🔵 Zelensky 'Regrets'

Author

Citizen Frank
March 01, 2025

Good evening. It’s Friday, February 28.

 

According to CBS News‘ Jennifer Jacobs:

High-level Trump sources tell me the White House is now uncertain if they can get the Russians and Ukrainians to stop fighting because this episode with Zelensky raised questions about whether he can move forward toward a peace deal. It also raises questions about whether US will pause aid to Ukraine. But Trump is NOT seeking regime change in Ukraine. No discussions about who in Ukraine might be a better leader than Zelenskyy.

Ukrainian officials have reached out this afternoon to senior White House officials desperate to get the deal back on track. But that will not happen today, I’m told. Trump is unwilling to talk to Zelenskyy further today.

The State Department this week terminated a U.S. Agency for International Development initiative that has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to help restore Ukraine’s energy grid from attacks by the Russian military, according to two USAID officials working on the agency’s Ukraine mission.

Power outages have been applied overnight in some regions of Ukraine due to the attacks on energy facilities. The country’s systems have sustained near-constant impact throughout the course of the three-year war.

“It significantly undercuts this administration’s abilities to negotiate on the ceasefire, and it’d signal to Russia that we don’t care about Ukraine or our past investments,” one USAID official involved in the Ukraine mission told NBC News.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on Friday called for Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to resign after a disastrous Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, after which the president asked him to leave.

“He either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with, or he needs to change,” Graham, a longtime advocate for Ukraine and foreign policy hawk, told reporters at the White House.

The South Carolina Republican called the Friday meeting a “complete utter disaster.”

The heated exchange between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has prompted mixed reactions from world leaders and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Friday’s high-profile meeting at the Oval Office grew tense as Vice President JD Vance, Trump, and Zelenskyy discussed the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine and a proposed agreement allowing the U.S. greater access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as a way for the war-torn country to compensate for and continue receiving aid from the United States.

Zelenskyy was expected to sign the deal and was also scheduled to hold a joint news conference. Both were eventually called off.

It was the first call U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held with Mexico’s top military officials, and it wasn’t going well.

Hegseth told the officials that if Mexico didn’t deal with the collusion between the country’s government and drug cartels, the U.S. military was prepared to take unilateral action, according to people briefed on the Jan. 31 call. Mexico’s top brass who were on that call were shocked and angered, feeling he was suggesting U.S. military action inside Mexico, these people said.

Hegseth’s private warning—echoed by other Trump administration officials—now looms over Mexico’s trade talks with President Trump. Their fear: Demands that Mexico end fentanyl smuggling and migrant trafficking are quietly backed by potential U.S. military action—and not just 25% tariffs that would cripple the country’s economy.

Elon Musk has revealed that he and Shivon Zillis have welcomed a fourth child — bringing the billionaire’s brood to a total of 13 confirmed children.

Zilis, a Neuralink executive, took to X on Friday to publicly announce for the first time the baby news — and shared the name of their third child, which has until now not been known.

“Discussed with Elon and, in light of beautiful Arcadia’s birthday, we felt it was better to also just share directly about our wonderful and incredible son Seldon Lycurgus. Built like a juggernaut, with a solid heart of gold. Love him so much,” Zilis wrote, adding a heart emoji.

Pope Francis was resting Saturday after an alarming setback in his two-week recovery from double pneumonia: Doctors had to put him on noninvasive mechanical ventilation following a coughing fit in which he inhaled vomit that needed to then be extracted.

Doctors said it would take a day or two to evaluate how and if the episode impacted Francis’ overall clinical condition. His prognosis remained guarded, meaning he wasn’t out of danger.

In its brief morning update Saturday, the Vatican said: “The night has passed quietly, the pope is resting.”

Legendary Hollywood actor Gene Hackman was dead at least nine days before maintenance workers found the two-time Oscar winner, his wife and one of their dogs inside their sprawling New Mexico home, police said.

The last “event” recorded on “The French Connection” star’s pacemaker was Feb. 17, Santa Fe Sheriff Adan Mendoza said Friday afternoon.

“According to the pathologist, I think it’s a good assumption that was his last day of life,” he told reporters, explaining that the date helps authorities build a timeline to determine what led to the couple’s tragic end.

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