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      Why Saudi Arabia Rolled Out a Lavender Carpet for Trump’s Visit

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      In recent years, Saudi Arabia has swapped red carpets for lavender, a symbolic color for the kingdom that celebrates national identity.No, don’t call it purple. When President Trump disembarked from Air Force One in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, he stepped onto the rich lavender-colored carpet unfurled before him, just one feature of the lavish welcome extended to the visiting American leader on the first day of his Gulf tour.Along with a fighter-jet escort in the air and riders on Arabian horses on the ground, the lavender carpet is one of the distinctive and symbolic Saudi protocols for greeting high-profile dignitaries. Saudi Arabia swapped red carpets for lavender in 2021, as the ruling royal family sought to define its own protocols and celebrate national identity, according to a report by the official Saudi Press Agency published at the time.“Lavender in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is associated with blossoming wildflowers that carpet the kingdom’s desert landscapes in the spring and is a symbol of Saudi generosity,” the report said. In spring, Saudi Arabia’s rugged dunes are covered in lavender, basil and Germander, a flowering shrub that grows across the Arabian Peninsula, also known by the Arabic name “Aihan.”The color of the carpet is also a nod to how the blooms transform an otherwise harsh desert landscape, the report said, symbolizing the growth that Prince Mohammed has promised to generate through his blueprint to diversify the economy of the oil-dependent kingdom, called “Vision 2030.”The carpet features a border of the traditional Al Sadu textile design created by Bedouin women. The geometric patterns, tightly woven on a hand loom, were included on a list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity compiled by the United Nations cultural agency, UNESCO, in 2020.Saudi Arabia first rolled out a lavender carpet in 2021, for Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, a key Saudi partner in the Gulf, according to the Saudi Press Agency. The carpet is also used for state receptions and other official occasions. More

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      Donald Trump lands in Saudi Arabia as Gulf visit to seek economic deals begins – US politics live

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      US President Donald Trump has arrived in Saudi Arabia to kick off a four-day tour through the Gulf region, focusing on economic deals rather than the security crises ranging from war in Gaza to the threat of escalation over Iran’s nuclear programme.Tesla CEO and Trump adviser Elon Musk, as well as business leaders including BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser are travelling with the president.Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth are also among those on the trip.Trump will first visit Riyadh, site of a Saudi-US Investment Forum, heading to Qatar on Wednesday and the United Arab Emirates on Thursday.During the Riyadh stop, Trump is expected to offer Saudi Arabia an arms package worth well over $100 billion, sources told Reuters, which could include a range of advanced weapons, including C-130 transport aircraft.In other developments:

      Trump has pushed back on criticism for accepting the gift of a $400m (£303m) plane from Qatar’s royal family to replace Air Force One. He claimed it would be “stupid” not to accept the gift. He has said it is “a very public and transparent transaction”.
      Footage shows President Trump speaking with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the Royal Court’s blue room, where he is meeting and greeting officials.President Trump has just arrived at the Royal Court in Riyadh.More on what we could expect from Trump’s tour of the Middle East.The US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE are expected to announce investments that could run into the trillions, Reuters reports.Saudi Arabia already committed in January to $600bn in investments in the US over the next four years, but Trump has said he will ask for a full trillion.Trump is expected to offer Saudi Arabia an arms package worth more than $100bn, sources told Reuters.Reuters has been reporting from the Saudi-US Investment Forum in Riyadh.It said the event began with a video showing soaring eagles and falcons, celebrating the long history between the United States and the kingdom.Larry Fink, the CEO of Blackrock, Stephen A Schwartzman, CEO of Blackstone, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al Jadaan and Khalid were all present.Speaking at a forum panel, Fink said he had visited Saudi Arabia more than 65 times over 20 years. He said the kingdom had been a follower when he first started visiting but was now “taking control” and broadening its economy out of its oil base.Top Democrats in the US Senate are pushing for a vote on the floor of the chamber censuring Donald Trump’s reported plan to accept a $400m luxury jet from the royal family of Qatar for use as Air Force One and later as a fixture in the Trump’s personal presidential library.Four Democratic members of the Senate foreign relations committee said on Monday that they would press for a vote later this week. They said that elected officials, including the president, were not allowed to accept large gifts from foreign governments unless authorised to do so by Congress.Cory Booker from New Jersey, Brian Schatz from Hawaii, Chris Coons from Delaware and Chris Murphy from Connecticut cast the reported gift of the Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a clear conflict of interest and a serious threat to national security.“Air Force Once is more than just a plane – it’s a symbol of the presidency and of the United States itself,” the senators said in a joint statement. “No one should use public service for personal gain through foreign gifts.”News of a possible gift of the luxury jet prompted immediate scathing criticism from senior Democrats. Though the Qatari government has stressed that no final decision has yet been made, Trump appeared to confirm it on Sunday when he commented on social media that the transfer was being made “in a very public and transparent transaction”.Read the full report here:President Trump was joined by US secretary of state Marco Rubio at the meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh.US President Donald Trump is also expected to be feted by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a formal dinner and a gathering of members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, later on Tuesday, the Associated Press reports.President Trump spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a coffee ceremony at the Royal Terminal of King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.US President Donald Trump has arrived in Saudi Arabia to kick off a four-day tour through the Gulf region, focusing on economic deals rather than the security crises ranging from war in Gaza to the threat of escalation over Iran’s nuclear programme.Tesla CEO and Trump adviser Elon Musk, as well as business leaders including BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser are travelling with the president.Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth are also among those on the trip.Trump will first visit Riyadh, site of a Saudi-US Investment Forum, heading to Qatar on Wednesday and the United Arab Emirates on Thursday.During the Riyadh stop, Trump is expected to offer Saudi Arabia an arms package worth well over $100 billion, sources told Reuters, which could include a range of advanced weapons, including C-130 transport aircraft.In other developments:

