Category: World

Lawyers representing the producers of “Russians at War” say they may pursue legal action against Ontario’s public broadcaster for pulling support for the controversial documentary amid outcry from the Ukrainian community and some Canadian politicians.

A letter addressed to TVO’s board and management demands that the network immediately reinstate its commitment to air “Russians at War,” or allow the filmmakers to license the film to another broadcaster or streaming platform.

The letter says that if the matter can’t be resolved, the film’s producers will be left with “no choice but to pursue all legal remedies,” including claims for breach of contract, defamation, and damages associated with any loss of funding for the project.

“We trust that the board will recognize the gravity of this situation and act swiftly to rectify it,” lawyer Danny Webber of Hall Webber LLP wrote in the letter sent Thursday, adding that the law firm expects a response from TVO within 10 business days.

TVO board chair Chris Day told The Canadian Press that the broadcaster won’t publicly comment on legal matters.

The film by Russian-Canadian director Anastasia Trofimova — which captures the experiences of Russian soldiers on the front lines of the war in Ukraine — has sparked considerable backlash from Ukrainian officials and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, who called it “Russian propaganda.”

The documentary was produced in partnership with TVO and financed in part by the broadcaster’s allocation of Canada Media Fund resources. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has denounced the use of public funds to help produce and screen “Russians at War,” saying she shares the Ukrainian community’s “grave concerns” about the film.

Last week, TVO’s board of directors cancelled plans to air the documentary in the coming months, citing feedback it had received. That announcement came just days after the network defended the film as “antiwar” at its core

The letter from the film producers’ legal team called the decision “a clear violation of the filmmakers’ rights,” noting that TVO’s programming department approved every stage of the documentary’s production, “reviewing each cut of the film.”

The board’s decision also has “potentially catastrophic financial implications,” the letter says, because money secured from the Canada Media Fund is contingent on the documentary having a broadcast licence.

“By cancelling the broadcast commitment, TVO has placed the entire project’s financing in jeopardy, exposing the filmmakers to potential financial ruin,” it claims.

“Russians at War” was set to have its North American premiere during the Toronto International Film Festival, but screenings had to be postponed to Tuesday due to threats of violence against TIFF staff and operations, organizers said.

The film’s director, producers and TIFF organizers have all rejected claims that the documentary promotes Russian propaganda, saying it was filmed without the knowledge of the Russian government and without any kind of financing from Russia.

KYIV, Ukraine –

 Authorities in Ukraine advised residents in the capital Kyiv to stay indoors Friday as air pollution, partly caused by fires in the region, blanketed the city.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources said the pollution was a result of the burning of peatlands and other wildfires in the region combined with autumn temperature fluctuations.

The capital woke up to thick smog with the rancid smell of blazing fires in the air. Some people were spotted wearing masks.

The Ukrainian capital topped a list of the most polluted major cities early Friday in a real-time database by IQAir, a Swiss company that monitors air quality levels. Its air quality appeared to have improved somewhat since as the city came down in the ranking later in the day.

Kyiv’s Department of Environmental Protection and Climate Change said that “the likely cause of this is fires in the Kyiv region.”

Fires have been reported in the Vyshhorod district, around 20 kilometres (around 12 miles) north of the capital.

Officials warned about an increased concentration of suspended particles, such as dust, soot, and smoke, in the air. In some areas of the city, air pollution levels have reached the maximum of the 100-point scale.

While human-driven climate change does not directly cause fires, it can increase the risk of wildfire as warming temperatures and increasingly dry air, trees and soil can make it easier for fires to spread. Forest fires around the world have worsened in recent years, with almost twice as much tree cover burning in 2023 than 20 years ago, according to the World Resources Institute.

Wildfire smoke can cause air quality to deteriorate even many miles away from fires. The main concern from the wildfire smoke is fine particle pollution, known as PM2.5. Fine particle pollution can cause short-term problems like coughing, as well as long-term impacts on the lungs and heart.

Pollution is a major health concern — with one major study estimating that pollution kills around 9 million people globally a year.

Residents in Kyiv were advised to close their windows, limit time spent outdoors, drink plenty of water, and use an air purifier.

