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    Three states to deploy hundreds of national guard troops to Washington DC

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    Three states have moved to deploy hundreds of members of their national guard to the nation’s capital as part of the Trump administration’s effort to overhaul policing in Washington through a federal crackdown.West Virginia said it was deploying 300 to 400 guard troops, while South Carolina pledged 200 and Ohio said it would send 150 in the coming days.The moves announced on Saturday came as protesters pushed back on federal law enforcement and national guard troops fanning out in the heavily Democratic city following Donald Trump’s executive order federalizing local police forces and activating about 800 District of Columbia national guard members.West Virginia governor Patrick Morrisey’s office said in a statement that the deployment was “a show of commitment to public safety and regional cooperation” and the state would provide equipment and “approximately 300-400 skilled personnel as directed”.The statement came after Donald Trump ordered hundreds of Washington DC national guard troops to mount a show of force and temporarily took over the city’s police department to curb what the president depicts as a crime and homelessness emergency in the nation’s capital.Data compiled by the DC police department shows that violent crime was actually at a 30-year-low when Trump returned to office in January, and has declined a further 26% since then.Last weekend, Trump ordered the district’s homeless residents to leave, or face forcible relocation, after his motorcade passed a handful of unhoused people en route to his golf course outside the city. On Thursday, local officials cleared away one of the roadside encampments Trump had complained about, arguing that they could do so in a more humane fashion than untrained federal forces.A justice department order to replace the Washington police chief, Pamela Smith, with DEA head Terry Cole as the city’s “emergency police commissioner” ran into problems after a challenge in federal court by the DC attorney general, Brian Schwalb.Without issuing a direct ruling on the challenge, US district judge Ana Reyes indicated that Smith has to remain in charge.But efforts to increase federal control of the district resumed on Saturday with the order to deploy West Virginia’s national guard.Drew Galang, a spokesperson for Morrisey, said the state’s national guard received the order to send equipment and personnel to DC late on Friday and was working to organize the deployment.A White House official told Reuters on Saturday that more national guard troops were being called in to Washington to “protect federal assets, create a safe environment for law enforcement officials to carry out their duties when required, and provide a visible presence to deter crime”.View image in fullscreenA protest against Trump’s intervention drew scores to Dupont Circle on Saturday before a march to the White House, about 1.5 miles away. Demonstrators assembled behind a banner that said, “No fascist takeover of DC”, and some in the crowd held signs saying, “No military occupation”.Fueling the protests were concerns about Trump overreach and that he had used crime as a pretext to impose his will on Washington.The Chamberlain Network, a veteran’s group that describes itself as “dedicated to protecting democracy”, commented on X that the order for West Virginia’s national guard to police DC was “pulling them away from their core mission of protecting our communities”.“From floods to winter storms, we count on our Guard on in a crisis,” the group said. “They should be home, ready to respond—not on a political policing mission.”Since arriving in Washington last week, about 800 national guard troops under Trump’s direct control have served as a visible presence in public areas, assigned to administrative and logistical duties as well as “area beautification” work, according to the Wall Street Journal.Defense officials had said they would not be carrying weapons but “weapons are available if needed but will remain in the armory,” the US army said in a press release.A US official told Reuters that a formal order authorizing the national guard troops to carry firearms would be issued but it would largely affect military police officers with sidearms.The White House also said on Saturday that national guard in DC are conducting patrols on foot and in vehicles around the national mall and Union Station, adding that the troops are not making arrests at this time.Trump has indicated that he may take similar actions in other Democratic-controlled cities. A federal judge in San Francisco is expected in the coming weeks to issue a ruling on whether Trump violated the law by deploying national guard troops to Los Angeles in June without the approval of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom.Typically the national guard is deployed only instances where a state governor requests it. However the DC national guard reports directly to the president. More

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      Trump falsely claims crime in US capital is ‘worst it’s ever been’ as protesters confront federal officers

