned.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Multiple Bus Explosions in Israel Put Country on Terrorism Alert

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      The attempted attacks on Thursday, which injured no one but shut down buses and trains across the country, came amid Israel’s ongoing raids in the West Bank and as its cease-fire with Hamas in Gaza nears its end.Three buses exploded in Tel Aviv area parking lots on Thursday night, raising suspicions of an attempted, coordinated terrorist attack and prompting the Israeli authorities to halt all buses and trains nationwide. There were no injuries reported.After the explosions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that he had instructed the military to carry out “a massive operation” in the West Bank targeting militant hubs and had ordered the police and intelligence forces to step up preventive measures in Israeli cities to thwart any subsequent attempted attacks.The three buses were parked at different depots in Bat Yam, a city south of Tel Aviv, Tzvika Brot, the city’s mayor, said in a statement. Unexploded bombs were also found in parking lots in the nearby city of Holon, the mayor noted.Mr. Brot said he had ordered additional security patrols throughout Bat Yam. “The city will remain on high alert throughout the weekend,” he added. “However, the city’s routine continues as usual. There is no change to school tomorrow or any other activities.”Ofir Karni, director of the Dan bus company, told Israeli news media that the last passenger on one of the buses that exploded had noticed a suspicious bag on a back seat and had alerted the driver. They drove into the depot, got off the bus and it exploded after they exited, he added.The series of explosions in central Israel came on what was already a difficult day for Israelis and for the country’s tenuous truce with Hamas.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      European Leaders Try to Recalibrate After Trump Sides With Russia on Ukraine

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      The American president’s latest remarks embracing Vladimir Putin’s narrative that Ukraine is to blame for the war have compounded the sense of alarm among traditional allies.President Emmanuel Macron of France called a second emergency meeting of European allies on Wednesday seeking to recalibrate relations with the United States as President Trump upends international politics by rapidly changing American alliances.Mr. Macron had already assembled a dozen European leaders in Paris on Monday after Mr. Trump and his new team angered and confused America’s traditional allies by suggesting that the United States would rapidly retreat from its security role in Europe and planned to proceed with peace talks with Russia — without Europe or Ukraine at the table.Mr. Trump’s remarks late on Tuesday, when he sided fully with Russia’s narrative blaming Ukraine for the war, have now fortified the impression that the United States is prepared to abandon its role as a European ally and switch sides to embrace President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.It was a complete reversal of historic alliances that left many in Europe stunned and fearful.“What’s happening is very bad. It’s a reversal of the state of the world since 1945,” Jean- Yves Le Drian, a former French foreign minister, said on French radio Wednesday morning.“It’s our security he’s putting at risk,” he said, referring to President Trump. “We must wake up.”Fear that Mr. Trump is ready to abandon Ukraine and has accepted Russian talking points has been particularly acute in Eastern and Central Europe, where memories are long and bitter of the West’s efforts to appease Hitler in Munich in 1938 and its assent to Stalin’s demands at the Yalta Conference in 1945 for a Europe cleaved in two.“Even Poland’s betrayal in Yalta lasted longer than Ukraine’s betrayal in Riyadh,” Jaroslaw Walesa, a Polish lawmaker and the son of Poland’s anti-Communist Solidarity trade union leader, Lech Walesa, said Wednesday on social media, referring to the American-Russian talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      M23 Rebels in Congo Say They Have Entered Bukavu