“Particular attention should be paid to these recommendations by people with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases,” said a statement from the Ecology Ministry.

Autumn temperature variations trap harmful substances in the air, worsening pollution and reducing air quality, the ministry added.

KYIV, Ukraine – Russian strikes hit high-rise apartment blocks in Ukraine’s city of Kharkiv, leaving dozens wounded in a second consecutive nighttime attack this past week.

The bombs fell Saturday night on the district of Shevchenkivsky, north of the center of Kharkiv, the second largest city, local Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. Nine residential buildings sustained varying degrees of damage, including 16- and nine-story blocks, he added.

Twenty-one people were wounded, including an eight-year-old, according to Syniehubov and Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov. Terekhov said 60 residents were evacuated from one of the buildings.

Kharkiv has been a frequent target of Russian attacks since Moscow launched its all-out invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.

The attack came after another late Friday that wounded 15 people, including a 10- and 12-year-old, as Russian airstrikes hit three Kharkiv neighborhoods, Terekhov said.

According to Ukrainian officials, KAB-type aerial glide bombs were used in both attacks, a retrofitted Soviet weapon that has for months laid waste to eastern Ukraine.

Russia also launched 80 Shahed drones and two missiles at Ukraine overnight into Sunday, the Ukrainian air force said. Ukrainian air defense shot down 71 drones, and another six were lost on location due to electronic warfare countermeasures, the statement said.

Farther south, a 12-year-old girl and a woman died after a Russian drone struck a passenger car in the city of Nikopol, local Gov. Serhii Lysak reported. Two others, including a four-year-old, suffered wounds.

A Russian artillery strike also killed one person in the eastern town of Kurakhove, regional prosecutors said, as Russian forces continue their grinding advance westwards through Ukraine’s industrial Donetsk province.

Russian drone strikes on Sunday also damaged energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s central Poltava region and the northern city of Shostka, local officials reported.

Shostka lies in the Sumy region, across the border from Russia’s Kursk province — the target of a startling Ukrainian military incursion launched last month. Weeks into the incursion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelneskyy said its aim is to create a buffer zone to prevent further Russian cross-border strikes that have for months wreaked havoc in Sumy.

KYIV, Ukraine – The victory plan that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will present to the White House this week asks the Biden administration to do something it has not achieved in the two and a half years since Russia invaded Ukraine: act quickly to support Kyiv’s campaign.

While Western dawdling has amplified Ukraine’s losses, some Ukrainian officials, diplomats and analysts fear Kyiv’s aim to have the plan implemented before a new U.S. president takes office in January may be out of reach.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield, reportedly briefed on the plan, said it “can work” but many privately question how.

The specifics of Zelenskyy’s blueprint have been kept under wraps until it can be formally presented to President Joe Biden, but contours of the plan have emerged, including the need for fast action on decisions Western allies have been mulling since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.

It includes the security guarantee of NATO membership, according to Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andrii Yermak — a principal demand of Kyiv and Moscow’s key point of contention. Western allies, including the U.S., have been skeptical about this option.

Zelenskyy has said he will also seek permission to use long-range weapons to strike deep inside Russian territory, another red line for some of Ukraine’s supporters.

“Partners often say, ‘We will be with Ukraine until its victory.’ Now we clearly show how Ukraine can win and what is needed for this. Very specific things,” Zelenskyy told reporters ahead of the trip. “Let’s do all this today, while all the officials who want victory for Ukraine are still in official positions.”

Meanwhile, outnumbered Ukrainian forces face grinding battles against one of the world’s most powerful armies in the east. As Zelenskyy pitches his plan to Biden on Thursday, Ukrainian servicemen will be grappling to hold defensive lines in the key logistics point of Vuhledar in the Donetsk region. For some of them, it is essential that Biden buys into Zelenskyy’s plan.

“I hope that allies will provide us with what we need,” said Kyanin, a soldier fighting in the Donetsk region. “Not 10 or 31 tanks, but a thousand tanks, thousands of weapons and ammunition.”