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      Donald Trump falsely claimed that crime in Washington DC is “the “worst it’s ever been” on Thursday, amid an ongoing federal takeover of the city’s police department and deployment of the national guard and federal agents in the city.“Washington DC is at its worst point,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “It will soon be at its best point.” He also baselessly accused DC law enforcement officials of giving “phony crime stats” and said “they’re under investigation”.The president’s comments came after protesters heckled federal law enforcement officials as they reportedly stopped dozens of cars at a checkpoint along a busy street in Washington DC on Wednesday night.About 20 law enforcement officers, some of whom appeared to be from the Department of Homeland Security, pulled over drivers for infractions such as broken taillights and not wearing seatbelts, according to the Washington Post. At least one woman was reportedly arrested as more than 100 protesters gathered and reportedly yelled things like “get off our streets”, according to NBC News. Some protesters began warning drivers to avoid the area, the outlet reported.Nearly 800 national guard troops have begun arriving in the city this week and the Department of Defense said on Thursday that about 200 national guard members at a time will be on the streets to support federal and local law enforcement. The White House says officials have made more than 100 arrests since Trump announced the takeover on Monday. The Metropolitan police department (MPD) said it made 74 arrests on Wednesday and has made 217 arrests since Monday.The chief of the MPD also reportedly issued an executive order on Thursday allowing the department to notify Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents about undocumented immigrants they find during traffic stops. Previously, the department could not report immigrants to Ice if they had not been charged with a crime. Trump on Thursday called it a “great step”, declining to say whether he pressured the police department to enter into the agreement. “I think that’s going to happen all over the country,” he said.DC’s Home Rule Act of 1973 allows the president to take control of the city’s police force for 30 days for “federal purposes” that the president “may deem necessary and appropriate”. Trump has suggested he will seek to extend that past 30 days. Doing so would require authorization from Congress.Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the US Senate, said on Wednesday that his party would not support Trump’s efforts to extend the takeover. “No fucking way,” Schumer said during a podcast interview with Aaron Parnas. “We’ll fight him tooth and nail.”If Congress doesn’t grant the extension, Trump suggested on Wednesday he could declare an emergency to unilaterally extend the takeover.“If it’s a national emergency we can do it without Congress, but we expect to be before Congress very quickly,” Trump said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump has portrayed the US capital as a crime-ridden metropolis. However, violent crime in DC hit a 30-year low in 2024 after a spike in 2023.“We don’t live in a dirty city,” Washington DC’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, told community groups on Tuesday. “We are not 700,000 scumbags and punks. We don’t have neighborhoods that should be bulldozed. We have to be clear about our story.”Phil Mendelson, a Democrat serving as the chair of the Washington DC city council, told the Washington Post that despite Trump’s politicization of the takeover, the relationship between law enforcement agencies had actually been collaborative.“I think collaborating with MPD and providing additional resources can only be for the good,” he said. “But the president has a national platform, and he’s painted the city as a cesspool of crime. We know that’s not true, but that is damaging to the city.” More

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      US judge hears if Trump team broke law during LA Ice protests

