The U.S. is ignoring evidence that Russia is helping Iran because it trusts Putin, says Zelenskyi. The Trump administration is expected to keep waiving Russian oil sanctions, Semafor said. The Kremlin says Russia has the right to defend itself from \u201cpiracy\u201d after a report of a warship escort near the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US has ignored compelling evidence that Russia has been helping Iran to target US bases in the Middle East because it \u201ctrusts\u201d Vladimir Putin, according to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking in an interview with Alastair Campbell on The Rest is Politics podcast, Zelenskyy said he had tried to draw the White House\u2019s attention to the close collaboration between Moscow and Tehran. The Guardian offers a rundown of the conversation. The paragraphs below are quoted from the article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said Russian military satellites had photographed critical energy infrastructure objects in the Gulf states and in Israel, as well as the locations of US army bases across the region. The Kremlin passed details and images to the Iranian regime, he said, to facilitate its attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI said this publicly. Did we hear a reaction from the US to Russia that they have to stop it?\u201d Zelenskyy asked rhetorically. He added: \u201cThe problem is they trust Putin. And it\u2019s a pity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zelenskyy said Donald Trump\u2019s team had failed to \u201creally understand the details of what Russia wants\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked why this was, he said that Trump\u2019s two negotiators \u2013 Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner \u2013 had \u201cspent too much time\u201d with Putin and his senior officials. The pair travelled to Moscow five times last year and have yet to visit Kyiv.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zelenskyy said he had a greater understanding of the Russian leader\u2019s psychology and actual war aims than the White House. Ukraine\u2019s president said Putin would not stop if he got the Donbas, and would next try to seize the regional capitals of Dnipro and Kharkiv.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zelenskyi said on Monday that Ukraine was \u201cworking very concretely right now\u201d with the U.S. on the documents that are part of a peace deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. negotiation team may arrive to Kyiv shortly after Orthodox Easter, which is celebrated on April 12, President Volodymyr Zelenskyi\u2019s chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov told Bloomberg last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking in Budapest on Wednesday, U.S. Vice-President JD Vance appeared to imply that the resolution to the Russian invasion of Ukraine hinged on Kyiv making territorial concessions. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about haggling at this point over a few square kilometres of territory in one direction or another,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump administration will likely extend its waiver of sanctions on Russian oil this week, former Treasury and State Department officials said \u2014 teeing up a similar move on Iranian oil, according to a Semafor report published on Thursday. The paragraphs below are quoted from the article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Treasury Department last month greenlit the sale of previously sanctioned Russian and Iranian oil already on the water through April 11 and April 19, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nearly a month later, experts say there\u2019s little proof the moves have done much to bring down costs beyond temporarily soothing investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A wider universe of buyers for Russian and Iranian oil has allowed the countries to charge more, with Russia at times making an extra $150 million a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, most of the Iranian oil was already in transit to China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Half a dozen former sanctions officials told Semafor recently that they\u2019re still anticipating a Trump administration extension of the Russian oil waiver this week, which would pave the way for an extension of the Iranian oil waiver later this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both waiver extensions would serve as the latest sign sanctions have changed shape during President Donald Trump\u2019s second term, morphing from a first resort for economic pressure into an occasional tool for leverage in markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to see a world where the Trump administration cracks down on Russian oil again, at least between now and the midterm elections,\u201d said Chokepoints author Edward Fishman, who worked on sanctions at the Obama-era State and Treasury departments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russia had the right to defend itself from what it \u200bcalled piracy after a British newspaper reported that a Russian navy frigate had escorted \u200coil tankers sanctioned by Britain through the English Channel, Reuters said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ship tracking data analysed by Reuters showed the two vessels sanctioned by the British government mentioned in the Daily Telegraph report – Russian\u2011flagged Universal and the Cameroon\u2011flagged Enigma – crossed through UK waters between \u200bWednesday and Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, asked about the media report, said that Moscow \u200bhad seen repeated cases of what he described as piracy in international waters and that Russia would act to ensure the safety of its own shipping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Over the past few months, we have witnessed repeated incidents of piracy in international waters. \u200bThese incidents of piracy have, among other things, harmed the economic interests of the Russian Federation,” Peskov \u200btold reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said last month that he had authorised the military \u200bto board and detain Russian ships in British waters to disrupt a network of \u2060vessels that his government says enables Moscow to export oil despite Western sanctions over Ukraine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russia has warned it will respond to any attempts by the British authorities to board Putin’s shadow fleet ships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"