Kyiv sets the terms

The victory plan is Kyiv’s response to rising pressure from Western allies and war-weary Ukrainians to negotiate a cease-fire. A deal with Russia would almost certainly be unfavorable for Ukraine, which has lost a fifth of its territory and tens of thousands of lives in the conflict.

Unless, Kyiv calculates, its western partners act quickly. Ukraine’s allies have routinely mulled over requests for weapons and capabilities, granting them often after their strategic value is diminished. Under the plan, from October to December, they must dramatically strengthen Kyiv’s hand.

The plan comprises military, political, diplomatic and economic elements.

A senior U.S. State Department official said the Ukrainians were “testing” certain elements of Zelenskyy’s plan with the U.S. and others but had not yet offered details or the entire proposal. Any decision on support for parts or all of the plan will be up to Biden, the official said on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly in New York.

The official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss private consultations with the Ukrainians, said the military element of the plan deals with what Ukraine thinks it needs in the short term to keep pressure on Russia and hopefully force them to the negotiating table.

The political element deals with how to assure the Ukrainian people that they will be welcome in Western institutions like the European Union and NATO if they continue to fight with Russia or succeed in getting a negotiated settlement with Russia, the official said.

Aside from the demand for NATO membership, the plan seeks to bolster Ukraine’s defenses, including air defense capabilities, enough to force Moscow to negotiate.

A request to ramp up sanctions to weaken Russia’s economy and defense industry is also expected.

Zelenskyy has said without elaborating that Kyiv’s military incursion into Kursk, in Russia, is part of the victory plan. That offensive, which embarrassed President Vladimir Putin as the Kremlin scrambled to counterattack, has not yielded any strategic gains. But it has shown the Russian public and doubtful Western allies that Russian is not invincible and Kyiv still has offensive capabilities despite being battered on the eastern front.

The cost of inaction

Zelenskyy has described his proposal as “a bridge to the Peace Summit” that he has proposed for November but that Russia says it will not attend. No international players capable of swaying Moscow agreed to his earlier 10-point peace plan, which calls for the full withdrawal of Russian forces.

Ukrainian presidential advisors and lawmakers have told The Associated Press that Kyiv will only agree to a cease-fire with Russia if Putin’s ability to invade the country again is crippled. Any other arrangement would not benefit Ukraine’s future or honor the sacrifices of its people.

Ukrainian officials have rejected competing proposals from China and Brazil, believing they would merely pause the war and give Moscow time to consolidate its battered army and defense industry.

“It will lead to a freezing of the conflict, nothing more: Occupied territories are considered occupied. Sanctions against Russia remain. The intensity of war drops significantly but it continues,” said one presidential advisor, who requested anonymity to speak freely.

He predicted that Moscow would recalibrate and attack again, likely from Mykolaiv and Odesa in the south, “within two, three, four years, or maybe even earlier, depending on the state of Russia. That’s the scenario.”

Russia’s conditions for ending the war are spelled out in a 17-page draft agreement penned in April 2022.

The time element

Prolonging the status quo will only play into Russia’s hands in the long-term, analysts said.

“Ukraine will lose more than 1,000 square kilometres (600 miles) by the end of the year,” if current conditions continue, said Oleksandr Kovalenko, a military analyst for Information Resistance, a Kyiv-based think tank. “We need to understand that if (allies) don’t defend Ukraine, it will make this war last for many more years, and finally, make it possible for us to lose the war,” he said.

Time will also allow Russian forces to build up its weapons industry, as it did at a frightening pace in the last year, said Kovalenko.

“We lack every kind of weapon, and Russia produces their weapons 24 hours a day,” Kovalenko said.

Russia has updated its aerial glide bombs, for which Ukraine has no effective countermeasure. They now weigh 3,000 pounds, which is six times bigger than when they were first used in the battle for Bakhmut in 2022, he said.

Soldiers in eastern Ukraine and analysts said long-range Western weapons would be the most effective countermeasure against glide bombs, which have been deployed along the frontline, including in Vuhledar. The mining town’s fall would compromise supply lines feeding the southern front and strike a devastating blow to Ukrainian morale.

In his final address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Biden urged Ukraine’s backers to stand firm.