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      A federal judge in San Francisco on Monday began hearing evidence and arguments on whether the Trump administration violated federal law when it deployed national guard soldiers and US marines to Los Angeles after protests over immigration raids this summer.The Trump administration federalized California national guard members and sent them to the second-largest US city over the objections of the California governor, Gavin Newsom, and city leaders, after protests erupted on 7 June when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers arrested people at multiple locations.California is asking Judge Charles Breyer to order the Trump administration to return control of the remaining troops to the state and to stop the federal government from using military troops in California “to execute or assist in the execution of federal law or any civilian law enforcement functions by any federal agent or officer”.“The factual question which the court must address is whether the military was used to enforce domestic law, and if so, whether there continues to be a threat that it could be done again,” Breyer said at the start of Monday’s court hearing.The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act prevents the president from using the military as a domestic police force. The case could set precedent for how Trump can deploy the guard in the future in California or other states.Trump’s decision to deploy the troops marked the first time in 60 years that a US president had taken such a step without a governor’s consent. Critics say that Trump’s actions in many ways reflect a strongman approach by a president who has continuously tread upon norms and has had a disregard for institutional limits.“This is the first, perhaps, of many,” Trump said in June of the deployment of national guardsmen in Los Angeles. “You know, if we didn’t attack this one very strongly, you’d have them all over the country, but I can inform the rest of the country, that when they do it, if they do it, they’re going to be met with equal or greater force.”Many of the troops have been withdrawn, but Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, said on Sunday that 300 national guard troops remain in the state. The Trump administration last week extended the activation of troops in the LA area through 6 November, according to a court filing by Newsom.“The federal government deployed military troops to the streets of Los Angeles for the purposes of political theater and public intimidation,” Bonta said in a statement. “This dangerous move has no precedent in American history.”The hearing comes the same day Trump placed the DC Metropolitan police department under federal control and deployed the national guard by invoking section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act.The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said national guard units would take to the streets of DC over the coming week.The Department of Defense ordered the deployment of roughly 4,000 California national guard troops and 700 marines. Most of the troops have since left but 250 national guard members remain, according to the latest figures provided by the Pentagon. The remaining troops are at the Joint Forces training base in Los Alamitos, according to Newsom.Newsom won an early victory from Breyer, who found the Trump administration had violated the 10th amendment, which defines power between federal and state governments, and exceeded its authority.The Trump administration immediately filed an appeal arguing that courts cannot second guess the president’s decisions and secured a temporary halt from the appeals court, allowing control of the California national guard to stay in federal hands as the lawsuit continues to unfold.After their deployment, the soldiers accompanied federal immigration officers on immigration raids in Los Angeles and at two marijuana farm sites in Ventura county while marines mostly stood guard around a federal building in downtown Los Angeles that includes a detention center at the core of protests.The Trump administration argued the troops were needed to protect federal buildings and personnel in Los Angeles, which has been a battleground in the federal government’s aggressive immigration strategy. Since June, federal agents have rounded up immigrants without legal status to be in the US from Home Depots, car washes, bus stops and farms. Some US citizens have also been detained.Ernesto Santacruz Jr, the field office director for the Department of Homeland Security in Los Angeles, said in court documents that the troops were needed because local law enforcement had been slow to respond when a crowd gathered outside the federal building to protest against the 7 June immigration arrests.“The presence of the national guard and marines has played an essential role in protecting federal property and personnel from the violent mobs,” Santacruz said.After opposition from the Trump administration, Breyer issued an order allowing California’s attorneys to take Santacruz’s deposition. They also took a declaration from a military official on the national guard and marines role in Los Angeles.The Trump administration’s attorneys argued in court filings last week the case should be canceled because the claims under the Posse Comitatus Act “fail as a matter of law”. They argued that there is a law that gives the president the authority to call on the national guard to enforce US laws when federal law enforcement is not enough.Trump federalized members of the California national guard under Section 12406 of Title 10, which allows the president to call the national guard into federal service when the country “is invaded”, when “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government” or when the president is otherwise unable “to execute the laws of the United States”.Breyer found the protests in Los Angeles “fall far short of ‘rebellion”.“Next week’s trial is not cancelled,” he said in a ruling ordering the three-day, non-jury trial.During the month the protests took place, tensions heightened between Trump and Newsom. The California governor compared the president with failed dictators and Trump entertained the idea of having Newsom arrested. More

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      Fort Bliss army base on US southern border to take 1,000 Ice detainees

