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      in Elections

      Rafael Grossi of the IAEA Acts as the West’s Mediator With Putin and Iran

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      Rafael Grossi slipped into Moscow a few weeks ago to meet quietly with the man most Westerners never engage with these days: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Mr. Grossi is the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, and his purpose was to warn Mr. Putin about the dangers of moving too fast to restart the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Russian troops since soon after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.But as the two men talked, the conversation veered off into Mr. Putin’s declarations that he was open to a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine — but only if President Volodymyr Zelensky was prepared to give up nearly 20 percent of his country.A few weeks later, Mr. Grossi, an Argentine with a taste for Italian suits, was in Tehran, this time talking to the country’s foreign minister and the head of its civilian nuclear program. At a moment when senior Iranian officials are hinting that new confrontations with Israel may lead them to build a bomb, the Iranians signaled that they, too, were open to a negotiation — suspecting, just as Mr. Putin did, that Mr. Grossi would soon be reporting details of his conversation to the White House.In an era of new nuclear fears, Mr. Grossi suddenly finds himself at the center of two of the world’s most critical geopolitical standoffs. In Ukraine, one of the six nuclear reactors in the line of fire on the Dnipro River could be hit by artillery and spew radiation. And Iran is on the threshold of becoming a nuclear-armed state.“I am an inspector, not a mediator,” Mr. Grossi said in an interview this week. “But maybe, in some way, I can be useful around the edges.”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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      Blinken Arrives in Ukraine Amid Russian Military Gains

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      The Biden administration had warned for months that the delay by Congress to approve an aid package would leave the Ukrainians vulnerable.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday morning for a visit meant to reaffirm American support for Ukraine but that might be shadowed by Russian military gains in the country’s northeast.The unannounced trip, by overnight train from eastern Poland, was Mr. Blinken’s fourth to Kyiv since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It comes about three weeks after President Biden signed a $60 billion aid package for Ukraine that Congress passed after months of infighting among House Republicans.Mr. Blinken plans to deliver a speech in Kyiv on Tuesday celebrating the influx of American aid and portraying Russia’s failed effort to take control of the country as a strategic success for Ukraine, a senior U.S. official said.Mr. Blinken will also underscore that Ukraine must continue to make progress on democratic governance and anti-corruption reforms if it wants to integrate with the West, the official said.Mr. Biden and Mr. Blinken had warned for months that Congress’s delay in approving critically needed U.S. arms would leave Ukraine’s military vulnerable along an eastern battlefront that has been stalemated for months. The U.S. official declined to draw a direct connection between the delayed aid and Russia’s gains near the city of Kharkiv. But the official said it was clear that the gap in funding had left Ukraine, whose military is starved for ammunition and other critical equipment, weakened.The official said that the Ukrainians had held their positions and were exacting a toll on the Russians, and that they were likely to make gains as U.S. assistance flows into the country.Mr. Blinken plans to meet with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and other top officials. A second senior U.S. official would not say whether Russia had been notified in advance of Mr. Blinken’s visit. Russian forces have frequently attacked Kyiv with missiles and drones.Mr. Blinken is the first senior Biden official to visit Ukraine since the passage of the congressional aid package. The White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met with Mr. Zelensky in Kyiv in late March, before the aid passed.Speaking at an event hosted by The Financial Times this month, Mr. Sullivan said that he expected Russia to make some short-term gains, but that the new U.S. aid would allow Ukraine to “hold the line” and eventually begin recapturing territory. More

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      Putin Replaces Defense Minister in Rare Cabinet Shake-up

