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      How Mike Johnson Got to ‘Yes’ on Aid to Ukraine

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      Intelligence, politics and personal considerations converted the Republican speaker, who had largely opposed aid to Ukraine as a rank-and-file member, into the key figure pushing it through Congress.Speaker Mike Johnson successfully defied the anti-interventionalist wing of the Republican Party and got the House to approve a $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesFor weeks after the Senate passed a sprawling aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, Speaker Mike Johnson agonized over whether and how the House would take up funding legislation that would almost certainly infuriate the right wing of his party and could cost him his job.He huddled with top national security officials, including William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, in the Oval Office to discuss classified intelligence. He met repeatedly with broad factions of Republicans in both swing and deep red districts, and considered their voters’ attitudes toward funding Ukraine. He thought about his son, who is set to attend the U.S. Naval Academy in the fall.And finally, when his plan to work with Democrats to clear the way for aiding Ukraine met with an outpouring of venom from ultraconservatives already threatening to depose him, Mr. Johnson, an evangelical Christian, knelt and prayed for guidance.“I want to be on the right side of history,” Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, recalled the speaker telling him.Mr. Johnson’s decision to risk his speakership to push the $95 billion foreign aid bill through the House on Saturday was the culmination of a remarkable personal and political arc for the Louisiana Republican. It was also an improbable outcome for a man plucked from relative obscurity last fall by the hard right — which had just deposed a speaker they deemed a traitor to their agenda — to be the speaker of a deeply dysfunctional House.As a rank-and-file hard-liner, Mr. Johnson had largely opposed efforts to fund Kyiv’s war effort. And early in his speakership, he declared he would never allow the matter to come to a vote until his party’s border demands were met.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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      Germany Arrests 2 Men Suspected of Spying for Russia

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      The two men, dual citizens of both countries, were accused of being part of a plot to undermine aid to Ukraine by trying to blow up military infrastructure.Two men have been arrested in Germany over suspicions that they spied for Russia and were part of a plot to sabotage aid to Ukraine by trying to blow up military infrastructure on German soil, the authorities announced on Thursday.The two men, both dual citizens of Russia and Germany, were arrested on Wednesday in Bayreuth, a city about 120 miles north of Munich, German federal prosecutors said. The arrests came as worries grow in Germany about the reach of Russian intelligence and disruption operations.One of the men had been in contact with Russian intelligence services and had considered a U.S. military base in Germany as one of several potential targets, according to federal prosecutors based in Karlsruhe, in southwestern Germany, who oversaw the arrests.The two men have not been formally charged. But the federal prosecutors said that the pair were suspected of working for a foreign intelligence service and, in one man’s case, of illegally taking pictures of military infrastructure and of planning explosive attacks and arson.In a statement on Thursday, Nancy Faeser, Germany’s interior minister, condemned a “particularly serious case of suspected agent activity” tied to the “criminal regime” of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, relations between Moscow and Berlin have soured. Last year, Germany closed down four Russian consulates after Moscow limited the number of German diplomatic staff allowed to stay in Russia.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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      Johnson Floats Voting on Senate Ukraine Bill, With Conservative Policies as Sweeteners

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      The Republican speaker has weighed bringing up a $95 billion Senate-passed bill to aid Ukraine and Israel in tandem with a separate package geared toward mollifying G.O.P. critics.Shortly after congressional leaders met with Japan’s prime minister in Speaker Johnson’s ceremonial office in the Capitol on Thursday morning, the conversation turned to Ukraine aid.Mr. Johnson was in the middle of another agonizing standoff with the ultraconservatives in his conference, after they had blocked legislation to extend a major warrantless surveillance law that is about to expire. His chief Republican antagonist, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, had intensified her threat to oust him. But on Ukraine, he offered his counterparts an assurance.“We’re going to get this done,” he vowed.His comments, confirmed by multiple people familiar with the meeting, were consistent with what Mr. Johnson has been saying for weeks, both publicly and privately: that he intends to ensure the House will move to assist Ukraine, a step that many members of his party oppose.Even as right-wing Republicans have sought to ratchet up pressure on their speaker, Mr. Johnson has continued to search for a way to win the votes to push through a Ukraine aid. He is battling not only stiff resistance to the idea among House Republicans, but also mounting opposition among Democrats to sending unfettered military aid to Israel given the soaring civilian death toll and humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza.Mr. Johnson has yet to make any final decisions on how he plans to structure a new round of American military assistance to Ukraine.Some Republicans have increasingly expressed interest in structuring the aid as a loan, an idea that Mr. Johnson has publicly floated and that former President Donald J. Trump previously endorsed. Mr. Trump raised again the idea again after a private meeting with Mr. Johnson at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Friday.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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      U.S. Intelligence Warning to Moscow Named Specific Target of Attack