      Trump has pushed back on criticism for accepting the gift of a $400m (£303m) plane from Qatar’s royal family to replace Air Force One. He claimed it would be “stupid” not to accept the gift. He has said it is “a very public and transparent transaction”. More

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      Trump to embark on Middle East trip to meet Gulf allies

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      Donald Trump this week will embark on the first foreign trip of his second administration with a tour of the Middle East, as he looks to secure investment, trade and technology deals from friendly leaders with deep pockets amid turbulent negotiations around numerous regional conflicts, including Israel’s war in Gaza.The tour through the Middle East is largely a repeat of his first international trip in 2017, when he was feted in the region as a transactional leader eager to secure quick wins and capable of providing support for the regional monarchies’ economic and geopolitical interests.His negotiations in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will focus on a number of topics, including oil and trade, investment deals, the regional conflicts in Israel-Gaza and Yemen, and negotiations over the Iran nuclear programme among other issues.But Trump’s key goal is to come out of the region saying that he put America first, say observers.“I think what he’s clearly looking to get out of this is deals, the announcement of multiple multi-billion dollar deals,” said Steven A Cook, the senior fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.“The president’s approach to foreign policy is heavily influenced by … his version of economic statecraft, which is to look towards the wealthy states in the Gulf and their very large sovereign wealth funds as sources of investment in the United States,” he said.Trump has already announced Saudi Arabia’s commitment to invest $1tn into the US economy and is hoping to secure big-ticket investments on Monday’s visit. That would be consistent with his America First policy of prioritising domestic interests, Cook said.Those countries may also seek access to advanced US semiconductor exports, and Saudi Arabia will want to ink a deal on civilian nuclear infrastructure, which had previously been tied to the country’s normalisation of relations with Israel. In a departure from previous policy, the Trump administration has indicated the two issues are no longer linked.The Middle East trip is notable for the US president’s lack of plans to visit Israel, where Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet have floated plans to launch a larger invasion of Gaza and expel the Palestinian population there in what critics have called a broad plan of ethnic cleansing.The Israel-Gaza war will loom large over the negotiations, as Saudi Arabia has said it will not normalise relations with Israel unless there is a clear path to a two-state solution, and many countries in the Middle East have spoken out against a proposal that began with Trump to expel Palestinian from Gaza to other Arab countries.“He could have gone to Israel like he did last time,” said Elliot Abrams, former deputy national security advisor under President George W Bush and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He added that Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, had cancelled a planned trip to Israel. “I think there’s some tension here … [Israel] knows that Trump is going to be spending a week in the Gulf hearing about Gaza, Gaza, Gaza, Gaza every day. So it’s not the best moment in US-Israel or Trump-Israel relations.”There is a growing understanding in Washington and Israel that Trump has taken a step back from attempting to mediate the war in Gaza. His administration said that they would negotiate a new aid deal without the direct involvement of the Israeli government to renew deliveries of aid into Gaza, which is suffering its worst humanitarian crisis of the war since a ceasefire collapsed in March.“He’s the only one who speaks the same language as Netanyahu, and he’s the only one who can speak to Netanyahu in a language that Netanyahu will understand,” said Ami Ayalon, a former director of the Israel Security Agency, also known as the Shin Bet.“Trump again, when it comes to to the hostages, when it comes to our relations in the Palestinians, has become the center of everything in the Middle East,” he said.That turns Trump’s attention to the things he can get done.He has said that he plans to decide on his trip to Saudi Arabia on an announcement that the US could refer to the Arabian Gulf or the Gulf of Arabia rather than the Persian Gulf.That has angered Iran at a moment when the Gulf states appear largely in support of US efforts in talks on the future of the Iranian nuclear programme. As opposed to 2017, the Gulf states have largely spoken in support of renewed negotiations between the United States and Iran over the nuclear programme, but those governments were said to be unclear on the details of any deal as of yet.“US partners have confided to me that there are US statements on all of these issues, but they don’t yet see US policies,” said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at CSIS, a thinktank. “The US government doesn’t speak with one voice and its actions remain uncoordinated.”In Saudi Arabia, Trump has enlisted his son-in-law Jared Kushner to act as a point man for the discussions ahead of the trip, CNN has reported. Kushner, who was Trump’s envoy to the region during his first administration, is said to be tasked with making progress in discussions of Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham accords. But his role is also tainted by a perceived conflict-of-interest given his family’s business interests in the region.Yet with such a complicated tableau of economic and geopolitical interests in the region, there are questions about whether the Trump administration has the focus and the team to pursue a comprehensive policy in the region. Many in Trump’s orbit say that US policy should place lower priority on the Middle East, and focus instead on China and the Indo-Pacific region.“I think the sense that there’s these pieces that the President is negotiating don’t respond together, and that his priority really is essentially domestic focus, securing, you know, agreements to invest in the estates,” said Cook. “Regionally, the president would like these issues to go away, and that’s why he has these compressed timelines he doesn’t want to focus on.” More