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      Last month, M23 rebels backed by Rwanda took the city of Goma in a bloody battle. This weekend, the group entered the gold-trading center of Bukavu in eastern Congo after government soldiers fled.Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday entered the vital trading hub of Bukavu in the east of the country, according to the fighters and videos circulated by local residents. If confirmed, Bukavu would be the latest city to fall in a sweeping offensive that has revealed the weakness of the crumbling Congolese army.The M23 rebels — who are supported and directed by Rwanda, Congo’s much smaller neighbor — appeared to meet no resistance, residents said, as they marched into Bukavu, a provincial capital that is a major center for gold trading and smuggling.“We’re there, we’re there in Bukavu,” said Willy Ngoma, a M23 spokesman reached by telephone.On Sunday, the rebels addressed a crowd of people in Bukavu’s main square after they entered the city in long, silent columns, according to three eyewitnesses and videos shared on social media and verified by the Times. The eyewitnesses requested anonymity for fear of retribution from the armed group.Days earlier, Congolese soldiers had fled the city in similar columns, according to a dozen other residents, leaving Bukavu under no clear leadership and in the hands of looters who broke into warehouses and shops. The Congolese government has not spoken publicly about the situation in the city Sunday, and the capture of Bukavu has not been independently confirmed.The apparent fall of Bukavu would stand in sharp contrast to the protracted battle for the key city of Goma last month, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed, according to the United Nations.With the capture of Bukavu, a city of more than a million people that sits on the edge of a crystalline lake, the M23 rebels would now control the two largest trading hubs in Congo’s mineral-rich east.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Team Leaves Behind an Alliance in Crisis

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      European leaders felt certain about one thing after a whirlwind tour by Trump officials — they were entering a new world where it was harder to depend on the United States.Many critical issues were left uncertain — including the fate of Ukraine — at the end of Europe’s first encounter with an angry and impatient Trump administration. But one thing was clear: An epochal breach appears to be opening in the Western alliance.After three years of war that forged a new unity within NATO, the Trump administration has made clear it is planning to focus its attention elsewhere: in Asia, Latin America, the Arctic and anywhere President Trump believes the United States can obtain critical mineral rights.European officials who emerged from a meeting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said they now expect that tens of thousands of American troops will be pulled out of Europe — the only question is how many, and how fast.And they fear that in one-on-one negotiations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Trump is on his way to agreeing to terms that could ultimately put Moscow in a position to own a fifth of Ukraine and to prepare to take the rest in a few years’ time. Mr. Putin’s ultimate goal, they believe, is to break up the NATO alliance.Those fears spilled out on the stage of the Munich Security Conference on Saturday morning, when President Volodymyr Zelensky declared that “Ukraine will never accept deals made behind our backs.” He then called optimistically for the creation of an “army of Europe,” one that includes his now battle-hardened Ukrainian forces. He was advocating, in essence, a military alternative to NATO, a force that would make its own decisions without the influence — or the military control — of the United States.Mr. Zelensky predicted that Mr. Putin would soon seek to manipulate Mr. Trump, speculating that the Russian leader would invite the new American president to the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. “Putin will try to get the U.S. president standing on Red Square on May 9 this year,” he told a jammed hall of European diplomats and defense and intelligence officials, “not as a respected leader but as a prop in his own performance.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Disrupter in Chief Can’t End a War Like This

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      Can a nation be truly free and independent if it doesn’t possess a nuclear arsenal?That question is being answered right now, on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine. If a nation’s conventional military can stop an aggressive, nuclear-armed nation in a defensive struggle, then there is hope for the viability of conventional deterrence.If, however, a conventionally armed nation is doomed to fail — because it lacks the resources (including the allies) to defend itself — then look for more countries to pursue nuclear weapons. They will choose self-defense over subservience.So far, most of the discussion of the risk of nuclear war in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been focused on a perceived immediate danger — that Russia will use nuclear weapons to achieve victory on the battlefield or to retaliate for Ukraine’s use of Western weapons on Russian soil.The hovering threat of Russia’s nuclear arsenal is one explanation for the Trump administration’s shocking weakness in its dealings with Russia. It will stand tall when confronting allies like Denmark, Canada, Mexico and Panama. It will threaten war crimes when dealing with a puny, diminished military force like Hamas.But regarding Russia? Consider the following news items from the past few days alone.Donald Trump initially refused to promise that he would even include Ukraine in his negotiations with Russia, as if Ukraine were a mere pawn on the chessboard. (He reversed himself and said later that “of course” Ukraine would have a place at the table.)He spoke to Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, an event Russians celebrated. The Russian stock market soared, and a Russian lawmaker said the call “broke the West’s blockade.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ukraine Rejects U.S. Demand for Half of Its Mineral Resources