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      Fort Bliss is preparing to accept 1,000 immigrant detainees as the Trump administration moves to use military bases for its unprecedented mass deportation operation and immigration crackdown.The facility, named Camp East Montana, is set to begin operations on 17 August at the US army post near El Paso, Texas. Ice (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) said in a statement that the facility will initially house up to 1,000 detainees, with plans to expand to a capacity of 5,000 beds.If the center reaches full capacity, the El Paso Times reports that it would become the largest immigration detention facility in the US.An Ice spokesperson said the agency is using the facility to help “decompress Ice detention facilities in other regions” and will serve as a short-term processing center. The statement adds that deportations carried out via “Ice air operations” will also take place at the facility.According to Ice, the facility will house undocumented immigrants who “are in removal proceedings or who have final orders of removal”.The site is being constructed under a Department of Defense contract, Ice said, and is funded “as part of the essential whole-of-government approach to protecting public safety and preserving national security”.In July, administration officials announced that Acquisition Logistics LLC, a Virginia-based contractor, was awarded a $231.8m firm-fixed-price contract to “establish and operate” the “5,000 capacity, single adult, short-term detention facility”.Bloomberg reported that Acquisition Logistics has no prior experience operating detention facilities.View image in fullscreenIn the statement from Ice, the agency said that Ice personnel “will be responsible for the management and operational authority” at the facility, and that the establishment of the center is being “carried out with contracted support and according to Ice detention standards”.The agency described the facility as “soft-sided” and said that it will offer “everything a traditional Ice detention facility offers”, which Ice said includes access to legal representation, a law library and space for visitation, recreation and medical treatment, as well as “necessary accommodations for disabilities, diet and religious belief”.In a statement to the Guardian, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin also confirmed the use of Fort Bliss to house immigration detainees.“Ice is indeed pursuing all available options to expand bedspace capacity” McLaughlin said. “This process does include housing detainees at certain military bases, including Fort Bliss.”In March, the Guardian reported that Fort Bliss has been used under multiple administrations for immigration-related operations.Under this Trump administration, the base has reportedly already been used to fly deportees on military aircraft to Guantánamo Bay and Central and South America.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionUnder Joe Biden, it was used as an emergency shelter to for thousands of unaccompanied migrant children. In 2021, Fort Bliss also reportedly played a key role in resettling Afghan refugees brought to the US after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. And in 2016, under the Obama administration, Fort Bliss housed several hundred unaccompanied migrant children.The new facility being established at Fort Bliss comes as the Trump administration has sought to use several US military bases around the country as immigration detention facilities.The expansion has faced some criticism from Democrats. Texas representative Veronica Escobar, whose district includes Fort Bliss, warned that using military facilities as immigration detention centers could hurt the effectiveness of US military forces.“It’s not good for our readiness, and it degrades our military,” she said.Last month, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, announced that both the Camp Atterbury base in Indiana and the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey could now house detained immigrants.Democrats from both states condemned the move, with New Jersey’s Democratic delegation warning that “using our country’s military to detain and hold undocumented immigrants jeopardizes military preparedness and paves the way for Ice immigration raids in every New Jersey community”.The planned opening of the new immigration detention facility near El Paso also comes as a new report released this week by the office of the US senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat representing Georgia, found and documented hundreds of alleged human rights abuses at immigration detention centers in the US since 20 January 2025.The report cites deaths in custody, physical and sexual abuse of detainees, mistreatment of pregnant women and children, overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions, exposure to extreme temperatures, denial of access to attorneys, child separation, and more.In a statement about the report’s allegations, a spokesperson for the DHS told NBC News that “any claim that there are subprime conditions at Ice detention centers are false”. 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      ‘Deterrence is boring’: the US troops at sharp end of Trump’s border crackdown