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      Why Saudi Arabia Supports Trump’s Nuclear Talks With Its Rival, Iran

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      The agreements are shaping up to be very similar. But Gulf support for a nuclear deal shows how much the region has changed.Ten years ago, when former President Barack Obama and other leaders reached a deal with Iran to limit its nuclear program, Saudi Arabia was dismayed.Saudi officials called it a “weak deal” that had only emboldened the kingdom’s regional rival, Iran. They cheered when President Trump withdrew from the agreement a few years later.Now, as a second Trump administration negotiates with Iran on a deal that might have very similar contours to the previous one, the view from Saudi Arabia looks quite different.The kingdom’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement recently saying that it hoped the talks, mediated by neighboring Oman, would enhance “peace in the region and the world.”Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman even dispatched his brother, the defense minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, to Tehran, where he was received warmly by Iranian officials dressed in military regalia. He then hand-delivered a letter to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a man whom Prince Mohammed once derided as making “Hitler look good.”What changed? Relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran have warmed over the past decade. As important, Saudi Arabia is in the middle of an economic diversification program intended to transform the kingdom from being overly dependent on oil into a business, technology and tourism hub. The prospect of Iranian drones and missiles flying over Saudi Arabia because of regional tensions poses a serious threat to that plan.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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      US and Russia begin talks in Saudi Arabia on Ukraine ceasefire