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      Mr. Putin shifted Sergei Shoigu to run the security council, and nominated an economist to run the defense ministry.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia replaced his minister of defense on Sunday with an economist, shaking up his national security team for the first time since his invasion of Ukraine and signaling his determination to put Russia’s war effort on an economically sustainable footing.Mr. Putin kept the minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, in his inner circle, tapping him to run the country’s security council — a position giving Mr. Shoigu close access to the president but little direct authority. Mr. Shoigu will replace Nikolai P. Patrushev, a former K.G.B. colleague of Mr. Putin, who the Kremlin said would be moved to another position to be announced in the coming days.Andrei R. Belousov, an economist who had served as first deputy prime minister since 2020 and long been seen as one of Mr. Putin’s most trusted economic advisers, was nominated to become the new defense chief.The Kremlin said Russia’s ballooning defense budget warranted putting an economist in charge, and that Mr. Belousov would help make the Russian military “more open to innovation.”The cabinet shifts represented a rare overhaul for Mr. Putin, who tends to avoid rash changes, and they could mark a turning point in Russia’s more than two-year war in Ukraine.A photo provided by Russian state media showing President Vladimir Putin of Russia, right, with Andrei R. Belousov at the Kremlin in November.Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik, via Associated PressWe 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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      Satellite Images Reveal Where Russian Nuclear Weapons Could Be Stored in Belarus

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      A New York Times analysis shows security upgrades unique to Russian nuclear storage facilities, at a Cold War-era munitions depot.The New York Times, Source: Maxar TechnologiesA newly added air defense system.A distinctive security checkpoint.And a triple fence around a bunker.These new security features and other upgrades at a munitions depot in central Belarus reveal that Russia is building facilities there that could house nuclear warheads. If Russia does move weapons to this location, it would mark the first time it has stored them outside the country since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.Russia already has nuclear warheads on its own soil that are close to Ukraine and NATO countries, but by basing some in Belarus, the Kremlin appears to be trying to accentuate its nuclear threat and bolster its nuclear deterrent.Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, made reference to such a site early last year, saying Russia would soon be completing the construction of “special storage for tactical nuclear weapons” in Belarus.The New York Times analyzed satellite imagery and photos, and spoke with nuclear weapons and arms control experts, to track the new construction, which started in March 2023.The site is 120 miles north of the Ukrainian border at a military depot next to the town of Asipovichy. Some of the recently built structures there have features that are unique to nuclear storage facilities at bases inside Russia. For example, a new, highly secure area is surrounded by three layers of fencing, in addition to the existing security perimeter of the entire base. Another telltale sign is a covered loading area connected to what appears to be a concealed Soviet-era underground bunker.The New York Times, Source: Maxar Technologies More

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      At Russia’s Victory Day Parade, Putin Keeps Ukraine in the Distance

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      A fighter fly-past returned to Russia’s World War II commemorations, where President Vladimir V. Putin permitted himself a single reference to his “special military operation.”The ballistic missiles rolled through Red Square, the fighter jets zipped overhead and rows of foreign dignitaries impassively looked on. Russia’s annual commemoration of the end of World War II presented a traditional ceremony on Thursday cherished by millions of Russians, a reflection of President Vladimir V. Putin’s broader attempts to project normalcy while resigning the population to a prolonged, distant war.At last year’s Victory Day celebration, as Russia struggled on the battlefield, Mr. Putin said the country was engaged in a “real war” for survival, and accused Western elites of seeking the “disintegration and annihilation of Russia.” On Thursday, he merely referred to the war in Ukraine once, using his initial euphemism for the invasion, “special military operation.”And on Russia’s most important secular holiday, he dedicated more time to the sacrifices of Soviet citizens in World War II than to the bashing of modern adversaries.Still, he did not ignore those adversaries entirely, reviving familiar criticisms and grievances about what he says are attempts to undermine Russia and accusing the West of “hypocrisy and lies.”“Revanchism, abuse of history, attempts to excuse modern heirs of the Nazis — these are all parts of the policies used by the Western elites to spark more and more new regional conflicts,” Mr. Putin said in an eight-minute address.The ceremony itself was slightly more expansive than last year’s bare-bones procedure, a sign of a nation that has recovered from the initial shock of the war and currently holds the advantage on the battlefield in Ukraine.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. Seeks to Build World Pressure on Russia Over Space Nuclear Weapon