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      President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly faulted the American offer, which is tied to continued aid, because it did not include security guarantees.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, during a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, rejected an offer by the Trump administration to relinquish half of the country’s mineral resources in exchange for U.S. support, according to five people briefed on the proposal or with direct knowledge of the talks.The unusual deal would have granted the United States a 50 percent interest in all of Ukraine’s mineral resources, including graphite, lithium and uranium, as compensation for past and future support in Kyiv’s war effort against Russian invaders, according to two European officials. A Ukrainian official and an energy expert briefed on the proposal said that the Trump administration also sought Ukrainian energy resources.Negotiations are continuing, according to another Ukrainian official, who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the talks. But the expansiveness of the proposal, and the tense negotiations around it, demonstrate the widening chasm between Kyiv and Washington over both continued U.S. support and a potential end to the war.The request for half of Ukraine’s minerals was made on Wednesday, when the U.S. Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, met with Mr. Zelensky in Kyiv, the first visit by a Trump administration official to Ukraine. The Treasury Department declined to comment about any negotiation.After seeing the proposal, the Ukrainians decided to review the details and provide a counterproposal when Mr. Zelensky visited the Munich Security Conference on Friday and met with Vice President JD Vance, according to the official.It is not clear if a counterproposal was presented.Mr. Zelensky, speaking to reporters in Munich on Saturday, acknowledged he had rejected a proposal from the Trump administration. He did not specify what the terms of the deal were, other than to say that it had not included security guarantees from Washington.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Maps: Ukraine’s Borders Pre-2014 Invasion to Now

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      The question of where Ukraine’s borders with Russia should be drawn in any peace negotiations came into sharp focus this week after Pete Hegseth, the U.S. defense secretary, said that it was “unrealistic” for Ukraine to try to regain all of the territory Russia has seized since 2014.Ukraine’s government has long said that its goal is to restore its borders to where they were before Russia launched its first invasion more than a decade ago.Here is a look at Ukraine’s borders and Russia’s advances into its territory:Independence bordersUkraine’s borders were set when it gained independence in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed. It borders Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west; and Romania and Moldova to the south. It also borders its giant neighbor Russia to the east. 2014 invasion and Crimea annexationRussian forces invaded Ukraine in 2014, seizing Crimea, a peninsula extending from its southern coast. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia annexed the territory, a move that is not recognized internationally. Ukraine’s government has said that reclaiming Crimea, by force or diplomacy, is one of its most important goals in the war. In 2018, Russia opened a bridge across the Kerch Strait linking its territory with Crimea. Ukraine has bombed the bridge on several occasions.Military experts have long said that winning back Crimea by force is not a realistic option for Ukraine, given Russia’s military strength. Ukrainian forces have made little headway in opening a route toward Crimea.In the 2014 invasion, Russian forces and proxy militias also seized territory in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, including the capitals of the two provinces it comprises, Donetsk and Luhansk. Moscow has held those cities and much of the surrounding areas ever since.Full-scale invasionThe Kremlin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russian forces failed in their goal of seizing the capital, Kyiv, but they did capture more territory in Donetsk and Luhansk, including the cities of Mariupol and Bakhmut. Russia also won ground in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in southern Ukraine, in effect gaining control of a land corridor along the northern coast of the Sea of Azov. That connected Russian forces in Crimea with territory they controlled in eastern Ukraine.In the fall of 2022, Moscow illegally annexed Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk, just as it had done with Crimea, although it did not control the entirety of those provinces. Over the past year, the fiercest fighting in Ukraine has taken place in Donetsk, where Russian forces have gained control of several cities and towns.Russia now controls around 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory, including areas in the south and east, Crimea and some ground north of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. More