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      Deepfake of U.S. Official Appears After Shift on Ukraine Attacks in Russia

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      A manufactured video fabricated comments by the State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller.A day after U.S. officials said Ukraine could use American weapons in limited strikes inside Russia, a deepfake video of a U.S. spokesman discussing the policy appeared online.The fabricated video, which is drawn from actual footage, shows the State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, seeming to suggest that the Russian city of Belgorod, just 25 miles north of Ukraine’s border with Russia, was a legitimate target for such strikes.The 49-second video clip, which has an authentic feel despite telltale clues of manipulation, illustrates the growing threat of disinformation and especially so-called deepfake videos powered by artificial intelligence.U.S. officials said they had no information about the origins of the video. But they are particularly concerned about how Russia might employ such techniques to manipulate opinion around the war in Ukraine or even American political discourse.Belgorod “has essentially no civilians remaining,” the video purports to show Mr. Miller saying at the State Department in response to a reporter’s question, which was also manufactured. “It’s practically full of military targets at this point, and we are seeing the same thing starting in the regions around there.”“Russia needs to get the message that this is unacceptable,” Mr. Miller adds in the video, which has been circulating on Telegram channels followed by residents of Belgorod widely enough to draw responses from Russian government officials.The claim in the video about Belgorod is completely false. While it has been the target of some Ukrainian attacks, and its schools operate online, its 340,000 residents have not been evacuated.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 Hints U.S. May Allow Ukraine Greater Latitude to Strike in Russia

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      The U.S. secretary of state suggested that Ukraine’s use of American-supplied arms could expand beyond the current limitation to strikes in the Kharkiv area.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken left open the possibility on Friday that President Biden could allow Ukraine to use U.S.-made weapons to strike at a broader array of targets inside Russia, going beyond attacks he has approved on launch sites the Russians are using for their current assault on the Kharkiv area.“Going forward, we’ll continue to do what we’ve been doing, which is: As necessary, adapt and adjust,” Mr. Blinken said at a news conference in Prague at the end of a two-day meeting of top diplomats from member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.Mr. Blinken was responding to a reporter’s question on whether the United States might give permission for Ukraine to use U.S.-made weapons to strike deeper into Russia. The phrase “adapt and adjust” is one that Mr. Blinken used in a news conference on Wednesday in Chisinau, Moldova, to suggest that Mr. Biden was about to make a major policy shift and grant Ukraine permission to use the weapons to strike in Russia, as Ukrainian and European leaders had been urging for weeks.American officials then said on Thursday that Mr. Biden had made that decision in recent days and told the Ukrainians, but that the permission to strike in Russia was limited to sites the Russians were using for the assault on Kharkiv. U.S. officials said the ban on Ukraine using weapons for “long range” attacks in Russia had not changed.But Mr. Blinken’s remarks on Friday suggested the ban could change, depending on shifts in battlefield conditions and the direction of the war. He did say, though, that the United States was “proceeding deliberately as well as effectively.” That included ensuring Ukrainian soldiers had the necessary training to use new weapons systems and the capacity to maintain them, he said.American officials say the policy shift means Ukrainian attacks with U.S. weapons in Russia can be pre-emptive, but can only take place within Russian areas near Kharkiv that the Pentagon has designated and that U.S. military officials have communicated to their Ukrainian counterparts.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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      Do Not Allow Putin to Capture Another Pawn in Europe

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      The Georgians call it the Russian Law. It was passed recently by the Parliament in the Republic of Georgia, purportedly to improve transparency by having civil society and media groups that get some of their funds from abroad register as groups “carrying the interests of a foreign power.” But the tens of thousands of Georgians who have taken to the streets again and again against the law know its real goal — to suppress those who would hold the government to account, and to move the country into the orbit of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.The law has drawn stiff rebukes from the United States and Europe. The State Department has announced visa restrictions on officials behind the foreign-agent law and Congress has threatened further sanctions. European Union officials have warned that it could block Georgia’s bid for membership only six months after the country was granted candidate status. This is a serious threat for a country where polls show about 80 percent of the population supporting a Western political orientation.The clash over the foreign-agent law in a small country nestled in the Caucasus Mountains has been largely overshadowed by Russia’s war on Ukraine. Yet it is also at its core an East-West struggle over Georgia’s political path, a contest with cardinal implications for the region’s future. Georgia, in fact, was the first neighboring country invaded by Russia post-Soviet Union, in 2008, to block its westward drift.Now the ruling party, Georgian Dream, seems to share Russia’s goal, though it has generally avoided openly siding with Russia. Launched 12 years ago by the billionaire oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili — who made his money in Russia — as a broad and ill-defined opposition movement, the party has taken an increasingly anti-Western stance in recent years. In a speech in Tbilisi, the nation’s capital, last month, Mr. Ivanishvili inveighed against a “global war party” that, he said, was “appointed from outside” and was using nongovernmental organizations to take control of Georgia. Georgian Dream has also echoed other Russian attacks on purported Western decadence.The foreign-agent bill marks the most overt political attack on Western influence the party has taken. When first introduced last year, massive public protests forced the government to pull it back. But the government revived it this spring, and despite even larger and angrier protests, the protests were as large and angry, the Parliament passed the bill on May 14.The pro-Western president of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili, whose position is largely ceremonial but allows her to block legislation, promptly vetoed the measure, arguing that in essence and spirit it was “a Russian law that contradicts our Constitution and all European standards, and therefore an obstacle to our European path.” Though Georgian Dream has more than enough votes to override the veto, it has not done so yet, and there are reports that it might be prepared to let it stay on the shelf in exchange for Western aid and other perks.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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      G7 Finance Ministers Close Ranks as Tensions with Russia and China Fester

