Russia, Ukraine resume talks for first time in years — all thanks to Trump



Negotiators from Russia and Ukraine met in Istanbul, Turkey, on Friday, marking the first meeting between the two countries since 2022 due to mounting pressure from President Donald Trump.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan addressed the negotiators at Dolmabahce Palace on Friday, urging the two countries to reach a ceasefire agreement as soon as possible.

"There are two paths ahead of us: One road will take us on a process that will lead to peace, while the other will lead to more destruction and death," Fidan said. "The sides will decide on their own, with their own will, which path they choose."

'Although tensions ran high, progress has been made.'

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(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The war officially began under former President Joe Biden, but there was little movement throughout his term. Now, Trump has taken the lead to resolve the conflict.

Up until Trump's inauguration in January, Ukraine was essentially bankrolled by the United States. That all changed during the infamous Oval Office meeting with Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Although tensions ran high, progress has been made with various proposed peace deals, though none have yet been agreed to by all parties involved.

RELATED: Trump pledges to lift 'brutal and crippling' sanctions on Syria, pushes for Middle East peace talks

Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

The Russia-Ukraine War is not the only conflict Trump is trying to resolve. The president spent the week touring the Middle East and meeting with various leaders, like President Ahmed al-Sharaa of Syria, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

During these meetings, Trump encouraged the leaders to sign onto the Abraham Accords alongside Israel in order to restore peace in the Middle East. Trump also urged the leaders to expel foreign terrorists from Syria, to deport Palestinian terrorists, to aid the United States and prevent the resurgence of ISIS, and to take responsibility for the ISIS detention centers in Syria.

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Trump pledges to lift 'brutal and crippling' sanctions on Syria, pushes for Middle East peace talks



President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he will be lifting sanctions on Syria as he kicks off his tour in the Middle East.

After the fall of the Assad regime in December, Syria's new leaders, like President Ahmed al-Sharaa, hoped America would loosen its grip and lift the sanctions. After Trump announced the sanctions would be lifted, he met with al-Sharaa and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, with President Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey joining them over the phone.

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'When Syria is contemplating its future under new leadership, we should want a seat at the table.'

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

During the meeting, Trump urged the leaders to sign onto the Abraham Accords with Israel in an attempt to inch toward peace in the Middle East. Trump also insisted they tell foreign terrorists to leave Syria, to deport Palestinian terrorists, to assist the United States and prevent the resurgence of ISIS, and to take responsibility for the ISIS detention centers in northeastern Syria.

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"Syria, they've had their share of travesty, war, killing in many years," Trump said. "That's why my administration has taken the first steps toward restoring normal relations between the United States and Syria for the first time in more than a decade."

Photo by Amadeusz Mikolaj Swierk/Anadolu via Getty Images

"The sanctions were brutal and crippling and served as an important, really an important function, nevertheless, at the time," Trump added. "But now it's their time to shine. So I say, 'Good luck, Syria.' Show us something very special."

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The United States has designated Syria as a terrorist state for decades. But under the new leadership, some lawmakers like Republican Rep. Marlin Stutzman of Indiana said Syria is potentially shaping up to become a key ally.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

“When Syria is contemplating its future under new leadership, we should want a seat at the table," Stutzman, who met with al-Sharaa in April, told Blaze News. "President al-Sharaa has welcomed the West, allowed women into his Cabinet, and even recognized Israel as a sovereign nation."

"President Trump should be meeting with him not only to help Syria be prosperous, but also to weaken the influence of Russia and China and create another ally and trade partner in the region," Stutzman added.

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Sen. Graham's support for Zelenskyy slips following heated Oval Office exchange



Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina came out against President Volodymyr Zelenskyy despite previously funneling aid to Ukraine.

This change in tone comes after Zelenskyy's remarkably heated exchange with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office on Friday as America mediates peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. As a result of the escalated exchange, the joint presser between Trump and Zelenskyy as well as the signing of the minerals deal was canceled.

'Either he dramatically changes, or you need to get somebody new.'

"He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office," Trump said in a statement Friday. "He can come back when he is ready for Peace.”

As a result of the tense shouting match, Zelenskyy managed to lose the support from one of his most reliable advocates on the Hill.

