Biden-Putin Call Yields ‘No Fundamental Change’ In Russia-Ukraine Situation

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President Joe Biden’s 62-minute long phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin Saturday morning appeared to yield no major breakthroughs, with officials remaining concerned of an invasion into Ukraine.

The White House announced the weekend call Friday evening after a tense briefing with White House press secretary Jen Psaki and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. The administration said Russia asked to speak Monday, but their counter-proposal for Saturday was “accepted” by Putin.

The call, which coincides with Sullivan warning of the “very distinct possibility” of a Russian invasion, was described by a senior administration official as “professional and substantive.” Still, the official noted that there’s been “no fundamental change in the dynamic that has been unfolding now for several weeks.”

“We believe that we have put ideas on the table that would be in our and our allies interest to pursue that would enhance European security,” the official said while warning that it “remains unclear” whether Russia is interested in pursuing a diplomatic path. (Read more from “Biden-Putin Call Yields ‘No Fundamental Change’ In Russia-Ukraine Situation” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

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Team USA Olympian Blasted as ‘Traitor’ on Chinese Social Media

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After leading Team USA to a silver medal in the team figure skating competition and winning his first Olympic gold in the men’s individual event, Nathan Chen has been slammed on Weibo — the Chinese equivalent of Twitter.

The 22-year-old Chinese-American was labeled a “traitor” on the social media platform for choosing to represent the United States, and was even told to “get out of China.” After his victory Thursday, some on Weibo complained that Chen was “too white” and Americanized, citing a long list of examples where they thought Chen was “insulting China” with his actions.

Chen has previously refused to speak Chinese interviews, claiming that his Mandarin “isn’t very good.”

The Yale student put his support behind American ice dancer Evan Bates’ condemnation of China’s human rights abuses in an October interview. At the time, Bates came down hard on China’s “awful” treatment of the Uyghur people. The US did not send any diplomats to the Winter Olympics in Beijing because of the “egregious human rights abuses and atrocities.”

According to Reuters, Bates said, “We’re human beings, too, and when we read and hear about the things that are happening there, we absolutely hate that. We hate what’s going on there,” during a US Olympic and Paralympic Committee event. (Read more from “Team USA Olympian Blasted as ‘Traitor’ on Chinese Social Media” HERE)

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COVID Origin Mystery Breakthrough as Early ‘Lab-Grown’ Version of Virus Found in China

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The discovery could boost the theory that coronavirus was originally leaked from a lab. The samples were found in soil and came from a Chinese biotechnology firm. They had been sent to the Sangon Biotech in Shanghai to be sequenced back in December 2019. It is thought they had been contaminated with a previously unknown variant of the virus.

Scientists from the University of Veterinary Medicine and Lorand University in Hungary stumbled upon the discovery by chance when analysing genetic soil sample data from Antarctica.

The samples were also found to have DNA from hamsters and monkeys.

Some experts claim this suggests the early version of the virus was grown in a lab using animals or their cells. . .

“So if it was sequenced in say mid-December, before anybody had identified the virus in people and started trying to grow it in labs, then it points to secret samples in labs in 2019.” (Read more from “COVID Origin Mystery Breakthrough as Early ‘Lab-Grown’ Version of Virus Found in China” HERE)

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US to Evacuate Ukraine Embassy Amid Russian Increasingly Imminent Invasion

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The US is preparing to evacuate its embassy in Kyiv amid fears of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine.

An announcement for all staff at the embassy to leave the country is expected early Saturday from the State Department, US officials told The Associated Press.

The families of US staffers at the embassy had been ordered to leave last month, but non-essential employees were left to decide on their own if they wanted to go or stay.
Some diplomats will be relocated to the far western portion of Ukraine, near the border with NATO ally Poland, so the US retains a diplomatic presence in the country, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are also scheduled to speak by phone Saturday.

US officials have warned warn that Russia may launch an invasion of Ukraine within days. (Read more from “US to Evacuate Ukraine Embassy Amid Russian Increasingly Imminent Invasion” HERE)

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Ukraine: Americans Must “Leave Now”; Senator Cotton: Invasion Imminent

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Biden Tells Americans in Ukraine to ‘Leave Now’ as Possible Russian Invasion Looms

By Fox News. President Biden warned Americans who remain in Ukraine that they should get out of the country amid growing tensions along the border there as Russian President Vladimir Putin weighs whether to invade.

“American citizens should leave now,” Biden told NBC News’ Lester Holt in a pre-taped interview that ran Thursday evening.

“It’s not like we’re dealing with a terrorist organization,” Biden said. “We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. It’s a very different situation and things could go crazy quickly.”

Biden also said there is no scenario in which he would send troops to rescue Americans in Ukraine trying to flee the country. “There’s not. That’s a world war when Americans and Russia start shooting at one another,” Biden said. “We’re in a very different world than we’ve ever been.”

Biden also concluded that if Putin is “foolish enough to go in, he’s smart enough not to, in fact, do anything that would negatively impact on American citizens.” (Read more from “Biden Tells Americans in Ukraine to ‘Leave Now’ as Possible Russian Invasion Looms” HERE)

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Russia Likely to Invade Ukraine in Days’ Time as Belarus Military Drills Serve as ‘Cover’: Sen. Cotton

By Fox News. The expectation of Russia invading Ukraine is becoming progressively more likely based on recent military patterns, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., analyzed on “America Reports” Thursday.

According to Russian military movement and the commencement of drills with Belarus, Cotton anticipated that President Putin has every intention to attack the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv first, pending invasion.

“The sad fact is that Russia has troops encircling Ukraine and they’re exposed on almost every front,” he said. “But my estimate based, on the late troops movements into Belarus, is that Vladimir Putin decided that he wanted to get to the capital sooner rather than later.”