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      Inside an armored vehicle, an army scout uses a joystick to direct a long-range optical scope toward a man perched atop the US-Mexico border wall cutting across the hills of this Arizona frontier community.The man lowers himself toward US soil between coils of concertina wire. Shouts ring out, an alert is sounded and a US Customs and Border Protection SUV races toward the wall – warning enough to send the man scrambling back over it, disappearing into Mexico.The sighting on Tuesday was one of only two for the army infantry unit patrolling this sector of the southern border, where an emergency declaration by Donald Trump has thrust the military into a central role in deterring migrant crossings at US ports of entry.“Deterrence is actually boring,” said 24-year-old Sgt Ana Harker-Molina, giving voice to the tedium felt by some fellow soldiers over the sporadic sightings. Still, she said she takes pride in the work, knowing that troops discourage crossings by their mere presence.“Just if we’re sitting here watching the border, it’s helping our country,” said Harker-Molina, an immigrant herself who came from Panama at age 12 and became a US citizen two years ago while serving in the army.View image in fullscreenUS troop deployments at the border have tripled to 7,600 and include every branch of the military – even as the number of attempted illegal crossings has plummeted and Trump has authorized funding for an additional 3,000 border patrol agents, offering $10,000 signing and retention bonuses.The military mission is guided from a new command center at a remote army intelligence training base alongside southern Arizona’s Huachuca mountains. There, a community hall has been transformed into a bustling war room of battalion commanders and staff with digital maps pinpointing military camps and movements along the nearly 2,000-mile border.Until now, border enforcement had been the domain of civilian law enforcement, with the military only intermittently stepping in. But in April, large swaths of the border were designated militarized zones, empowering US troops to apprehend immigrants and others accused of trespassing on army, air force or navy bases, and authorizing additional criminal charges that can mean prison time.The two-star general leading the mission says troops are being untethered from maintenance and warehouse tasks to work closely with border patrol agents in high-traffic areas for illegal crossings – and to deploy rapidly to remote, unguarded terrain.View image in fullscreen“We don’t have a [labor] union, there’s no limit on how many hours we can work in a day, how many shifts we can man,” said Maj Gen Scott Naumann of the army. “I can put soldiers out whenever we need to in order to get after the problem and we can put them out for days at a time; we can fly people into incredibly remote areas now that we see the cartels shifting” course.At Nogales, army scouts patrolled the border in full battle gear – helmet, M5 service rifle, bullet-resistant vest – with the right to use deadly force if attacked under standing military rules integrated into the border mission. Underfoot, smugglers for decades routinely attempted to tunnel into stormwater drains to ferry contraband into the US.Naumann’s command post oversees an armada of 117 armored Stryker vehicles, more than 35 helicopters, and a half-dozen long-distance drones that can survey the border day and night with sensors to pinpoint people wandering the desert. Marine Corps engineers are adding concertina wire to slow crossings, as the Trump administration reboots border wall construction.Naumann said the focus is on stopping “got-aways” who evade authorities to disappear into the US in a race against the clock that can last seconds in urban areas as people vanish into smuggling vehicles, or several days in the dense wetland thickets of the Rio Grande or the vast desert and mountainous wilderness of Arizona.Meanwhile, the rate of apprehensions at the border has fallen to a 60-year low.View image in fullscreenNaumann says the falloff in illegal entries is the “elephant in the room” as the military increases pressure and resources aimed at starving smuggling cartels – including Latin American gangs recently designated as foreign terrorist organizations.He says it would be wrong to let up, though, and that crossings may rebound with the end of scorching summer weather.“We’ve got to keep going after it; we’re having some successes, we are trending positively,” he said of the mission with no fixed end date.The Trump administration is using the military broadly to boost its immigration operations.“It’s all part of the same strategy that is a very muscular, robust, intimidating, aggressive response to this – to show his base that he was serious about a campaign promise to fix immigration,” said Dan Maurer, a law professor at Ohio Northern University and a retired army judge advocate officer. “It’s both norm-breaking and unusual. It puts the military in a very awkward position.”View image in fullscreenThe militarized zones at the border sidestep the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that prohibits the military from conducting civilian law enforcement on US soil.“It’s in that gray area. It may be a violation – it may not be. The military’s always had the authority to arrest people and detain them on military bases,” said Joshua Kastenberg, a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law and a former air force judge.Michael Fisher, a security consultant and former chief of the border patrol from 2010 to 2016, calls the military expansion at the border a “force multiplier” as border patrol agents increasingly turn up far from the border.“The military allows border patrol to be able to flex into other areas where they typically would not be able to do so,” he said.At daybreak on Wednesday in Arizona, Spc Luisangel Nito scanned a valley with an infrared scope that highlights body heat, spotting three people as they crossed illegally into the US, in preparation for the border patrol to apprehend them. Nito’s unit also has equipment that can ground small drones used by smugglers to plot entry routes.View image in fullscreenNito is the US-born son of Mexican immigrants who entered the country in the 1990s through the same valleys he now patrols.“They crossed right here,” he said. “They told me to just be careful because back when they crossed they said it was dangerous.”Nito’s parents returned to Mexico in 2008 amid the financial crisis, but the soldier saw brighter opportunities in the US, returned and enlisted. He expressed no reservations about his role in detaining undocumented immigrants.“Obviously it’s a job, right, and then I signed up for it and I’m going to do it,” he said. More

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      Lobbyists linked to Donald Trump paid millions by world’s poorest countries

