标签： Europe

A cross-partisan coalition of Ukraine supporters in the U.S. House of Representatives crossed a critical procedural milestone on Wednesday, securing the required number of signatures to force a floor vote on a package of new Ukraine aid and Russian sanctions, bypassing top Republican leadership in the chamber. The push for a vote, led by New York Democratic Representative Gregory Meeks, will bring legislation to the House floor in the coming weeks that codifies U.S. support for Kyiv. It proposes allocating more than $1 billion in direct security assistance to Ukraine, alongside an additional $8 billion in loaned funding for the war-torn nation.

Proponents of the measure have repeatedly pushed the Trump administration to take a harder line against Moscow and ramp up military backing for Kyiv as its war with Russia enters its fourth year. To trigger a discharge vote — the procedural mechanism that allows rank-and-file lawmakers to bypass committee gridlock and leadership opposition — backers needed 218 signatures on a discharge petition. They hit that exact threshold on Wednesday, after California Independent Representative Kevin Kiley signed on as the decisive vote.

The petition draws broad Democratic support, with 215 House Democrats adding their names, joined by just two House Republicans: Nebraska’s Don Bacon and Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick. In his statement explaining his support for the petition, Kiley emphasized that the legislation would reinforce Ukraine’s negotiating position to reach a lasting, sustainable peace deal. He also added that the bill sends an unambiguous warning to Moscow that Russia’s ongoing backing for Iran’s targeting of U.S. military assets in the Middle East will not go unanswered by Congress.

Despite the procedural breakthrough, House Speaker Mike Johnson, the chamber’s top Republican leader, has raised public concerns about the timing of the vote. Johnson noted that both Russian President Vladimir Putin and former President Donald Trump have recently signaled that the war could be nearing an end, and argued that Congress should wait to see how diplomatic efforts unfold before holding a vote. “The latest news out of Russia is that it looks like the war is scaling back, scaling down, coming to a conclusion. I think Vladimir Putin said that himself in the last few days, and so this would be a good time for Congress to see how that pans out,” Johnson told reporters this week.

Trump echoed that optimistic tone on Tuesday, telling reporters ahead of a summit in Beijing that he expects Moscow and Kyiv to finalize a peace deal in the near future. “The end of the war in Ukraine I really think is getting very close,” Trump said. Putin similarly claimed in a speech last weekend that his full-scale invasion of Ukraine could be “coming to an end.”

Those optimistic claims have been sharply contradicted by new violence on the ground, however. On Wednesday, the same day backers locked in the final petition signature, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that Russia launched a massive daytime drone barrage across Ukraine, deploying at least 800 drones in one of the largest single attacks of the entire war. The strike killed at least six civilians and wounded dozens more, including multiple children.

That ongoing violence led Fitzpatrick, one of the two Republican supporters of the discharge petition, to reject the claim that the war is winding down. The GOP lawmaker stressed that he would only withdraw his backing for the bill if Russia fully withdraws all of its military forces from internationally recognized Ukrainian territory. “There’s people dying as we speak, so no, the war is not winding down,” Fitzpatrick said.

Meeks, the lead sponsor of the effort, echoed that argument, noting that the vote will finally force every member of Congress to go on the public record with their stance on Ukraine support. “Members of Congress, some tell me that they are supportive of Ukraine. Well, we’re going to finally get a vote on the floor to make that determination,” Meeks said. He added that the House vote will build pressure on the U.S. Senate to act, and send a clear message to Trump that the American public supports standing with U.S. allies rather than aligning with the Kremlin.

Even if the bill passes the House, its future in the Senate remains far from certain. For months, senators from both parties have debated a range of Russia sanction and Ukraine aid packages, but momentum stalled after Trump launched military strikes against Iran in late February. While most Senate Republicans have voiced nominal support for Ukraine, they have been reluctant to advance any legislation without explicit backing from the Trump administration. On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune cast doubt on the chamber’s ability to take up Russia sanctions in the near term, noting that the Senate is already backed up with other pending legislation.

South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the most prominent GOP advocates for Russia sanctions in the Senate, offered a mixed assessment of the House-passed package this week, saying he supports some provisions but opposes others. Lawmakers from both parties have also expressed growing frustration over the Pentagon’s failure to disburse $400 million in previously approved military aid for Ukraine that Congress allocated last year. During a congressional hearing earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told lawmakers the department is currently developing a plan to release the long-delayed funds.