"I urged him to stay on message," Graham said of Zelenskyy. "Be grateful, be thankful. We'll talk about details and security guarantees later. Keep it upbeat. Keep it positive."

"It was an absolute, utter disaster," Graham said. "The question for me is: Is he redeemable in the eyes of Americans? Most Americans witnessing what they saw today would not want Zelenskyy to be his business partner, including me, and I've been to Ukraine nine times since the war started. I met with him this morning."

ZELENSKYY HAS OFFICIALLY LOST LINDSEY GRAHAM: “For the Ukrainian people… Either Zelenskyy dramatically changes or you need to get somebody new.” pic.twitter.com/0fINT2hwgm
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) February 28, 2025

Graham referred to the meeting as "a missed opportunity," questioning the efficacy of Zelenskyy's leadership going forward.

"You don't trifle with this man," Graham said of Trump. "He was very positive. He was very upbeat. He wanted to get a ceasefire. He wants to end the war. And Zelenskyy felt like he needed to debate Trump in the Oval Office."

"This was a missed opportunity," Graham added. "I don't know if Zelenskyy can ever get you to where you want to go with the United States. Either he dramatically changes, or you need to get somebody new."

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President Trump announces another peace deal — this time between Israel and Morocco



President Donald Trump has announced another breakthrough peace deal between Israel and an Arab nation, making it the fourth time his administration has brokered such an agreement in the past four months.

What are the details?

Trump said Thursday that Israel and Morocco have agreed to normalize relations, which includes the immediate reopening of liaison offices in Tel Aviv and Rabat, the forthcoming opening of embassies, and the allowance of joint overflight rights for airlines, the Associated Press reported.

The White House noted that Morocco's King Mohammed VI promised to "resume diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel and expand economic and cultural cooperation to advance regional stability."

Reuters reported that Trump sealed the agreement in a phone call Thursday with the Moroccan king. As a part of the deal, Trump revised longstanding U.S. policy and recognized Morocco's sovereignty over the Western Sahara.

Trump celebrated the achievement on Twitter, calling the deal an "historic breakthrough."

Another HISTORIC breakthrough today! Our two GREAT friends Israel and the Kingdom of Morocco have agreed to full di… https://t.co/LJcGF6u7uW
— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump)1607616606.0

In a pair of separate tweets, Trump noted that Morocco had been the first country to recognize the United States' sovereignty, just one year after it declared independence in 1776.

"It is thus fitting we recognize their sovereignty over the Western Sahara," he said.

For decades, Morocco has been involved in a territorial dispute in the Western Sahara with the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which Reuters describes as "a breakaway movement that seeks to establish an independent state in the territory."

"The president reaffirmed his support for Morocco's serious, credible, and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute over the Western Sahara territory and as such the president recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the entire Western Sahara territory," the White House said.

Before Israel was established in 1948, Morocco was home to a large Jewish population, many of whose ancestors migrated to North Africa from Spain and Portugal during the Spanish Inquisition. Today, hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews trace their lineage to Morocco, the Associated Press reported.

What else?

The agreement comes on the heels of three other separate peace deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan.

More agreements could be coming, as well. During a September meeting with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump signaled that "five or six" more countries were eager to end hostilities with the Jewish nation.

"We'll have at least five or six countries coming along very quickly and we're already talking to them," Trump said.

"They want to see peace," he added. "They've been fighting for a long time. They're tired. They're warring countries but they're tired, they're tired of fighting. So you're going to be seeing further announcements."

Also in September, Trump was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to establish peace deals in the Middle East by a member of Norway's Parliament.

Why News Doesn't Show This Fauci Clip & Republicans After Trump | DIRECT MESSAGE | RUBIN REPORT
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Why News Doesn't Show This Fauci Clip & Republicans After Trump | DIRECT MESSAGE | RUBIN REPORT

Trump Secures Third Historic Middle East Peace Deal, This Time With Sudan

“This is one of the great days in the history of Sudan,” Trump said, noting that Israel and Sudan have been in a state of war for decades.