“We cannot grow weary,” he said. “We cannot look away.”

Tokyo – A pair of blood-spattered trousers in a miso tank and an allegedly forced confession helped send Iwao Hakamata to death row more than five decades ago.

Now, the world’s longest-serving death row convict has a chance to clear his name.

A Japanese court on Thursday is set to hand down its verdict in the retrial of 88-year-old Hakamata, who was sentenced to death in 1968 for murdering a family in a marathon legal saga that’s brought global scrutiny to Japan’s criminal justice system and fueled calls to abolish the death penalty in the country.

During the retrial, Hakamata’s lawyers argued new information proved his innocence, while prosecutors claimed there was enough evidence to confirm he should be hanged for the crime.

Once a professional boxer, Hakamata retired in 1961 and got a job at a soybean processing plant in Shizuoka, central Japan – a choice that would mar the rest of his life.

When Hakamata’s boss, his boss’s wife, and their two children were found stabbed to death in their home in June five years later, Hakamata, then a divorcée who also worked at a bar, became the police’s prime suspect.

After days of relentless questioning, Hakamata initially admitted to the charges against him, but later changed his plea, arguing police had forced him to confess by beating and threatening him.

He was sentenced to death in a 2-1 decision by judges, despite repeatedly alleging that the police had fabricated evidence. The one dissenting judge stepped down from the bar six months later, demoralized by his inability to stop the sentencing.

Hakamata, who has maintained his innocence ever since, would go on to spend more than half his life waiting to be hanged before new evidence led to his release a decade ago.

After a DNA test on blood found on the trousers revealed no match to Hakamata or the victims, the Shizuoka District Court ordered a retrial in 2014. Because of his age and fragile mental state, Hakamata was freed as he awaited his day in court.

The Tokyo High Court initially scrapped the request for a retrial for unknown reasons, but in 2023 agreed to grant Hakamata a second chance on an order from Japan’s Supreme Court.

Retrials are rare in Japan, where 99% of cases result in convictions, according to the Ministry of Justice website.

A justice system under scrutiny

Even as his case is closely watched around the world, a possible acquittal would not likely register with Hakamata, who after decades of imprisonment has seen a decline in his mental health, and is “living in his own world,” said his sister Hideko, 91, who has long campaigned for his innocence.

Hakamata seldom speaks and shows no interest in other people, Hideko told CNN.

“Sometimes he smiles happily, but that’s when he’s in his delusion,” Hideko said. “We have not even discussed the trial with Iwao because of his inability to recognize reality.”

But for Hakamata’s supporters, the case is about much more than one man.

It has raised questions about Japan’s reliance on confessions to get convictions. And some say it’s one of the reasons why the country should do away with the death penalty.

“I’m against the death penalty,” Hideko said. “Convicts are also human beings.”

Japan is the only G7 country outside of the United States to retain capital punishment, though it did not perform any executions in 2023, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Hiroshi Ichikawa, a former prosecutor who was not involved in Hakamata’s case, said historically Japanese prosecutors have been encouraged to get confessions before looking for supporting evidence, even if it means threatening or manipulating defendants to get them to admit guilt.

An emphasis on confessions is what allows Japan to maintain such a high conviction rate, Ichikawa said, in a country where an acquittal can severely hurt a prosecutor’s career.

Japan’s Ministry of Justice said it could not comment on an ongoing case.

A long fight for exoneration

For 46 years, Hakamata was held behind bars after being convicted on the basis of the stained clothing and his confession, which he and his lawyers say was given under duress.

Hideyo Ogawa, Hakamata’s lawyer, told CNN that Hakamata was physically restrained and interrogated for more than 12 hours a day for 23 days, without the presence of a defence attorney.

“The Japanese judicial system, especially at that time, was a system that allowed investigative agencies to take advantage of their surreptitious nature to commit illegal or investigative crimes,” Ogawa said.

Chiara Sangiorgio, Death Penalty Advisor at Amnesty International, said Hakamata’s case is “emblematic of the many issues with the criminal justice (system) in Japan” and that his conviction was “riddled with flaws and recognized as unreliable” by the fact that he was granted a retrial.