Support for Ukraine has emerged as one of the most persistent points of tension between Congress and the Trump administration, after Trump pledged during his campaign to rapidly end the war within days of taking office. To date, the administration has failed to make meaningful progress toward a negotiated peace deal, and has repeatedly moved to scale back military support for Ukraine and reduce U.S. security commitments across Europe.

PARIS – In a sharp escalation of one of the most politically charged judicial cases in modern French history, national prosecutors formally requested Wednesday that appellate judges sentence former President Nicolas Sarkozy to seven years in prison and levy a €300,000 ($330,000) fine over long-running allegations that the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi secretly bankrolled Sarkozy’s victorious 2007 presidential campaign.

The 71-year-old former head of state already made history in September 2025 when he became the first former French president in modern memory to be imprisoned, after he was handed an initial five-year sentence on criminal conspiracy charges tied to the case. He served just 20 days at Paris’ La Santé Prison before being granted supervised release in November, and both sides have appealed the original verdict: prosecutors are pushing to overturn the acquittals Sarkozy secured in the first trial and secure a harsher custodial term.

The appeal proceedings are scheduled to run through early June, with a final ruling from the three-judge panel expected on November 30. Legal analysts note the Libya case carries unprecedented symbolic and political weight among the multiple corruption investigations Sarkozy has faced in recent years, as it centers on the extraordinary claim that a foreign dictatorship helped install a French president in office.

In Wednesday’s hearing, prosecutors asked the appellate judges to reverse three key acquittals from the first trial, finding Sarkozy guilty of corruption, illegal campaign financing, and complicity in the concealment of embezzled Libyan public funds. They also proposed a five-year ban on Sarkozy holding any public office if convicted.

Sarkozy’s lead defense attorney, Christophe Ingrain, pushed back aggressively against the prosecution’s demands after the hearing, telling reporters that the latest requests are identical to arguments financial prosecutors already failed to win over in the first trial. “There is no Libyan money in his campaign, in his estate,” Ingrain said. “Nicolas Sarkozy is innocent, and we will demonstrate it in fifteen days.”

Sarkozy is not the only figure facing consequences in the case: multiple close allies from his inner circle also stand accused, including his former chief of staff Claude Guéant, former Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux, long-time political fixer Alexandre Djouhri, and Éric Woerth, who served as treasurer for Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign. Prosecutors have requested sentences ranging from 10 months to six years and fines between €3,000 and €4 million ($3,500 to $4.68 million) for the co-defendants. Prosecutors have also requested an international arrest warrant for Beshir Saleh, the former chief of Gadhafi’s cabinet, who has lived in exile since the collapse of the Libyan regime in 2011 and has not appeared at any stage of the proceedings.

Allegations of illicit Libyan financing first emerged publicly back in 2011. French investigating authorities later traced approximately €6 million ($7 million) in transfers from Libya to accounts controlled by Ziad Takieddine, an alleged middleman in the deal who died last September just days before the first trial verdict was issued.

The case rests on two previously undisclosed meetings held in late 2005 between Guéant, Hortefeux, and Abdallah Senoussi, Gadhafi’s brother-in-law and longtime intelligence chief. Senoussi had already been sentenced in absentia to life in prison by a French court in 1999 for organizing the 1989 bombing of UTA Flight 772 over Niger, an attack that killed 170 people including 54 French citizens. Prosecutors allege that Sarkozy’s campaign team offered to revisit Senoussi’s French conviction in exchange for the secret campaign donations.

Sarkozy has repeatedly and categorically rejected the prosecution’s narrative. During his April appearance before the appellate court, he questioned the logic of the claims, telling judges: “Why would I have chosen Mr. Gadhafi, whom I had never met before, to set up a suspicious financing arrangement with him during a 30-minute meeting? It makes no sense.” He added: “I owe the truth to the French people. I’m innocent,” reiterating that no Libyan funds ever reached his 2007 campaign.

Notably, prosecutors have taken a harder line against Sarkozy on appeal than they did in the first proceedings, this week labeling him the “instigator” of the alleged corrupt deal. In the first trial, judges only found Sarkozy guilty of allowing his aides to approach the Libyan regime on his behalf, and acquitted him of corruption on a technicality: they ruled that as a presidential candidate, he did not hold the “public authority” status required to meet the definition of corruption under French law.