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      US and Russian officials have begun talks in Saudi Arabia as Donald Trump pushes to broker a limited ceasefire that Washington hopes will mark the first step toward lasting peace in Ukraine.Ukraine and Russia have agreed in principle to a one-month halt on strikes on energy infrastructure after Trump spoke with the countries’ leaders last week. But uncertainty remains over how and when the partial ceasefire would take effect – and whether its scope would extend beyond energy infrastructure to include other critical sites, such as hospitals, bridges, and vital utilities.US officials held initial talks with Ukraine on Sunday evening and negotiated separately with Russia on Monday, with most meetings taking place at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh. Monday’s talks were still going after more than eight hours, according to Russian state media.The US is expected to shuttle between the two countries to finalise details and negotiate separate measures to ensure the safety of shipping in the Black Sea. “The ultimate goal is a 30-day ceasefire, during which time we discuss a permanent ceasefire. We’re not far away from that,” said the US special envoy Steve Witkoff in a podcast with the far-right commentator Tucker Carlson over the weekend.Moscow meanwhile appears to be exploiting the window before any ceasefire takes hold, launching mass drone attacks on Ukraine on Monday. Ukrainian officials said that a Russian missile had also damaged a school and a hospital in Ukraine’s north-eastern city of Sumy, wounding at least 74 people including 13 children.“Moscow speaks of peace while carrying out brutal strikes on densely populated residential areas in major Ukrainian cities,” the country’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said. “Instead of making hollow statements about peace, Russia must stop bombing our cities and end its war on civilians.”The Ukrainian and US delegations on Sunday discussed proposals to protect energy facilities and critical infrastructure, Ukraine’s defence minister said.Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said his country’s delegation to Sunday’s talks was working in “a completely constructive manner”, adding: “The conversation is quite useful, the work of the delegations is continuing.”Zelenskyy earlier said he would hand the US a list of energy infrastructure that would be off-limits for strikes by the Russian military.The Ukrainian delegation could hold additional discussions with US officials on Monday. “We are implementing the president of Ukraine’s directive to bring a just peace closer and to strengthen security,” Rustem Umerov, the Ukrainian defence minister who heads the country’s delegation, said on Facebook.Russia is represented in the talks by Sergey Beseda, a secretive adviser to Russia’s FSB services and Grigory Karasin, a former diplomat who negotiated the 2014 Minsk accords between Russia and Ukraine.As the Russia-US talks began in Riyadh, Trump said he expected Washington and Kyiv to sign a revenue-sharing agreement on Ukrainian critical minerals soon.Trump also told reporters the US was talking to Ukraine about the potential for its firms to own Ukrainian power plants.Ukrainian officials have backed the signing of a minerals deal, but Zelenskyy has publicly rejected the idea of US firms owning Ukrainian power plants.The lead-up to the talks was marked by a series of controversial pro-Russian statements by Witkoff – tapped by Trump as his personal envoy to Putin – in which he appeared to legitimise Russia’s staged referendums in four Ukrainian regions.Speaking with Carlson, Witkoff claimed that in the four regions where Moscow held widely condemned referendums on joining Russia, “the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe referendums in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces were widely rebuked in the west as illegitimate and are viewed as a thinly veiled attempt to justify Russia’s illegal annexation of the regions. Their annexation marked the largest forcible seizure of territory in Europe since the second world war.In the interview with Carlson, Witkoff also claimed Putin had commissioned a portrait of Trump “by a leading Russian painter” that the envoy had brought back with him after a trip to Moscow.Witkoff went on to say that after the assassination attempt on Trump last July, Putin told him that he visited his local church, met his priest and prayed for Trump. “Not because he was the president of the United States or could become the president of the United States, but because he had a friendship with him and he was praying for his friend,” Witkoff said.“I don’t regard Putin as a bad guy. That is a complicated situation, that war and all the ingredients that led up to it,” he added.Witkoff’s willingness to echo Kremlin talking points and his praise for Putin are likely to heighten anxiety in Ukraine and across European capitals.In an interview with Time magazine published on Monday but conducted before Witkoff’s remarks, Zelenskyy said some US officials had begun to take Putin at his word even when it contradicted their own intelligence.“I believe Russia has managed to influence some people on the White House team through information,” he said. “Their signal to the Americans was that the Ukrainians do not want to end the war, and something should be done to force them.”Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on what would be acceptable terms for a peace treaty, with no sign that Putin has relinquished any of his maximalist aims in the war against Ukraine.Moscow has set out several maximalist conditions for any long-term settlement – most of which are non-starters for Kyiv and its European allies. These include a halt to all foreign military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, restrictions on the size of its armed forces, and international recognition of the four Ukrainian regions Russia illegally annexed following staged referendums in 2022.The Kremlin has also signalled it would reject any presence of western troops in Ukraine – something Kyiv views as essential to securing lasting security guarantees.Ukraine remains deeply sceptical of any Russian agreement, pointing to past instances where Moscow failed to honour its commitments. More

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      Putin Visits Kursk to Cheer Russian Troops Trying to Oust Ukraine

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      The trip comes as President Trump looks to secure the Russian leader’s support for a 30-day cease-fire.Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, dressed in fatigues, visited a command post near the front in Kursk late Wednesday to cheer on his military’s ejection of Ukrainian forces from much of the territory they had been occupying in the Russian border region.The Russian leader’s pointed visit came a day after a U.S. delegation met in Saudi Arabia with Ukrainian officials, who agreed to a 30-day cease-fire in the war. American officials planned to take the proposal to Mr. Putin, who has previously said he is not interested in a temporary truce.Dressed in a green camouflage uniform, Mr. Putin sat at a desk with maps spread out in front of him, according to photos released by the Kremlin. He appeared with Russia’s top military officer, Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov.In video footage released by Russian state media, Mr. Putin praised the Russian military formations that had taken back much of the territory captured by Ukraine in the Kursk region. He called on the troops to seize the territory for good from Ukrainian forces, who have been occupying portions of the Russian border region since last summer. Kyiv had hoped to use the territory as a bargaining chip in peace talks.The Russian leader also demanded that Ukrainian forces taken prisoner in the region be treated and prosecuted as terrorists under Russian law. General Gerasimov said more than 400 Ukrainian troops had been captured in the operations.“People who are on the territory of the Kursk region, committing crimes here against the civilian population and opposing our armed forces, law enforcement agencies and special services, in accordance with the laws of the Russian Federation, are terrorists,” Mr. Putin said.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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      Wednesday briefing: Will Kyiv’s commitment to a ceasefire appease Trump – and pressure Putin?