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      Some of the world’s poorest countries have started paying millions to lobbyists linked to Donald Trump to try to offset US cuts to foreign aid, an investigation reveals.Somalia, Haiti and Yemen are among 11 countries to sign significant lobbying deals with figures tied directly to the US president after he slashed US foreign humanitarian assistance.Many states have already begun bartering crucial natural resources – including minerals – in exchange for humanitarian or military support, the investigation by Global Witness found.USAID officially closed its doors last week after Trump’s dismantling of the agency, a move experts warn could cause more than 14 million avoidable deaths over five years.Emily Stewart, Global Witness’s head of policy for transition minerals, said the situation meant that deal making in Washington could become “more desperate and less favourable to low-income countries”, which had become increasingly vulnerable to brutal exploitation of their natural resources.Documents show that within six months of last November’s US election, contracts worth $17m (£12.5m) were signed between Trump-linked lobbying firms and some of the world’s least-developed countries, which were among the highest recipients of USAID.Records submitted under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act reveal some countries signed multiple contracts, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has endured mass displacement and conflict over its mineral wealth for years.The DRC is primed to sign a mineral deal with the US for support against Rwanda-backed rebels, providing American companies access to lithium, cobalt and coltan.The DRC – a former top-10 USAID recipient – signed contracts worth $1.2m with the lobbyists Ballard Partners.The firm, owned by Brian Ballard, lobbied for Trump well before the 2016 US election and was a leading donor to the US president’s political campaign.Somalia and Yemen signed contracts with BGR Government Affairs – $550,000 and $372,000 respectively.A former BGR partner, Sean Duffy, is now Trump’s transport secretary, one of myriad links between the US president and the lobbying firm.The government of Pakistan, a country that struggles with extreme poverty but is extremely rich in minerals, has signed two contracts with Trump-linked lobbyists worth $450,000 a month.Pakistan is now tied up in deals with multiple individuals in Trump’s inner circle, including the president’s former bodyguard Keith Schiller.Access to key natural resources has become a priority for Trump, particularly rare earth minerals. These are considered critical to US security, but the global supply chains for them are dominated by China.Other nations are offering exclusive access to ports, military bases and rare earths in exchange for US support.Although Global Witness said the revolving door between governments and lobbyists was nothing new, the organisation said it was concerned by the broader, exploitative dynamics driving new deals.Stewart said: “We’re seeing a dramatic cut in aid, combined with an explicit rush for critical minerals, and willingness by the Trump administration to secure deals in exchange for aid or military assistance.“Dealmaking needs to be transparent and fair. It is vital to recognise the role that international aid plays in making a safer world for all, and that aid should retain its distinct role away from trade.” More

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      Zelenskyy to replace Ukraine’s envoy to US in diplomatic shuffle