Trump Accomplished In The Middle East What No Other President Could

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Video flashback: Obama alum John Kerry proved dead wrong by President Trump's Israel peace deals



Former Secretary of State John Kerry once declared, "There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world."

That emphatic statement — which the former Obama administration official and now Joe Biden surrogate called a "hard reality" at the time — appears to have been dead wrong.

The proof: Over the course of about a month, President Trump brokered two separate peace deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Israel and Bahrain. On Tuesday, the president even added that "five or six" more Arab countries were ready to follow suit.

Kerry's backward comments came in 2016 while he was speaking at the Brookings Institution's annual Saban Forum.

In a resurfaced clip of the comments, first shared by Institute for Policy & Strategy senior fellow Udi Evental, Kerry can be heard amazingly prophesying the exact opposite of what would come to pass four years later.

John Kerry with a 2016 Middle East take that aged like milk in a sauna. https://t.co/2Vae6yDJFt
— Noam Blum (@Noam Blum)1600299754.0

"There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world. I want to make that very clear to all of you," Kerry said. "I've heard several prominent politicians in Israel sometimes saying, 'Well, the Arab world's in a different place now. We just have to reach out to them and we can work some things with the Arab world, and we'll deal with the Palestinians.' No, no, no, and no."

"I can tell you that, reaffirmed even in the last week, as I have talked to leaders of the Arab community. There will be no advance and separate peace with the Arab world without the Palestinian process and Palestinian peace," he continued. "Everybody needs to understand that. That is a hard reality."

Kerry, who also once wrongly predicted that Trump's decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem would be an unmitigated disaster, was widely panned for the cold take.

"John Kerry with a 2016 Middle East take that aged like milk in a sauna," Tablet Magazine associate editor Noam Blum said in the tweet above.

"Has anyone been more abjectly wrong about something?" National Review contributor Pradheep Shanker asked.

Hudson Institute senior fellow Rebeccah Heinrich wrote: "Exactly backwards. Remarkable."

Ed Morrissey, covering the news at Hot Air, wrote:

It's tough to choose what is the most embarrassing quality of this Kerry declaration from four years ago on the impossibility of what Trump has achieved. Is it his dead certainty of his own position? The way Kerry uses his cheaters to look down on the audience in his faux-professorial manner? The way he condescendingly dismisses politicians in Israel who actually turned out to be right, and to whom Kerry should have listened? It's an abundance of riches, my friends, an abundance of riches in 44 seconds.

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Rather than acknowledging they were wrong and having the grace to celebrate the Trump administration's historical breakthrough, leftist pundits are busy trashing these agreements as 'no big deal.'

President Trump says '5 or 6' more countries are ready to make peace with Israel



President Donald Trump claimed Tuesday that "five or six" more countries — in addition to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates — are ready to make peace with Israel.

The comments followed historic agreements brokered by the president that normalized relations between the lone Jewish state in the Middle East and two of its Arab neighbors.

While speaking with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House ahead of the signing ceremony for the Abraham Accords, Trump said, "We're very far down the road with about five additional countries ... frankly, I think we could have had them here today.

"We'll have at least five or six countries coming along very quickly and we're already talking to them," Trump continued.

"They want to see peace," he said. "They've been fighting for a long time. They're tired. They're warring countries but they're tired, they're tired of fighting. So you're going to be seeing further announcements."

WATCH: Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu youtu.be

"You're going to see a lot of great activity. There's going to be peace in the Middle East," Trump said later in the meeting.

The president noted that only two Arab nations, Egypt and Jordan, had made peace with Israel over the past 72 years. But now that number has doubled in the span of one month.

Trump has been lauded by many for his role in brokering the peace agreements between Israel and its Middle East neighbors. He was even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his actions to secure the deal between Israel and the UAE.

If it is true that several other nations are prepared to follow suit with the UAE and Bahrain, it would become increasingly difficult for critics of the president to deny his peace-making success, though they almost certainly will try.

As for Netanyahu, he seemed elated with the developments.

"Israel doesn't feel isolated at all," he said, responding to a question from reporters. "It's enjoying the greatest diplomatic triumph of its history.

"I think the people who feel isolated," Netanyahu said, "are the tyrants of Tehran."