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      Good morning. Just 11 days after Donald Trump kicked Volodymyr Zelenskyy out of the White House for being insufficiently grateful, negotiations over a ceasefire in Ukraine have taken on a new complexion again.After day-long talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, officials from Kyiv and Washington declared that they had agreed on an immediate 30-day ceasefire plan and called on Russia to do the same. The United States will now lift restrictions on military aid and intelligence sharing. And the deal to give the United States a 50% stake in revenues from Ukrainian minerals is back on the table.Ukraine is still a long way from a durable, secure peace, and in one sense the success of yesterday’s talks was predicated on a grim recognition – unlikely to be articulated – of how thoroughly Trump has sold out Zelenskyy and Ukraine. But it is also true that Moscow’s actions will now be judged against an unambiguous backdrop. Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is expected to see Vladimir Putin in Moscow in the coming days – and, as Volodymyr Zelenskyy said yesterday, “Russia must show its readiness to end the war or continue the war. It is time for the full truth.”Today’s newsletter explains what happened at the talks, and what might happen next. Here are the headlines.Five big stories

      Trump tariffs | Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports took effect on Wednesday “with no exceptions or exemptions”, as his campaign to reorder global trade norms in favour of the US stepped up. In chaotic developments on Wednesday, the US threatened to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium but then reversed course.

      UK news | A BBC presenter whose family were murdered by a misogynist with a crossbow has said he hopes women can be inspired by how his daughter ended her relationship with her killer. On the day that Kyle Clifford was sentenced to a whole-life order for the triple murder last year, John Hunt described the former soldier as a psychopath disguised as an ordinary human being.

      North Sea collision | A 59-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter in connection with the shipping collision in the North Sea. Humberside police said they had opened a criminal investigation into the collision, in which one seaman is believed to have died.

      Phillipines | The former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has left Manila on a plane headed to The Hague, hours after he was served with an arrest warrant from the international criminal court over the killings resulting from his “war on drugs”.