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      An American official said the United States had information undermining Russia’s claim that a device it is developing is for peaceful scientific research.American officials are trying to increase international pressure on Russia not to deploy an antisatellite nuclear weapon in space, and have obtained information that undermines Moscow’s explanation that the device it is developing is for peaceful scientific purposes, a senior State Department official said on Friday.Concern over the Russian development of a new generation of space nuclear weapons has been growing in Washington, especially since Moscow’s veto last month of a U.N. measure aimed at keeping space free of such weapons. Some Republicans believe that the Biden administration is not doing enough to deter Russian work on the device, and others are concerned about China’s apparent decision not to pressure Moscow to stop.On Friday, Mallory Stewart, the assistant secretary of state for arms control, said that while the United States had been aware of Russia’s pursuit of such a device for years, “only recently have we been able to make a more precise assessment of their progress.”Ms. Stewart, speaking at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the orbit the Russian satellite would occupy is in a high-radiation region not used by other satellites, information that undercuts Russia’s defense that it is not developing a weapon.She condemned Russia’s veto of a U.N. Security Council resolution pushed by the United States and Japan aimed at reaffirming the ban against nuclear weapons being deployed in orbit. She argued that every country should be pushing Russia not to deploy a nuclear-armed satellite.“Everything that we’re doing in the diplomatic arena is working to prevent the Russians from going forward with this program,” she said. “The international response should be outrage if this actually does go forward, because it affects everyone, right? Every single country. It’s indiscriminate in its potential effect.”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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      in US Politics

      Biden calls Japan and India ‘xenophobic’: ‘They don’t want immigrants’

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      Joe Biden has called Japan and India “xenophobic” countries that do not welcome immigrants, lumping the two with adversaries China and Russia as he tried to explain their economic circumstances and contrasted the four with the US on immigration.The remarks, at a campaign fundraising event Wednesday evening, came just three weeks after the White House hosted Fumio Kishida, the Japanese prime minister, for a lavish official visit, during which the two leaders celebrated what Biden called an “unbreakable alliance,” particularly on global security matters.The White House welcomed Indian PM Narenda Modi for a state visit last summer.Japan is a critical US ally. And India, one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, is a vital partner in the Indo-Pacific.At a hotel fundraiser where the donor audience was largely Asian American, Biden said the upcoming US election was about “freedom, America and democracy” and that the nation’s economy was thriving “because of you and many others”.“Why? Because we welcome immigrants,” Biden said. “Look, think about it. Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants.”The president added: “Immigrants are what makes us strong. Not a joke. That’s not hyperbole, because we have an influx of workers who want to be here and want to contribute.”There was no immediate reaction from either the Japanese or Indian governments. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Biden was making a broader point about the US posture on immigration.“Our allies and partners know well in tangible ways how President Biden values them, their friendship, their cooperation and the capabilities that they bring across the spectrum on a range of issues, not just security related,” Kirby said Thursday morning when asked about Biden’s “xenophobic” remarks. “They understand how much he completely and utterly values the idea of alliances and partnerships.”Biden’s comments came at the start of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and he was introduced at the fundraiser by Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat, one of two senators of Asian American descent. She is a national co-chair for his reelection campaign.Japan has acknowledged issues with its shrinking population, and the number of babies born in the country in 2023 fell for the eighth straight year, according to data released in February. Kishida has called the low birth rate in Japan “the biggest crisis Japan faces” and the country has long been known for a more closed-door stance on immigration, although Kishida’s government has, in recent years, shifted its policies to make it easier for foreign workers to come to Japan.Meanwhile, India’s population has swelled to become the world’s largest, with the United Nations saying it was on track to reach 1.425 billion. Its population also skews younger.Earlier this year, India enacted a new citizenship law that fast-tracks naturalization for Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who have come to India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.But it excludes Muslims, who are a majority in all three nations.It’s the first time that India has set religious criteria for citizenship. More