Sarkozy already has two finalized convictions in separate corruption-related cases. In November, France’s highest court upheld his conviction over the illegal financing of his failed 2012 re-election bid, the so-called Bygmalion affair, which carried a one-year sentence – six months of which is custodial and six months suspended. Last week, a French judge ruled that Sarkozy could serve the six-month custodial term via conditional release rather than with an electronic ankle monitoring tag, citing his advanced age, though that ruling has not yet been finalized. He was also convicted in a separate case of illegal wiretapping of a sitting judge.

The three-judge panel hearing the appeal is not required to follow the prosecution’s sentencing recommendations. Defense attorneys are set to deliver their closing arguments in two weeks.

KYIV, Ukraine – Two of Ukraine’s leading anti-corruption oversight bodies have named Andrii Yermak, former chief of staff to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and once one of the most powerful figures in the country’s wartime leadership, as an official suspect in a high-stake graft investigation that has already shaken the Zelenskyy administration to its core.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that Yermak is formally suspected of participating in an alleged $10.5 million (460 million hryvnia) money-laundering conspiracy, while explicitly clearing President Zelenskyy of any connection to the case. No formal charges have been filed against Yermak, who stepped down from his post in November 2025 amid a wave of public outcry that marks the most significant challenge to Zelenskyy’s government since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. Prior to his resignation, Yermak served as Ukraine’s lead negotiator in diplomatic talks with the United States.

Yermak has long been one of Ukraine’s most divisive political figures. His professional relationship with Zelenskyy stretches back more than 15 years, when he was a practicing lawyer expanding into television production, and Zelenskyy was a household name as a comedian and actor. He joined Zelenskyy’s first presidential team as a foreign affairs lead before being promoted to chief of staff in February 2020. In that role, he became the country’s de facto second-most powerful public official, acting as the primary gatekeeper for access to the president and widely credited with handpicking most top government appointments, including prime ministers and cabinet ministers. Zelenskyy placed immense trust in Yermak, bringing him along on every international trip following the 2022 Russian invasion. When the corruption scandal first emerged in late 2025, Zelenskyy initially resisted widespread public pressure to remove Yermak from his post. During his tenure, Yermak also oversaw high-stakes diplomacy with Western partners and drafted potential ceasefire frameworks with Russia.

The allegations against Yermak center on a luxury construction project located outside Kyiv. Anti-corruption investigators claim the project was used as a front to launder funds through a sprawling network of shell companies, with Yermak and a group of associates allegedly planning to build four private luxury mansions and accompanying high-end amenities. Yermak’s legal team has dismissed the suspicion notice as entirely baseless and denied any involvement in the scheme. During the first court hearing held on Tuesday, Yermak reiterated his innocence, telling the court he only owns one apartment and one passenger vehicle. The judicial proceedings are set to continue through this week.

The case is part of a much broader corruption investigation that was first made public last year, a sprawling $100 million kickback scheme that has already ensnared multiple senior officials and close associates of Zelenskyy. The public revelation of the scheme last November directly forced Yermak’s exit from the presidential administration. Investigators have laid out claims that high-ranking officials pressured private construction contractors to pay kickbacks of up to 15% to secure public contracts with Energoatom, Ukraine’s state-owned national nuclear energy operator. The probe has included more than 1,000 hours of wiretapped conversations, with targets using coded code names to discuss the scheme. After the details of the scheme became public, Ukraine’s parliament approved President Zelenskyy’s request to dismiss both the country’s energy and justice ministers. The presidential administration also imposed sanctions on several close associates linked to the scheme, including Tymur Mindich, a business partner in the media production company that Zelenskyy co-owned before entering politics. Mindich has reportedly fled Ukraine to avoid prosecution. Prosecutors have not yet confirmed whether any of the funds Yermak is accused of laundering originated from the Energoatom kickback scheme.