      Climate crisis | Climate whiplash is already hitting major cities around the world, bringing deadly swings between extreme wet and dry weather as the climate crisis intensifies, a report has revealed. Dozens more cities, including Lucknow, Madrid and Riyadh, have suffered a climate “flip” in the last 20 years.
      In depth: Is this really an end to the White House’s ‘Mean Girls’ view of the Ukraine crisis?View image in fullscreenOne measure of the public shift in tone between Ukraine and the United States came in US secretary of state Marco Rubio’s comments after the talks in Jeddah yesterday. Previously, he has attacked Zelenskyy over the notorious Oval Office meeting, saying that “he found every opportunity to try to ‘Ukraine-splain’ on every issue”. Yesterday, he said: “What’s back on track here hopefully is peace. This is not Mean Girls.”That represents a significant success for Ukraine – but it has come at a cost. Here’s what emerged from the talks, and where it leaves the key players.Jeddah talks | Success for Ukraine – but significant concessionsUkraine went into the talks saying that it was ready to consider a ceasefire in the air and at sea, but not on the ground – arguing that a full ceasefire without more permanent guarantees would simply allow Russia to regroup. It also said that any ceasefire would have to include security guarantees.By that measure, Kyiv made significant concessions yesterday. A joint statement from Ukraine and the United States said that “Ukraine expressed readiness to accept the U.S. proposal to enact an immediate, interim 30-day cease-fire”, including on the ground, if Russia would make the same commitment.And there was no mention of security guarantees in the joint statement: while US national security adviser Michael Waltz said that “we … got into substantive details on how this war is going to permanently end, what type of guarantees they’re going to have for their long term security and prosperity”, that may simply be a reference to the minerals deal which now appears to be back on the table.But Ukraine made real progress – securing an immediate end to the suspension of intelligence sharing and military assistance, and extracting Rubio’s recognition that Russia now has to take its own steps toward peace. Perhaps just as significant is the possibility that Trump will be better disposed toward Kyiv, at least for now. He has said that he is now open to Zelenskyy returning to the White House, and said of a ceasefire: “Ukraine has agreed to it. Hopefully President Putin will agree to that also.”Pressure on Russia | A new equation for Putin to resolveThe phrase used by Marco Rubio, and repeated by Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron, was that “the ball is now in Russia’s court”. Donald Trump had his own corny analogy, saying that he would speak to Vladimir Putin about the ceasefire proposal this week and adding: “It takes two to tango”.But in its first substantive responses to the developments from Jeddah, Moscow did not present itself as an enthusiastic dance partner this morning. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was reported by Russian news agencies to have said that Russia will not make compromises that would “jeopardise people’s lives”. And Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: “The shaping of the position of the Russian Federation does not take place abroad due to some agreements or efforts of some parties.”Russia has always had its own conditions attached to any steps towards peace. In this piece, Dan Sabbagh explains that while Russia has been talking about a ceasefire, it has said that it must be accompanied by elections in Ukraine.Kyiv will now hope that yesterday’s developments have sufficiently soothed Trump’s irritation with Zelenskyy that he will now look more sceptically at Russian claims that it is Ukraine that is blocking a ceasefire. They do appear to have removed some of the ambiguity around which side is holding up that process.While Russia has made no serious moves to show that its position is held in good faith, Vladimir Putin must now decide whether the favourable position he now holds with Trump will come under threat if he obstructs the proposals that have emerged from Jeddah – or whether he cares. Russia may also calculate that it can feint towards a ceasefire while making additional demands and continuing to attack Ukraine – and still persuade the White House that it wants peace.European reaction | Key questions over any international forceMeanwhile, in Paris, military chiefs of staff from more than 30 European and Nato countries held talks on an international security force. French president Emmanuel Macron, who addressed the meeting, said that “it was the moment for Europe to exert its full weight, for Ukraine and for itself”. Defence ministers from the five leading military powers in Europe – the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Poland – will hold further talks today.Paris also said that any security guarantees “should not be separated from Nato and its capabilities” and should be “credible and long-term”. But the Associated Press reported that there is no definitive plan for military options yet. Here are some of the key questions that remain unanswered: Would the force be “peacekeepers”, intended to monitor breaches of the ceasefire and keep the two sides apart; a “tripwire”, a small force whose sheer presence would create a threat of escalation in the event of a Russian advance; or a much larger “deterrent”? This post by the leading defence analyst Lawrence Freedman sets out the case for each; there is little sense that Nato countries have the will or capacity for a full-scale deterrent force. Can the US be persuaded to guarantee the kind of “backstop” – a commitment to US military action if a tripwire force came under attack – to deter Russia from a new offensive? Trump has offered little comfort on this point so far. In this piece, the International Crisis Group argues that it is counterproductive for Ukraine and Europe to pursue this idea, but the reference to Nato’s role may suggest that it is still theoretically in play. Would Russia sign up to any deal involving European troops on the ground in Ukraine? Moscow has emphatically refused to countenance such an arrangement, a point reiterated by Lavrov this morning; Trump has claimed, with little evidence, that Putin is prepared to consider the idea. In this piece on the security analysis site War on the Rocks, Jack Watling and Michael Kofman argue that the most important thing is that no peace deal excludes the possibility, even if it is not explicitly endorsed.Military exchanges | Frantic attempts to maximise leverage for talksBoth sides are still seeking leverage in anticipation of ceasefire negotiations. Ukraine launched drone attacks on 10 Russian regions including Moscow yesterday, the biggest such operation it has conducted since the start of the war. Andriy Kovalenko, a Ukrainian national security council official, said that “this is an additional signal to Putin that he should also be interested in a ceasefire in the air”.But – despite Ukraine’s formidable drone production capacity, with the country’s armed forces expecting to buy 4.5m drones from domestic suppliers this year – such attacks are always likely to be confined to psychological operations rather than a route to significant tactical advantages.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRussia, meanwhile, has continued with aggressive ground operations. A situation report from the Institute for the Study of War published on Monday set out the recent success of Russian and North Korean forces taking back Russian territory in Kursk oblast, and the most recent reports suggest that Ukrainian forces are now under threat in the village of Sudzha, their last significant foothold.But the ISW also notes that in most areas within Ukraine, Russia has failed to make significant recent gains. If the land offensive within Ukraine remains at an impasse, the Kremlin has dramatically stepped up aerial attacks, with massive ballistic missile and drone strikes aimed at critical infrastructure last week. In the aftermath of that attack, Trump said that he was considering new sanctions on Russia. None have yet come into force.What else we’ve been readingView image in fullscreen