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      Western economic officials projected a united front, and braced for retaliation, as they prepped tougher sanctions and tariffs.Top finance officials from the world’s advanced economies moved toward an agreement on Saturday over how to use Russia’s frozen central bank assets to aid Ukraine and pledged to unite against China’s dumping of cheap exports into their markets, aiming to marshal their economic might to tackle twin crises.The embrace of more ambitious sanctions and protectionism came as finance ministers from the Group of 7 nations gathered for three days of meetings in Stresa, Italy. The proposals under consideration could deepen the divide between the alliance of wealthy Western economies and Russia, China and their allies, worsening a global fragmentation that has worried economists.Efforts by the Group of 7 to influence the two powerful adversaries have had limited success in recent years, but rich countries are making a renewed push to test the limits of their combined economic power.In a joint statement, or communiqué, that was set to be released on Saturday, policymakers said they would stay united on both fronts as geopolitical crises and trade tensions have emerged as the biggest threats to the global economy.“We are making progress in our discussions on potential avenues to bring forward the extraordinary profits stemming from immobilized Russian sovereign assets to the benefit of Ukraine,” the statement, which was reviewed by The New York Times, said.Regarding China, the finance ministers expressed concern about its “comprehensive use of nonmarket policies and practices that undermines our workers, industries, and economic resilience.” They agreed to monitor the negative effects of China’s overcapacity and “consider taking steps to ensure a level playing field.”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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      Obama Is a Surprise Guest Among Allies at Biden’s State Dinner for Kenya

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      The state dinner was held in honor of the African nation, but it was clear that the night was about keeping Democratic allies close as President Biden heads into the heat of the 2024 campaign season.Yes, Barack Obama was there.State dinners are best known as bear hugs for overseas allies, and Thursday’s honoree was Kenya. But the sixth state dinner of President Biden’s term was designed to clutch domestic allies — not the least of them Mr. Obama, whose father was Kenyan — even tighter as the president makes the long slog toward November.The 500-person event, held on the South Lawn of the White House on a humid May evening, was attended by dozens of influential Kenyans, of course. The list included President William Ruto of Kenya and his wife, Rachel, along with three of his daughters. It also included some of the country’s wealthiest figures, like James Mwangi, the chief executive of the global banking conglomerate Equity Group Holdings Limited.“We share a strong respect for the history that connects us together,” Mr. Biden said to his guests during a toast. He quoted from a speech given by President Jimmy Carter, who honored Kenya with a state dinner in 1980: “Neighbors do not share a border but share beliefs.”But the evening, along with the guest list, was just as notable for what it said about Mr. Biden’s current political obstacles. Aside from Mr. Obama — the former president was not on the initial guest list published by the White House, and he departed before Mr. Biden’s speech — the list name-checked the people Mr. Biden will want to bring closer into the fold in the months ahead. The lineup included elected officials in several battleground states, influential Black political operatives, and powerful philanthropists, like Melinda French Gates.Choosing their guests, the president and Jill Biden, the first lady, mixed supporters of the president’s re-election effort with several Biden family members — granddaughters and Mr. Biden’s son Hunter, who is scheduled to stand trial on gun charges next month. (Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, walked the red carpet alone.) There were few Hollywood types, though one notable attendee was the actor Sean Penn. Mr. Penn was photographed by the gossip website TMZ as he spent time with Hunter Biden, who has been working on a documentary about his life, in California earlier this month.Hunter Biden and the actor Sean Penn listened to President William Ruto of Kenya as he spoke at the dinner.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesWe 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 Plays Up His Putin Ties in Claiming He Could Get Gershkovich Released