Death row prisoners in Japan are typically detained in solitary confinement with limited contact with the outside world, Sangiorgio said. Executions are “shrouded in secrecy” with little to no warning, and families and lawyers are usually notified only after the execution has taken place.

Despite his poor mental health, over the past decade, Hakamata has gotten to enjoy the small pleasures that come with living freely.

In February, he adopted two cats. “Iwao began to pay attention to the cats, worry about them, and take care of them, which was a big change,” Hideko said.

Every afternoon, a group of Hakamata’s supporters take him out for a drive, where Hideko says Hakamata “buys a large amount of pastries and juice.”

While Hakamata may not understand the significance of Thursday’s ruling, his family and throngs of supporters may finally see the world’s longest-serving death row prisoner declared innocent, once and for all.

“I hope he will continue to live a long and free life,” Hideko said.

Former U.S. president Donald Trump described Ukraine in bleak and mournful terms Wednesday, referring to its people as “dead” and the country itself as “demolished,” and further raising questions about how much the former president would be willing if elected again to concede in a negotiation over the country’s future.

Trump argued Ukraine should have made concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the months before Russia’s February 2022 attack, declaring that even “the worst deal would’ve been better than what we have now.”

Trump, who has long been critical of U.S. aid to Ukraine, frequently claims that Russia never would have invaded if he was president and that he would put an end to the war if he returned to the White House. But rarely has he discussed the conflict in such detail.

His remarks, at a North Carolina event billed as an economic speech, come on the heels of a debate this month in which he pointedly refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war. On Tuesday, Trump touted the prowess of Russia and its predecessor Soviet Union, saying that wars are “what they do.”

The Republican former president, notoriously attuned to slights, began his denunciation of Ukraine by alluding to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recent criticism of Trump and running mate JD Vance.

Zelenskyy, who is visiting the U.S. this week to attend the UN General Assembly, told The New Yorker that Vance was “too radical” for proposing that Ukraine surrender territories under Russian control and that Trump “doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how.”

Said Trump, “It’s something we have to have a quick discussion about because the president of Ukraine is in our country and he’s making little nasty aspersions toward your favorite president, me.”

Trump painted Ukraine as a country in ruins outside its capital, Kyiv, short on soldiers and losing population to war deaths and neighboring countries. He questioned whether the country has any bargaining chips left to negotiate an end to the war.

“Any deal — the worst deal — would’ve been better than what we have now,” Trump said. “If they made a bad deal it would’ve been much better. They would’ve given up a little bit and everybody would be living and every building would be built and every tower would be aging for another 2,000 years.”

“What deal can we make? It’s demolished,” he added. “The people are dead. The country is in rubble.”

Zelenskyy is pitching the White House on what he calls a victory plan for the war, expected to include an ask to use long-range Western weapons to strike Russian targets.

While Ukraine outperformed many expectations that it would fall quickly to Russia, outnumbered Ukrainian forces face grinding battles against one of the world’s most powerful armies in the country’s east. A deal with Russia would almost certainly be unfavorable for Ukraine, which has lost a fifth of its territory and tens of thousands of lives in the conflict.

Trump laid blame for the conflict on U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris, his Democratic rival in November. He said Biden “egged it all on” by pledging to help Ukraine defend itself rather than pushing it to cede territory to Russia.

“Biden and Kamala allowed this to happen by feeding Zelenskyy money and munitions like no country has ever seen before,” Trump said.

Notably, Trump did not attack Putin’s reasoning for launching the invasion, only suggesting Putin would not have started the war had Trump been in office. He did say of Putin, “He’s no angel.” 

NEW YORK –

 The U.S., France and other allies jointly called Wednesday for an “immediate” 21-day ceasefire to allow for negotiations in the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that has killed more than 600 people in Lebanon in recent days.

The joint statement, negotiated on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, says the recent fighting is “intolerable and presents an unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation.”

“We call for an immediate 21-day ceasefire across the Lebanon-Israel border to provide space for diplomacy,” the statement reads. “We call on all parties, including the Governments of Israel and Lebanon, to endorse the temporary ceasefire immediately.”