While Zelenskyy is not a suspect in the case, the formal implication of his former closest advisor and right-hand man has cast a growing shadow over the Ukrainian president’s credibility. Endemic systemic corruption remains one of the primary hurdles blocking Ukraine’s path to European Union membership, a top policy priority for Zelenskyy alongside maintaining critical Western military and financial support for the war against Russian invasion. The probe has also drawn in sitting senior officials involved in ongoing peace negotiations mediated by the United States. Rustem Umerov, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council and a key figure in U.S.-led diplomatic efforts, has already been questioned as part of the investigation.

Zelenskyy’s presidential term officially expired in May 2024, but he has continued to lead the country without holding new national elections, arguing that voting is impossible while Russian forces occupy roughly one-fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign territory. Political critics and anti-corruption activists alike note that cleaning up graft is critical to maintaining trust with Western allies, whose ongoing support is indispensable to Ukraine’s war effort and any future negotiated end to the conflict.

A secret recording of former Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern making racially specific remarks about immigration has sparked widespread political criticism across the Republic of Ireland, reigniting fierce public debate over one of the country’s most divisive policy issues.

The undercover recording, made approximately 10 days prior to its circulation on social media, was captured during a canvassing trip by Ahern to a Dublin residential housing estate, where a local voter pulled him aside to press for his personal stance on migration. After the voter opened with criticisms of “hordes of foreigners” entering Ireland and called for full border closures, Ahern offered remarks that would quickly draw condemnation.

In the recording, Ahern stated he had no objection to Ukrainian refugees entering the country, citing the ongoing war in Ukraine as a justifiable context for their arrival. But he went on to single out African migrants, saying: “The ones I worry about are the Africans. We can’t be taking in people from the Congo and all these places. I think there’s too many from those places.” When asked about Muslim migrants, Ahern doubled down, claiming he did not see concerns with current Muslim residents but argued “the next generation, when the kids start growing up, that’s when I think the problem will be.” He added that he had shared this concern with current Irish Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan, who oversees migration policy.

After the voter informed Ahern she had recorded the entire conversation and planned to share it online, she accused him of failing to “speak up for the Irish” as he left. The video has since spread widely across social platforms, though it has not been formally verified by the BBC.

In subsequent comments to Irish national broadcaster RTÉ, Ahern pushed back against criticism, arguing his remarks had been taken out of context from a longer conversation. He clarified that he “has no problem with people who come here through the visa and asylum systems”, noting that many African migrants who completed the process legally now live and work in his local Dublin constituency. Ahern also emphasized that he supports the Fianna Fáil government’s current immigration policies, adding only that he has historically called for a speedier asylum processing system, a change the government has already partially implemented.

Current Taoiseach Micheál Martin was quick to distance his government and party from Ahern’s comments, calling the remarks “not appropriate”. “It’s not correct or proper to be specific about any given ethnicity,” Martin told reporters, noting that Ireland is home to many Irish citizens from diverse ethnic backgrounds that deserve full respect. He defended the country’s existing asylum framework, calling it “fair and robust” and noting that recent reforms have created a more efficient, accelerated processing system. Martin later confirmed to the Dáil, Ireland’s national parliament, that he accepted Ahern’s walkback of his original comments.

Ahern, who served as Taoiseach from 1997 to 2008 and was a key architect of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended decades of conflict in Northern Ireland, has a complicated political history. He resigned as prime minister in 2008 amid a growing personal finance scandal, and a 2012 corruption tribunal found he provided false evidence about the source of more than €250,000 in bank accounts linked to him. He resigned from Fianna Fáil shortly after the report’s release, though he has remained active in political campaigning for the party in recent years. The recording in question was made while Ahern was canvassing for a Fianna Fáil by-election candidate, and multiple other competing candidates have publicly condemned his remarks.

Immigration has emerged as one of the most hotly contested political issues in Ireland in recent years, driven by shifting demographic trends and rising pressure on public services. 2022 census data shows that one in five Irish residents were born outside the country. Since 2022, Ireland has admitted tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees alongside asylum seekers from other global conflict zones, a surge that critics argue has worsened the country’s long-standing housing crisis. O’Callaghan, the current migration minister, recently acknowledged that the current volume of asylum seekers is “too high”, noting that annual arrivals have jumped from 3,000-4,000 pre-pandemic to more than 18,500 in the most recent reporting period. Despite the surge in asylum claims, overall net immigration to Ireland fell to 59,700 in 2025, down from a peak of 79,300 in 2024.