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      Former President Donald J. Trump claimed that, if re-elected, he could draw on his relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin to press Russia into releasing Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who has been detained in a Moscow jail for more than a year.Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post that Mr. Gershkovich would be “released almost immediately after the election, but definitely before I assume office,” suggesting that his securing Mr. Gershkovich’s release was contingent on his defeating President Biden in November.“Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, will do that for me, but not for anyone else,” Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, added. Mr. Trump has frequently bragged about his positive relationship with Mr. Putin, whose strongman tendencies he has praised in interviews and on the campaign trail.Asked about Mr. Trump’s post, a spokesman for the Kremlin, Dmitri S. Peskov, told reporters that “Putin has no contact with Donald Trump, of course.”Mr. Gershkovich, who was arrested in March last year in Russia and charged with espionage shortly after, has been designated by the White House as “wrongfully detained,” a label signifying that the United States views him as the equivalent of a political hostage and believes the charges against him are fabricated.Russia has not presented any evidence to support the spying charge, which Mr. Gershkovich and The Journal have vociferously rejected. The Biden administration has said it is working to secure his release.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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      Russia’s War Machine Revs Up as the West’s Plan to Cap Oil Revenues Sputters

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      Russia has largely evaded attempts by the U.S. and Europe to keep it from profiting from its energy exports.The United States and its allies in the Group of 7 nations set two goals in 2022 when they enacted a novel plan to cap the price of Russian oil: restrict Moscow’s ability to profit from its energy exports while allowing its oil to continue flowing on international markets to prevent a global price shock.A year and a half later, only the latter goal appears to have worked. Energy prices have been relatively stable across the world, including in the United States, which helped devise the plan. But Russia’s war effort in Ukraine is intensifying, making it increasingly clear that efforts by Western allies to squeeze Moscow’s oil revenues are faltering.A variety of factors have allowed Russia to continue profiting from strong oil revenue, including lenient enforcement of the price cap. Russia’s development of an extensive “shadow” fleet of tankers has allowed it to largely circumvent that policy. That has allowed the Russian economy to be more resilient than expected, raising questions about the effectiveness of the coordinated sanctions campaign employed by the G7.The Biden administration maintains that the strategy has been effective and that the price cap has imposed costs on Russia and forced it to redirect money that it would have used in Ukraine to finance an alternative oil ecosystem.Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in an interview on Sunday that the price of Russian oil was not the only measure of their profits, noting that Russia has had to invest significant resources in response to the cap.“We’ve made it very expensive for Russia to ship this oil to China and India in terms of acquiring a shadow fleet and providing insurance,” Ms. Yellen said on her flight to Europe, where she is holding meetings in Germany and attending a gathering of finance ministers in Italy. “We still think it’s working.”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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      Helicopter Crash Increases Pressure as U.S. and Iran Face Crises

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      Even before the announcement on Sunday of the crash of a helicopter believed to be carrying Iran’s president, relations between Tehran and the United States had come perilously close to open conflict. What unfolds in the next few days — whether President Ebrahim Raisi and other leaders survive, and what Iran declares was the cause of the crash — could well determine whether the two countries are able to grope their way out of several simultaneous crises.Over the long term, the struggle that matters most is the one that centers on Iran’s nuclear program. The program had largely been contained after the Obama administration negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015. But President Donald J. Trump denounced and abandoned the deal six years ago, and eventually Iran resumed production of nuclear fuel — enriched to a level just short of what would be needed to produce several bombs.Exactly what role Mr. Raisi has played in critical decision-making in Tehran about Iran’s nuclear strategy was always a matter of dispute; the program is under the control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Iran, a power center unto itself. But American officials say that after nearly reaching an agreement with Iran through European intermediaries two years ago, efforts to negotiate have all but collapsed.Just last week, the Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, who is also believed to have been on the helicopter, met with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, who was demanding better access to Iran’s sprawling nuclear facilities.The nuclear program, and the question of whether Iran will seek a weapon or leverage its status as a threshold power that could produce one quickly, looms over other, more regional confrontations. When Iran shot 300 missiles and drones at Israel last month, the United States coordinated with Israeli and other regional forces to take them down. But the whole exchange, which calmed after a relatively modest Israeli response, was a reminder that the country has sharply expanded its missile program, and its reach, under Mr. Raisi — and is turning to techniques meant to overwhelm Israeli defenses, likely a lesson of the war in Ukraine.Meanwhile, Iran is arming the Houthis — Shiite militants who have taken over most of northern Yemen and attacked shipping in the Red Sea — and providing them with intelligence from at least one Iranian ship. It is providing arms and technology to Hamas and Hezbollah, efforts that also expanded under Mr. Raisi’s rule. And U.S. officials warned recently that as the presidential election approaches, they expect an increase in Iranian hacking attempts.“Iran is becoming increasingly aggressive in their efforts,” Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee last week. It seeks “to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions, as we have seen them do in prior election cycles.” More