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      The C.I.A. told Russia that Islamic State terrorists were plotting an attack on Crocus City Hall, a concert venue.The U.S. warning to Russia ahead of a terrorist attack near Moscow was highly specific: Crocus City Hall was a potential target of the Islamic State, according to U.S. officials.The warning had the right venue but imprecise timing, suggesting that the attack could come within days. Indeed, the public warning by the United States Embassy on March 7 warned of potential terrorist attacks in the next two days.Gunmen stormed the hall on March 22, killing 144 people, the deadliest attack in Russia in nearly 20 years. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, and Russia charged four men from Tajikistan, accusing them of carrying out the massacre.But President Vladimir V. Putin and other top officials have continued to claim, without evidence, that Ukraine could have played a role in the attack, a statement that American officials have repeatedly said was baseless.The news that the U.S. warning specified the precise target of the attack was reported earlier Tuesday by The Washington Post.The United States works intensely to collect intelligence on potential plots by the Islamic State and its Afghanistan-based branch, ISIS-Khorasan.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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      U.S. Says ISIS Was Responsible for Deadly Moscow Concert Hall Attack

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      A branch of the Islamic State claimed responsibility on Friday for the attack in Moscow that killed at least 60 people and injured about 100 others, and U.S. officials confirmed the claim shortly afterward.The United States collected intelligence in March that Islamic State-Khorasan, known as ISIS-K, the branch of the group based in Afghanistan, had been planning an attack on Moscow, according to officials. ISIS members have been active in Russia, one U.S. official said.After a period of relative quiet, the Islamic State has been trying to increase its external attacks, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials. Most of those plots in Europe have been thwarted, prompting assessments that the group had diminished capabilities.“ISIS-K has been fixated on Russia for the past two years,” frequently criticizing President Vladimir V. Putin in its propaganda, said Colin P. Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst at the Soufan Group, a security consulting firm based in New York. “ISIS-K accuses the Kremlin of having Muslim blood in its hands, referencing Moscow’s interventions in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria.”The attack on Friday in Moscow, like a January assault in Iran claimed by the group, could prompt a reassessment of its ability to strike outside its home territory.In addition to publicly warning on March 7 about a possible attack, U.S. officials said they had privately told Russian officials about the intelligence pointing to an impending attack. It is not clear how much information the United States gave Russian officials beyond what was in the public warning.American intelligence agencies have a “duty to warn” potential targets of dangers when they learn of them.The United States had warned Iran of a possible attack ahead of twin bombings in January that killed scores and wounded hundreds of others at a memorial service for Iran’s former top general, Qassim Suleimani, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike four years before.Western intelligence agencies had collected intelligence about possible planning by ISIS-K to bomb the service. As in Russia, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for that attack. More

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      New Havana Syndrome Studies Find No Evidence of Brain Injuries

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      The findings from the National Institutes of Health are at odds with previous research that looked into the mysterious health incidents experienced by U.S. diplomats and spies.New studies by the National Institutes of Health failed to find evidence of brain injury in scans or blood markers of the diplomats and spies who suffered symptoms of Havana syndrome, bolstering the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies about the strange health incidents.Spy agencies have concluded that the debilitating symptoms associated with Havana syndrome, including dizziness and migraines, are not the work of a hostile foreign power. They have not identified a weapon or device that caused the injuries, and intelligence analysts now believe the symptoms are most likely explained by environmental factors, existing medical conditions or stress.The lead scientist on one of the two new studies said that while the study was not designed to find a cause, the findings were consistent with those determinations.The authors said the studies are at odds with findings from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, who found differences in brain scans of people with Havana syndrome symptoms and a control groupDr. David Relman, a prominent scientist who has had access to the classified files involving the cases and representatives of people suffering from Havana syndrome, said the new studies were flawed. Many brain injuries are difficult to detect with scans or blood markers, he said. He added that the findings do not dispute that an external force, like a directed energy device, could have injured the current and former government workers.The studies were published in The Journal of the American Medical Association on Monday alongside an editorial by Dr. Relman that was critical of the findings.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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      Biden’s Armageddon Moment: When Nuclear Detonation Seemed Possible in Ukraine