There was no immediate reaction from the Israeli or Lebanese governments — or Hezbollah — but senior U.S. officials said all parties were aware of the call for a ceasefire and would be speaking for themselves in the coming hours. The officials said Hezbollah would not be a signatory to the ceasefire, but they believe the government of Lebanon would coordinate its acceptance with the group.

While the ceasefire call applies only to the Israel-Lebanon border, senior U.S. officials said they were looking to use a three-week pause in fighting there to restart stalled negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas.

The nations calling for a ceasefire include the United States, Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

Work on the proposal came together quickly this week with President Joe Biden’s national security team, led by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan, working with allies to get the deal together, according to a U.S. official. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private deliberations, said the deal crystallized by late Wednesday afternoon during a conversation on the sidelines of the General Assembly between Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told the UN Security Council during a meeting that “we are counting on both parties to accept it without delay.”

Barrot said France, a former colonial power to Lebanon, and the U.S. had consulted with the sides on “final parameters for a diplomatic way out of this crisis,” adding that “war is not unavoidable.”

U.S. deputy ambassador to the UN Robert Wood encouraged the council to support the diplomatic efforts but didn’t offer specifics about the plan.

“We are working with other countries on a proposal that we hope will lead to calm and enable discussions to a diplomatic solution,” he said.

Earlier Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. administration was “intensely engaged with a number of partners to deescalate tensions in Lebanon and to work to get a ceasefire agreement that would have so many benefits for all concerned.”

U.S. President Joe Biden addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 24, 2024, at UN headquarters.

Blinken and other advisers to President Joe Biden have spent the past three days at and on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly meeting of world leaders in New York lobbying other countries to support the plan, according to U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic conversations.

Americans hope such a ceasefire could lead to longer-term stability along the border between Israel and Lebanon. Months of Israeli and Hezbollah exchanges of fire across the border drove tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border, and escalated attacks this week have rekindled fears of a broader war in the Middle East.

Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and senior advisers Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein have been meeting with Middle East allies in New York and have been in touch with Israeli officials about the proposal, one of the U.S. officials said. McGurk and Hochstein have been the White House’s chief interlocutors with Israel and Lebanon since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, another Iranian-backed militant group.

An Israeli official said Netanyahu has given the green light to pursue a possible deal, but only if it includes the return of Israeli civilians to their homes. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing behind-the-scenes diplomacy.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati threw his support behind the French-U.S. plan that “enjoys international support and which would put an end to this dirty war.”

He called on the Security Council “to guarantee the withdrawal of Israel from all the occupied Lebanese territories and the violations that are repeated on a daily basis.”

Israel’s UN Ambassador, Danny Danon, told journalists at the United Nations that Israel would like to see a ceasefire and the return of people to their homes near the border: “It will happen, either after a war or before a war. We hope it will be before.”

Addressing the Security Council later Wednesday night, he made no mention of negotiations on a temporary ceasefire but said Israel “does not seek a full-scale war.”

Both Danon and Mikati reffirmed their governments’ commitment to a Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war in Lebanon. Never fully implemented, it called for a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon to be replaced by Lebanese forces and UN peacekeepers, and the disarmament of all armed groups including Hezbollah.

Danon demanded that the resolution be enforced in full without delay: “I make this declaration here today, to remove any doubt: Never again. Never again will the Jewish people hide from the monsters whose purpose in life is to murder Jews.”

Earlier Wednesday, Biden warned in an appearance on ABC’s “The View” that “an all-out war is possible” but said he thinks the opportunity also exists “to have a settlement that can fundamentally change the whole region.”

Biden suggested that getting Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire could help achieve a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. That war is approaching the one-year mark after Hamas raids in southern Israel on Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 people. Israel responded with an offensive that has since killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, who do not provide a breakdown of civilians and fighters in their count.

“It’s possible and I’m using every bit of energy I have with my team … to get this done,” Biden said. “There’s a desire to see change in the region.”

The U.S. and other international mediators have tried and failed for months to broker a ceasefire in Gaza that also would release hostages held by Hamas.