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      After the arrest of Rodrigo Duterte yesterday, it’s worth going back to coverage of the horrors exacted by his “war on drugs” in the Philippines. This wrenching 2018 piece by his biographer Jonathan Miller tells the story of one family that lost a father and child in the crackdown. Archie

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      SportView image in fullscreenFootball | Gianluigi Donnarumma saved two penalties as PSG beat Liverpool 4-1 in a shootout to send the Paris side through to the quarter-finals. Darwin Nunez and Curtis Jones were both denied from the spot after PSG won the second leg 1-0.Horse racing | Jeremy Scott’s mare Golden Ace emerged as one of the most unexpected of all Champion Hurdle winners on day one of the Cheltenham festival. Golden Ace, a 25-1 shot, won after 2023 and 2024 champions Constitution Hill and State Man were fallers.Football | Manchester United have confirmed their intention to build a new 100,000-capacity stadium in the Old Trafford area, leaving their home of 115 years. Officials claim that the project, which United co-owner Jim Ratcliffe compared to the Eiffel Tower, will create as many as 92,000 jobs and 17,000 new homes in Greater Manchester.The front pagesView image in fullscreenThe Guardian leads with “US says ‘ball in Russia’s court’ as Ukraine agrees 30-day ceasefire”. The deal dominated UK headlines on Wednesday with the Times running with “Kyiv open to ceasefire as Trump restarts aid,” the i with “Ceasefire in Ukraine – if Putin agrees,” and the Daily Mail “Ukraine agrees ceasefire deal.” “Putin told to agree Ukraine ceasefire,” was the take IN the Telegraph.“Trump ratchets up Canada trade war with 50% aluminium and steel tariffs,” writes the Financial Times. The Express follows the latest on the crossbow killer with the headline: “‘I am so proud of all my girls’”. The Mirror runs with “Jail … then hell” and the Metro: “‘They’ll roll out the red carpet in hell’”.Today in FocusView image in fullscreenCan Canada’s ‘rockstar banker’ PM take on Trump and win?The former governor of the Bank of England has a new role – saving his country from becoming America’s 51st state. Leyland Cecco reportsCartoon of the day | Rebecca HendinView image in fullscreenThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all badView image in fullscreenThe Guardianas del Conchalito are a group of women who ignored calls to “get back to the kitchen” to create a sustainable shellfish project in Mexico. In 2017, the women were hanging out in La Paz, in the Mexican state of Baja California, and gazing at a polluted mangrove plantation. Drug dealers and tourism were ruining the area, and illegal fishing was depleting the shellfish population. “The mangroves were dying, the trash was everywhere,” Graciela “Chela” Olachea, told the Guardian’s Joanna Moorhead. The women cleaned up the mangrove and sought out funders to help make it sustainable, turning the Guardianas del Conchalito into a legally recognised community cooperative that pays members a living wage. But the project hasn’t only transformed the mangroves, it’s transformed thewomen’s lives. As Guardianas member Rosa María Hale Romero put it: “I used to ask my husband’s permission if I wanted to leave the house. Now if I go out, I just tell him: ‘I’ll be back.’ And instead of me serving him, he brings me my coffee.”Bored at work?And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

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      Trump is using the presidency to seek golf deals – hardly anyone’s paying attention | Mohamad Bazzi