But the Belarus military drills could be all but a distraction, which has led the senator to believe that an initial invasion of Ukraine could happen in a matter of days.

“Those military drills… are nothing but a cover for a likely invasion,” Cotton said. “I think they tell us, since they’re starting so soon, that we could be down to a matter of days, not weeks.” (Read more from “Russia Likely to Invade Ukraine in Days’ Time as Belarus Military Drills Serve as ‘Cover’: Sen. Cotton” HERE)

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Biden Admin: ‘Body Bags Will Come Back to Moscow’ if Putin Invades Ukraine

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Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that Russian President Vladimir Putin should understand that if he invades Ukraine, “body bags will come back to Moscow.” . . .

Sherman added, “If Vladimir Putin takes that action, the consequences will not just be for the Ukrainian people, which will be terrible, but for the world community at large because Vladimir Putin will say that any autocrat can take action that undermines international principles that Russia has signed up to—to sovereignty, to territorial integrity, that countries get to choose their own political alliances and their own foreign policy. Added to that, not only will there be dire consequences to the economy of Russia by what we will do, not just the United States but this extraordinary alliance that exists with all of Europe and the United States and countries around the world. Not only will that create consequences, but Vladimir Putin should understand body bags will come back to Moscow as well — that the citizens of Russia will suffer because their economy will be completely devastated. So, this is a very stark choice for him.” (Read more from “Biden Admin: ‘Body Bags Will Come Back to Moscow’ if Putin Invades Ukraine” HERE)

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Vladimir Putin Inserts ‘Crazy’ Threat of Nuclear War Into Ukraine Diplomacy

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Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the specter of nuclear war over Ukraine this week, a threat that strikes Western observers as both “crazy” and an effort to rig the diplomatic game in his favor.

“He goes pretty far,” Atlantic Council visiting fellow Petr Tuma, a career Czech diplomat seconded at the Washington, D.C.,-based think-tank, told the Washington Examiner. “It’s crazy to even mention something like this.”

Yet Putin broached the subject during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron, who had traveled to Moscow in search of a way to avert a major new Russian offensive against Ukraine. It’s a shocking rhetorical maneuver by conventional diplomatic standards, but trans-Atlantic officials and analysts regard it as just the latest Kremlin effort to use the threat of violence to gain leverage in negotiations with Western officials.

“He perceives that it works as a deterrent against the West, to talk about nuclear weapons, to talk about nuclear war,” a senior European official told the Washington Examiner. “It’s not something that you hear that often in the West because people have a long-held taboo that nuclear war is not winnable and that modern countries don’t threaten each other with nuclear war.”

Putin and President Joe Biden affirmed the principle that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” but Western officials believe that Russian military strategists have developed nuclear weapons that they regard as substantial enough to win a conflict in Europe without provoking a full-scale nuclear response from the United States. Against that backdrop, Putin described a hypothetical crisis in which he would feel obliged to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia’s control of Crimea, a peninsula that he annexed from Ukraine in 2014. (Read more from “Vladimir Putin Inserts ‘Crazy’ Threat of Nuclear War Into Ukraine Diplomacy” HERE)

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Nyet Again! Russia’s Olympic Darling Believed to Have Failed Drug Test

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The darling of the 2022 Olympics is at the center of a brewing drug controversy.

Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old Russian skating sensation, failed a drug test taken before the team competition, according to reports from the website Inside the Games and a Russian newspaper.

The news came after Valieva led the Russian team to gold on Monday, when she twice landed a historic quad jump. The teen figure skater became the first woman to land a quad jump at the Olympics.

The reports, labeled a “legal issue,” caused the medal ceremony to be delayed.

The International Testing Agency (ITA), which is conducting drug testing at Beijing 2022, released a statement saying it is aware of the reports about the situation. (Read more from “Nyet Again! Russia’s Olympic Darling Believed to Have Failed Drug Test” HERE)

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‘Wait and See’: China Vows Strong Response as U.S. Prepares to Arm Taiwan

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China has demanded the United States revoke a possible arms agreement with Taiwan in support of its Patriot missile systems—a deal Washington believes will improve the island’s security and help maintain political stability.

The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington. D.C, requested the purchase of equipment and services worth $100 million over five years, said the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA).

Congress was notified of the State Department’s approval on Monday.

Taiwan’s armed forces operate a number of the American-made, surface-to-air and anti-ballistic missile systems, whose sole purpose is to deter and intercept Chinese aircraft and projectiles in the event of a conflict across the Taiwan Strait. The foreign military sale—the first involving Taiwan this year and the second under the Biden administration—will “sustain, maintain, and improve the Patriot Air Defense System,” according to DSCA’s statement. (Read more from “‘Wait and See’: China Vows Strong Response as U.S. Prepares to Arm Taiwan” HERE)

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Shocker: Capitol Police Surveillance Operation Is Really a Full-Blown Spy Operation…and a GOP Rep Caught Them

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. . .They may not call it spying, but almost everyone will feel like their privacy has been violated. It’s meant to chill constituents meeting with their elected leaders. Period. Now, we find out that this little operation may go way beyond just a simple social media review. GOP Congressman Troy Nehls (R-TX) had a lengthy Twitter thread about how his office was illegally spied on by the Capitol Police.

They accessed his office when Congress was in recess last year and took photographs of confidential legislative documents illegally. Days later, Capitol Police officers dressed as construction workers tried to enter his office again but were caught by a member of his staff. Neither Congressman Nehls nor his senior staff was informed that they were the subjects of an investigation.

(Read more from “Shocker: Capitol Police Surveillance Operation Is Really a Full-Blown Spy Operation…and a GOP Rep Caught Them” HERE)

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