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      For a few weeks in October 2022, the White House was consumed in a crisis whose depths were not publicly acknowledged at the time. It was a glimpse of what seemed like a terrifying new era.President Biden was standing in an Upper East Side townhouse owned by the businessman James Murdoch, the rebellious scion of the media empire, surrounded by liberal New York Democrats who had paid handsomely to come hear optimistic talk about the Biden agenda for the next few years.It was Oct. 6, 2022, but what they heard instead that evening was a disturbing message that — though Mr. Biden didn’t say so — came straight from highly classified intercepted communications he had recently been briefed about, suggesting that President Vladimir V. Putin’s threats to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine might be turning into an operational plan.For the “first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis,” he told the group, as they gathered amid Mr. Murdoch’s art collection, “we have a direct threat of the use of a nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path they’ve been going.” The gravity of his tone began to sink in: The president was talking about the prospect of the first wartime use of a nuclear weapon since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.And not at some vague moment in the future. He meant in the next few weeks.The commander of a Ukrainian assault unit, standing by an abandoned Russian tank in October 2022. That period appears to have been the high-water mark of Ukraine’s military performance over the past two years.Ivor Prickett for The New York TimesThe intercepts revealed that for the first time since the war in Ukraine had broken out, there were frequent conversations within the Russian military about reaching into the nuclear arsenal. Some were just “various forms of chatter,” one official said. But others involved the units that would be responsible for moving or deploying the weapons. The most alarming of the intercepts revealed that one of the most senior Russian military commanders was explicitly discussing the logistics of detonating a weapon on the battlefield.Fortunately, Mr. Biden was told in his briefings, there was no evidence of weapons being moved. But soon the C.I.A. was warning that, under a singular scenario in which Ukrainian forces decimated Russian defensive lines and looked as if they might try to retake Crimea — a possibility that seemed imaginable that fall — the likelihood of nuclear use might rise to 50 percent or even higher. That “got everyone’s attention fast,” said an official involved in the discussions.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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      Navalny Allies Say He Was About to Be Freed in a Prisoner Exchange

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      A top aide to the Russian opposition leader who died this month said he could have been among several inmates swapped. The claim could not be independently confirmed.Aides to Aleksei A. Navalny asserted on Monday that the Russian opposition leader had been on the verge of being freed in a prisoner exchange with the West before he died earlier this month.Western officials were in advanced talks with the Kremlin on a deal that would have released Mr. Navalny along with two Americans in Russian prison, a top aide to the dead opposition leader, Maria Pevchikh, said in a video released on the Navalny team’s YouTube channel.As part of that deal, Ms. Pevchikh said, Germany would have released Vadim Krasikov, the man convicted of killing a former Chechen separatist fighter in a Berlin park in 2019. Mr. Putin praised Mr. Krasikov in his interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson this month, describing the convicted assassin as having been motivated by “patriotic sentiments.”Ms. Pevchikh’s assertions about a pending deal could not be independently confirmed. There was no immediate comment from any of the parties reportedly involved in the trade described by Ms. Pevchikh. A Kremlin spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.“Navalny was supposed to be free in the coming days,” Ms. Pevchikh, the chairwoman of Mr. Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said in the video. “I received confirmation that negotiations were at the final stage on the evening of Feb. 15.”American officials had acknowledged that German officials were asking for Mr. Navalny to be released in any deal that would have freed Mr. Krasikov, though they did not indicate a deal was close. A German government spokeswoman declined to comment when asked about the Navalny team’s assertions at a news conference on Monday.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