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National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent says Trump "started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby".

The Trump administration's top official on counterterrorism has resigned from his position, citing opposition to the war in Iran, and urged the president to "reverse course".

In a letter posted on Tuesday to his X account, National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent said that Iran posed "no imminent threat" to the US and claimed that the Trump administration "started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby".

Kent, 45, is a US special forces and CIA veteran whose wife, navy cryptologic technician Shannon Kent, was killed in a suicide bombing in Syria in 2019.

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The easing of sanctions on Russian oil by the White House could land the Kremlin $150 million a day to fund its war machine in Ukraine, U.S. Democratic senators have warned.

"President Trump's decision to provide sanctions relief to Russia is yet another example of how Putin has been one of the prime beneficiaries of President Trump's poorly conceived and executed war against Iran," Senators Elizabeth Warren, Jeanne Shaheen, and Chuck Schumer said in a March 13 statement shared with the Kyiv Independent.

While Russia has already set its military budget for this year, President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned the Kremlin would likely spend additional revenues on weapons, particularly drones used in Russia's deadly mass attacks on Ukrainian cities.

The Kyiv Independent calculated how many of these — and other weapons — Russia could buy with $150 million.

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Exclusive: Jonathan Powell thought Tehran’s ‘surprising’ offer on its nuclear programme could prevent rush to war, sources say

Britain’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, attended the final talks between the US and Iran and judged that the offer made by Tehran on its nuclear programme was significant enough to prevent a rush to war, the Guardian can reveal.

Powell thought progress had been made in Geneva and that the deal proposed by Iran was “surprising”, according to sources.

Two days after the talks ended, and after a date had been agreed for a further round of technical talks in Vienna, the US and Israel launched the attack on Iran.

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Auston Matthews will not play again this season.

The Toronto Maple Leafs captain has been diagnosed with a Grade 3 MCL tear and quad contusion, the team announced Friday.

He will be re-evaluated in two weeks but will not return to game action this season.

Matthews was injured in a knee-on-knee collision with Anaheim Ducks captain Radko Gudas on Thursday. Gudas had a phone hearing on Friday and is awaiting discipline from the NHL's department of player safety.

Tehran residents report relentless bombing with US and Israeli planes launching wave of attacks

Donald Trump has said Iran will be hit “very hard” in the coming days, describing leaders of the regime as “deranged scumbags” who it was a “great honor” to kill, as Tehran residents reported relentless bombing and violence continued to spiral across the Middle East.

The US president’s comments, which signaled an intensification of the US-Israeli campaign, came as Israeli and US warplanes launched successive waves of attacks on the Iranian capital and elsewhere on Friday. One strike reportedly hit close to a square near Tehran University where crowds were gathered in support of Iran’s regime. The area is home to many government buildings.

Video published by the semiofficial Tasnim news agency showed a plume of grey smoke rising as demonstrators screamed “Death to Israel!” and “Death to America!”

Across the region, there was more chaos, bloodshed and destruction, with further Israeli strikes in Lebanon, where 800,000 people have been displaced; new missile and drone attacks by Hezbollah and Iran on targets in Israel; and fresh Iranian attacks on civilian infrastructure in Gulf states.

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As Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has effectively drawn Ukraine into his domestic fight for reelection, his main competitor has found himself in a tricky situation.

Peter Magyar, a 44-year-old former insider in Orban's Fidesz party, has pledged to mend ties with European partners, ending an era of obstructionism that has often hampered assistance to Ukraine.

His Tisza party has also taken aim at the Hungarian government's tilt toward Moscow and vowed to undo the growing dependence on Russian energy.

When it comes to Ukraine, however, Magyar has been walking a fine line, promising constructive relations, yet criticizing President Volodymyr Zelensky's jabs directed at Orban and the country's desire for a fast-track EU accession.

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German chancellor says decision is wrong and that pressure on Putin over Ukraine war should be increased

The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has issued a sharp rebuke to the US government over its decision to temporarily lift sanctions on the sale of Russian oil in the wake of sharply rising energy prices, saying the decision was wrong.