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      Volodymyr Zelenskyy is replacing Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, who has been heavily criticised by leading Republicans, as part a diplomatic reshuffle designed to strengthen ties with the Trump administration.Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, confirmed on Wednesday that Oksana Markarova will be recalled from Washington after four years in the job. He described her as “extremely effective, charismatic and one of our most successful ambassadors”.He indicated that several top ambassadors to G7 and G20 countries would also be moved, telling Ukrainian radio “Every diplomat has a rotation cycle”.The diplomatic shake-up comes at a critical moment in the war. Russian troops have been attacking across the 600-mile frontline and in recent weeks the speed of their gains has increased, with the Kremlin spokesperson declaring: “We are advancing.”Russian combat units are for the first time close to crossing into Dnipropetrovsk oblast.Late on Tuesday and early on Wednesday, Russia carried out its biggest aerial attack since the start of its full-scale invasion in February 2022. It involved a record 728 Shahed-type drones, as well as 13 cruise and ballistic missiles. Most were shot down.The US House of Representatives speaker, Mike Johnson, is among the Republican figures who have criticised Markarova, accusing her of supporting the Democratic party and its candidate Kamala Harris in the run-up to last November’s presidential election.View image in fullscreenIn February she was pictured with her head in her hand during Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s disastrous meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office.There were calls for her dismissal after Zelenskyy visited a shell factory in Pennsylvania last September. Markarova organised the visit and did not invite a single Republican, Johnson said at the time.Ukrainian officials deny any bias but acknowledge the ambassador previously had good relations with the Biden administration and was close to Victoria Nuland, the then undersecretary of state for political affairs.Zelenskyy and Trump discussed Markarova’s departure during a phone call last Friday which Ukraine’s president hailed as their most constructive to date.On Tuesday, Trump expressed growing frustration with Vladimir Putin and announced US weapons deliveries to Kyiv would be restarted. His announcement followed a week-long pause, apparently ordered by Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defense.The shipment includes Patriot interceptor missiles and other precision munitions. It is unclear how many will be transferred. The US news website Axios reported 10 missiles would be delivered – a tiny amount at a time when Moscow has dramatically escalated its bombardment of Ukrainian cities.The overnight raid was directed at the northwestern city of Lutsk. At least six civilians were killed and 39 injured in several other regions of the country, including Kharkiv and Donetsk in the north-east and east, and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south.A one-year-old boy, Dmytro, died in the village of Pravdyne in Kherson oblast when the Russians hit his house with drones, the local administration reported. The boy had been staying with his great-grandmother.One possible successor to Markarova in Washington is said to be Ihor Zhovkva, the deputy head of the office of Ukraine’s president. Zhovka’s immediate boss is Andriy Yermak, who is widely seen as the most influential person in Ukrainian politics after Zelenskyy.Other names include the finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, and Olha Stefanishyna, who is deputy prime minister for Europe and Euro-Atlantic integration, as well as minister of justice.There is growing optimism in Kyiv that Trump’s pivot earlier this year towards Russia has been halted, if not quite reversed. One former Ukrainian official credited Jonathan Powell, the UK’s national security adviser and a veteran negotiator, with the transformation.Powell has played an important role in repairing Zelenskyy’s fraught relations with Washington after the Oval Office bust-up.He advised Ukraine’s government to avoid confronting the US president and to take his words as truth. The approach – described as “strategic patience” – was beginning to pay off, the official suggested.Zelenskyy has agreed to US proposals for a 30-day ceasefire, repeatedly praised Trump’s leadership, and signed a deal giving American investors access to Ukraine’s valuable natural resources.On Wednesday he met Pope Leo in Rome before a two-day international conference, organised to help Ukraine’s postwar recovery. Zelenskyy said they had discussed the return of Ukrainian children and civilians who had been abducted by Russia and the Vatican’s offer to facilitate peace negotiations.Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is due to attend the conference. In a recent call with Trump, Merz reportedly offered to buy Patriot anti-defence batteries from the US and to send them to Ukraine.Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, is also due in Rome and is likely to hold talks on weapons deliveries with Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s defence minister. More

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      Pentagon provided $2.4tn to private arms firms to ‘fund war and weapons’, report finds