The U.S. government also raised the pressure with additional sanctions Wednesday targeting more than a dozen ships and other entities it says were involved in illicit shipments of Iranian petroleum for the financial benefit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, the chief of Israel’s army said Wednesday that the military is preparing for a possible ground operation in Lebanon as Hezbollah hurled dozens of projectiles into Israel, including a missile aimed at Tel Aviv that was the militant group’s deepest strike yet.

Blinken has been urging both Israel and Hezbollah to step back from their intensifying conflict, saying that all-out war would be disastrous for the region and that escalation was not the way to get people back to their homes on the Israel-Lebanon border.

“It would be through a diplomatic agreement that has forces pulled back from the border, create a secure environment, people return home,” Blinken told NBC News. “That’s what we’re driving toward because while there’s a very legitimate issue here, we don’t think that war is the solution.”

Washington — The Russian invasion of Ukraine over two years ago rocked the international world order, and it’s become one of the most divisive issues of the 2024 presidential election. Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris advocate very different approaches to involvement in the war and the U.S. relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

While the GOP has become increasingly isolationist with Trump at the helm of the party, Harris has touted the Biden administration’s efforts to strengthen global alliances. And on the issue of Ukraine, the parties have drifted farther apart on how much support the U.S. should be giving to the war-ravaged country more than two years later.

Here’s where the candidates stand on the issue:

Donald Trump on the Russia-Ukraine war

The former president attempted to build friendly relations with Russia while in office and has often praised Putin, calling him “savvy” after the Russian leader recognized the independence of two Russian separatist-controlled areas in eastern Ukraine ahead of the invasion. More recently, Trump has suggested he would not protect NATO members from Russia if they don’t increase defense spending. And he has repeatedly raised questions about U.S. membership in NATO.

On Ukraine, Trump has claimed Putin would never have invaded the country if he were president. And he has frequently claimed he could end the war in a day and would bring Ukraine to the negotiating table. Trump hasn’t said how he plans to do this, but experts think he’d force Ukraine to negotiate an end to the war by denying continued aid.

During the presidential debate with Harris in September, Trump wouldn’t say whether he wanted Ukraine to win in its war with Russia when he was asked, instead responding, “I want the war to stop,” and urging the two countries to negotiate a deal.

“What I’ll do is I’ll speak to one, I’ll speak to the other, I’ll get them together,” Trump said. “That war would have never happened.”

Trump spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the phone in July, in what the former president described as a “very good phone call.” He pledged in a social media post after the call that under his presidency, Ukraine and Russia “will be able to come together and negotiate a deal that ends the violence and paves a path forward to prosperity.” A phone conversation between the two leaders nearly five years earlier led to Trump’s first impeachment, when Trump pushed for Zelenskyy to investigate his political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter. 

The former president has been critical of the Biden administration for sending billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine. When the aid became a key issue in Congress earlier this year, with growing opposition from conservatives, Trump himself pushed for a loan framework for aid to Ukraine. At a rally in June, he suggested aid to Ukraine could stop if he returned to office. And his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, has been vocal about the GOP ticket’s opposition to additional Ukraine aid. 

Trump’s campaign website touts the former president’s “bold diplomacy” as part of a pledge to “reject globalism and embrace patriotism,” while working to “restore our standing in the world and American leadership abroad” under a second Trump presidency. 

Kamala Harris on the Russia-Ukraine war

Harris, whose record is shorter than Trump’s but has been associated with the Biden administration’s policies, pledged in her address at the Democratic convention in August that she “will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies.” 

President Biden sent the vice president to meet with Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference a few days before the Russian invasion, warning the Ukrainian leader of the Kremlin’s plan and sharing American intelligence that suggested the invasion was imminent as Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s border. A year later, Harris accused Russia of committing “crimes against humanity.” And she’s met with the Ukrainian leader on multiple occasions since. 

The Biden administration has spearheaded a number of humanitarian and military aid packages for Ukraine and worked with allies to sanction Russia for its invasion. Still, the administration’s response — especially early on in the war — has been criticized as slow-moving, while Republican opposition in Congress further slowed aid to Ukraine more recently. 