He was reacting to Washington’s decision to temporarily waive sanctions on Russian oil stranded at sea as Trump administration officials attempt to reverse a surge in prices that is causing mounting apprehension about global supplies.

“We believe it is wrong to ease the sanctions,” Merz said on Friday morning.

“Unfortunately, Russia continues to show no willingness to negotiate. We will therefore, and must, further increase the pressure on Moscow.”

Merz insisted that support for Ukraine should continue despite the conflict in the Middle East, saying: “We will not allow ourselves to be deterred or distracted from this by the war with Iran.”

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Nearly 80 percent of the children documented to have been snatched by Russia have not been returned to Ukraine, a U.N. report finds.

Russia committed crimes against humanity by deporting Ukrainian children, a United Nations inquiry said Thursday — with President Vladimir Putin’s involvement in the policy “visible from the outset.”

In its latest report, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said the deportation and forcible transfer of children by Russian authorities, as well as enforced disappearances, represented crimes against humanity.

“Based on new evidence, the Commission has now concluded that the Russian authorities committed crimes against humanity,” Commission chair Erik Møse told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The determination marks a legal escalation. Earlier investigations had documented the removal of Ukrainian children from their homes but stopped short of classifying the practice as a crime against humanity — one of the most serious charges under international law.

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Speculations about coups and rebellions in Russia have been constant throughout the full-scale war. All of them, except one, were wishful thinking.

The latest rumor shared by British tabloids suggests that recent internet outages in Moscow were triggered by fears of an "imminent" coup by figures close to Sergei Shoigu, a senior security official and former defense minister.

The claim originates with the VChK-OGPU channel, known for sharing stories it says are leaked from Russian security services. The channel itself acknowledges it is merely a "conspiracy theory" from an undisclosed source.

Russia experts speaking to the Kyiv Independent have flatly dismissed the rumors.

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Iranian officials warn of ‘war of attrition’ and global economic chaos as energy supplies are throttled

Iran dramatically escalated its strategy of striking civilian infrastructure and transport networks across the Gulf on Wednesday, attacking commercial ships and targeting Dubai’s international airport as US and Israeli warplanes launched new waves of strikes on the Islamic Republic.

Senior Iranian officials struck a defiant tone, warning of a long “war of attrition” that would threaten global economic chaos as energy supplies from the region were throttled.

In what appears to be a growing stalemate in the 12-day conflict, violence continued across a swath of the Middle East, with Israeli strikes on what it says are Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and barrages of Iranian missiles and Hezbollah rockets targeting Israel.

Israeli strikes on Lebanon have killed at least 634 people and injured 1,586 in less than 10 days of fighting. More than 816,700 families have registered as displaced with the Lebanese state.

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Tehran has enough material to make at least 10 nuclear warheads but extracting it would be very risky, say experts

The Trump administration is reportedly considering the deployment of special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which experts say could be used to make at least 10 nuclear warheads.

Preventing Iran from acquiring a bomb is one of Trump’s stated war aims, and the 440kg HEU stockpile represents the greatest nuclear threat as it could be turned into weapons-grade uranium relatively easily. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has told Congress that “people are going to have to go and get it”.

Rubio did not go into greater detail, but there have been US and Israeli reports on discussions between the two countries on how such a mission might be carried out by special forces from either or both militaries. But nuclear experts say the complexity and risk involved would be considerable.

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Officials say Ukraine has regained almost full control of the Dnipropetrovsk region.

Ukraine says it has regained almost complete control of its eastern Dnipropetrovsk region and recaptured several hundred square kilometers of territory in recent counterattacks.

Pushing Russian forces back undermines Moscow's attempts to establish buffer zones along parts of the border, and could disrupt Russian plans for fresh attacks in the spring and summer.

Details of the operation emerged Tuesday when Oleksandr Komarenko, head of the main operational directorate of the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces, told local media that Ukrainian airborne assault troops and mechanized brigades had already liberated more than 400 square kilometers of territory.

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