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      A new study of defense department spending previewed exclusively to the Guardian shows that most of the Pentagon’s discretionary spending from 2020 to 2024 has gone to outside military contractors, providing a $2.4tn boon in public funds to private firms in what was described as a “continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing”.The report from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and Costs of War project at Brown University said that the Trump administration’s new Pentagon budget will push annual US military spending past the $1tn mark.That will deliver a projected windfall of more than half a trillion dollars that will be shared among top arms firms such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon as well as a growing military tech sector with close allies in the administration such as JD Vance, the report said.The report is compiled of statistics of Pentagon spending and contracts from 2020 to 2024, during which time the top five Pentagon contractors (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman) received $771bn in contract awards. Overall, private firms received approximately 54% of the department’s discretionary spending of $4.4tn over that period.Taking into account supplemental funding for the Pentagon passed by Congress under Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”, the report said, the US military budget will have nearly doubled this century, increasing 99% since 2000.The rapid growth in military spending that began under the Bush administration’s post-9/11 and the “global war on terror” has now been continued on spending to counter China as the US’s main rival in the 21st century, as well record foreign arms transfers to Israel and Ukraine.“The US withdrawal from Afghanistan in September 2021 did not result in a peace dividend,” the authors of the report wrote. “Instead, President Biden requested, and Congress authorized, even higher annual budgets for the Pentagon, and President Trump is continuing that same trajectory of escalating military budgets.”That contradicts early indications from Trump in February that he could cut military spending in half, adding that he would tell China and Russia that “there’s no reason for us to be spending almost $1tn on the military … and I’m going to say we can spend this on other things”. Instead, the spending bill pushed by Trump through Congress included a $157bn spending boost for the Pentagon.The growth in spending will increasingly benefit firms in the “military tech” sector who represent tech companies like SpaceX, Palantir and Anduril, the report said, that are “deeply embedded in the Trump administration, which should give it an upper hand in the budget battles to come”.“High Pentagon budgets are often justified because the funds are ‘for the troops’,” said William D Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and an author of the report. “But as this paper shows, the majority of the department’s budget goes to corporations, money that has as much to do with special interest lobbying as it does with any rational defense planning. Much of this funding has been wasted on dysfunctional or overpriced weapons systems and extravagant compensation packages.”“These figures represent a continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing,” said Stephanie Savell, director of the Costs of War project.Calculated for inflation, the military spending dwarfs an approximate $356bn that Congress had appropriated for US diplomacy, development and humanitarian aid.The Trump administration has continued to slash money spent on aid. Last month, the Guardian revealed that a White House review of grants to the state department recommended a near total cut on democracy promotion programs.The Guardian has contacted the Pentagon for comment. More

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      Hegseth falsely cited weapon shortages in halting shipments to Ukraine, Democrats say

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      Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, unilaterally halted an agreed shipment of military aid to Ukraine due to baseless concerns that US stockpiles of weapons have run too low, it has been reported.A batch of air defense missiles and other precision munitions were due to be sent to Ukraine to aid it in its ongoing war with Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in 2022. The aid was promised by the US during Joe Biden’s administration last year.But the Pentagon halted the shipment, with NBC reporting that a decision to do so was made solely by Hegseth, Donald Trump’s top defense official and a former Fox News weekend host who has previously come under pressure for sharing plans of a military strike in two group chats on the messaging app Signal, one of which accidentally included a journalist.Hegseth has now halted US military supplies to Ukraine on three occasions, NBC said, with the latest intervention purportedly coming due to concerns that the US’s own weapons stockpile is running too low.When the president was asked about the pause in shipments to Ukraine by a reporter on Thursday, he claimed that it was necessary because “Biden emptied out our whole country, giving them weapons, and we have to make sure we have enough for ourselves”.A White House spokesperson said last week that the decision “was made to put America’s interests first following a [defense department] review of our nation’s military support and assistance to other countries across the globe. The strength of the United States armed forces remains unquestioned – just ask Iran.”“This capability review,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told reporters on Wednesday, “is being conducted to ensure US military aid aligns with our defense priorities.”“We see this as a commonsense, pragmatic step towards having a framework to evaluate what munitions are sent and where,” Parnell added. He also seemed to confirm that there is no current shortage of arms for US forces. “Let it be known that our military has everything that it needs to conduct any mission, anywhere, anytime, all around the world,” he said.The decision surprised members of Congress, as well as Ukraine and the US’s European allies. Democrats said there is no evidence that American weapon stocks are in decline.“We are not at any lower point, stockpile-wise, than we’ve been in the three-and-a-half years of the Ukraine conflict,” Adam Smith, a Democrat and ranking member of the House armed services committee, told NBC. Smith said that his staff had “seen the numbers” on weapon supplies and that there is no justification to suspend aid to Ukraine.The weapons being delayed include dozens of Patriot interceptor missiles that can defend against Russian missile attacks, as well as howitzers and other missile systems.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRussia has recently stepped up its bombardment of Ukrainian cities, using missiles and drones to wreak havoc and terror among Ukrainian civilians. The delay in getting help to fend off these attacks is “painful”, a senior Ukrainian lawmaker said last week.“This decision is certainly very unpleasant for us,” said Fedir Venislavskyi, a member of the Ukrainian parliament’s defense committee, according to Reuters.“It’s painful, and against the background of the terrorist attacks which Russia commits against Ukraine.”The Department of Defense did not reply to a request for comment on the aid pause. More