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      In his first month in office, Donald Trump destroyed federal agencies, fired thousands of government workers and unleashed dozens of executive orders. The US president also found time to try to broker an agreement between two rival golf tournaments, the US-based PGA Tour and the LIV Golf league, funded by Saudi Arabia.If concluded, the deal would directly benefit Trump’s family business, which owns and manages golf courses around the world. And it would be the latest example of Trump using the presidency to advance his personal interests.On 20 February, Trump hosted a meeting at the White House between Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, and Yasir al-Rumayyan, chair of LIV Golf and head of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, along with the golf star Tiger Woods. It was the second meeting convened by Trump at the White House this month with PGA Tour officials involved in negotiating with the Saudi wealth fund. A day before his latest attempt at high-level golf diplomacy, Trump travelled to Miami to speak at a conference organized by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which is managed by Al-Rumayyan but ultimately controlled by the kingdom’s de facto ruler and crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.Trump’s sports diplomacy in the Oval Office and cozying up to Saudi investors in Miami did not get much attention compared with his whirlwind of executive orders and new policies. But these incidents encapsulate Trump’s transactional and corrupt approach to governing – and the ways that wealthy autocrats including Prince Mohammed will be able to exploit the US president. While Trump will often boast he is making good deals for the US, his relationship with Saudi Arabia and its crown prince is largely built on benefits for Trump’s family and its extensive business interests.During Trump’s first term, the Trump Organization had dealings with Saudi Arabia that posed a potential conflict of interest for the president, especially after Saudi government lobbyists spent more than $270,000 on rooms at the Trump International hotel in downtown Washington. Now with no guardrails from Congress or the courts, the Trump family business is plowing ahead with new agreements that could reap tens of millions of dollars in profit from Saudi-linked real estate and golf ventures.In December, a month after Trump was elected to a second term, the Trump Organization announced several real estate projects in Saudi Arabia, including a Trump Tower in the capital, Riyadh, and another $530m residential tower in the city of Jeddah. The projects are branding deals for Trump’s family business with Dar Global, an international subsidiary of Dar Al Arkan, one of the largest real estate companies in Saudi Arabia. While Dar Al Arkan is a private company, it relies on large Saudi government contracts and the crown prince’s goodwill.After a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, the Trump Organization lost a series of real estate partnerships and other deals in the US. During Trump’s years out of power, Saudi Arabia became one of the few consistent sources of new deals and growth for the Trump brand, which was considered toxic by many US customers and businesses. Aside from real estate branding agreements with Saudi companies, Trump convinced the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund to host the LIV professional golf tour at several of his golf courses, including those in Washington, Miami and Bedminster, New Jersey. After the assault on the Capitol, the PGA of America, which is a separate organization from the PGA Tour and runs one of golf’s most important tournaments, the PGA Championship, cancelled a 2022 tournament at Trump’s golf club in New Jersey. The LIV Golf tournaments brought Trump’s properties back into the professional golfing circuit and provided millions of dollars in revenue for the Trump family business.In November 2022, as Trump was preparing to announce his presidential campaign, the Trump Organization finalized a deal with Dar Al Arkan and the government of Oman to be part of a multibillion-dollar real estate development in Oman. While the Trump Organization is not expected to contribute funds toward the project’s development, it will earn millions of dollars in licensing fees for a Trump-branded hotel and golf course – and will be paid millions more in management fees for up to 30 years. The project raised concerns that if Trump was re-elected, he would violate the US constitution’s emoluments clause by profiting from being in a partnership with the government of Oman, a longtime US ally, and a real estate firm with close ties to the Saudi government. (A report released by Democrats in Congress last year found that Trump’s businesses had received $7.8m from at least 20 foreign governments during his first term as president.)As Saudi Arabia helped keep Trump’s family business afloat after the Capitol insurrection, it provided even more crucial support to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser during the first Trump administration. Six months after Kushner left the White House in 2021, his newly created firm, Affinity Partners, secured a $2bn investment from the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund. Prince Mohammed overruled a panel of advisers who had recommended against investing in Kushner’s company, citing its lack of experience and track record in private equity. The advisers warned that due diligence had found the firm’s early operations “unsatisfactory in all aspects”, but internal documents leaked to the New York Times showed that the prince and his aides were more concerned with using the investment as part of a “strategic relationship” with Kushner.Why was Prince Mohammed so eager to invest in Trump and Kushner’s businesses, even when they were out of power? The prince was betting on a second Trump term – and he was rewarding Trump’s steadfast support throughout his presidency. The Trump administration helped Prince Mohammed survive a severe challenge to his rule: fallout from the assassination of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. In October 2018, Khashoggi was ambushed inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul by a 15-member hit team, who suffocated the Saudi journalist and dismembered his body with a bone saw.As the international outcry over Khashoggi’s killing intensified and members of Congress demanded sanctions against Prince Mohammed and other Saudi officials, Trump and Kushner never wavered in their support for the prince and his regime. While Saudi officials at first tried to claim that Khashoggi had left the consulate alive, the crown prince eventually blamed rogue operatives for the assassination. But a US intelligence report, which Trump refused to release, found that Prince Mohammed had ordered Khashoggi’s killing.The president later made sure to remind Prince Mohammed that he owed Trump for defending him after Khashoggi’s assassination. In interviews with the journalist Bob Woodward in early 2020, Trump boasted: “I saved his ass”– meaning he protected the crown prince from a backlash in Congress. “I was able to get Congress to leave him alone,” Trump told Woodward. “I was able to get them to stop.”Today, the president is trying to reap more benefits based on his protection of Prince Mohammed – beyond what Kushner and the Trump Organization have already amassed from Saudi investments during Trump’s time out of office. Trump is corrupting the presidency by using it to negotiate international golf agreements and other deals that will ultimately enrich his family – and hardly anyone is objecting.

      Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor at New York University More