During the debate, Harris touted her work in the Biden administration to support Ukraine, warning that if Trump were still president, “Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now.”

“Understand why the European allies and our NATO allies are so thankful that you are no longer president and that we understand the importance of the greatest military alliance the world has ever known,” Harris said to Trump, “and what we have done to preserve the ability of Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians to fight for their independence.”

Harris’ campaign website dubs her a “tireless and effective diplomat on the world stage,” pledging that she will stand up to dictators. It cites her meeting with Zelenskyy before the war began, and it boasts that Harris has “helped mobilize a global response of more than 50 countries to help Ukraine defend itself against Vladimir Putin’s brutal aggression,” while working with allies to bolster NATO’s strength.

Ahead of a meeting of NATO defense secretaries in Brussels on Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jans Stoltenberg urged members of the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a multi-billion dollar aid package for Ukraine as “an investment in our own security.”

Stoltenberg said if Russia wins the war in Ukraine, the Russian state will be emboldened, as will China.

“If President Putin wins in Ukraine, it will send a message to him but also to other authoritarian leaders that they get what they want when they use military force. It will make the world more dangerous (and) us more vulnerable,” Stoltenberg told the Reuters news agency. “Today it is Ukraine, tomorrow it can be in Taiwan. So, Beijing — China — is watching closely what’s going on in Ukraine.”

Why does Ukraine need more military aid?

Two years into the war sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine is running out ammunition.

“They’ve gone from firing 7,000 rounds a day to 2,000 rounds a day, which is a pretty significant reduction, at the same time that the Russians have been able to increase their procurement of their own munitions, also buying some from North Korea,” Edward Arnold, a European security research fellow at the British defense think-tank RUSI, told CBS News.

Arnold said Ukraine had also lost so many soldiers in the war that it was running out of sufficiently trained personnel, and it doesn’t have enough weapons to keep carrying out many long-range strikes on strategic Russian targets, such as command-and-control centers and ammunition storage facilities.

“As a result, Ukraine this year has just sort of formally announced that they’re moving back to defensive operations, probably for the whole year. Because they lack the offensive potential, because they don’t have enough ammunition,” Arnold said.

What is included in the U.S. aid package for Ukraine?

A funding bill passed by the U.S. Senate on Monday, but not yet picked up by the House of Representatives, includes around $60 billion in additional military aid for Ukraine.

But if and when it is approved, “they don’t just hand over all of the money to Ukraine,” Arnold explained. “They mainly spend it with U.S. defense contractors to buy equipment from them to send to Ukraine. So the vast majority of the money that the U.S. has given to Ukraine has actually gone into the U.S. economy.”

The U.S. has provided a wide range of aid to Ukraine, including American-made weapons systems and military vehicles. Much of that hardware requires specific parts for maintenance and specific ammunition. So the new aid package “matters not just for the amount, which is significant, but it’s also what is provided by the U.S.” to keep equipment already provided running and weapons already provided firing, Arnold said.

“The U.S. has provided a lot of the vehicles that the Ukrainians now use, so they need to be maintained — and with enough ammunition so they can be used effectively. Particularly HIMARS, a long range rocket artillery system. They’re incredibly effective against the Russians, and the Ukrainians aren’t running out of targets, they’re just running out of missiles.”

What do the current shortfalls mean for Russia?

Arnold said Ukraine has been “wholly reliant on Western aid” since about two weeks into the full-scale Russian invasion, which started on Feb. 24, 2022. 

“That’s the only thing that’s sustaining them,” he said, adding that the amount of aid Ukraine is currently receiving, primarily from other NATO members in Europe, is not enough to win the war against Russia, but simply to stay in the fight.

“But if that starts to drop further, because, you know, Western policymakers don’t think that this is a viable prospect anymore, then that’s the easiest route to Russian victory,” Arnold said.

Arnold said recent history shows Russia is “an aggressive state, and if they win in Ukraine, they’re going to most likely start to look at other states in Europe, particularly the Baltic states.”

“From an American perspective, through NATO as an alliance, that will draw America into a wider conflict,” he said, referring to the mutual defense clause in the NATO alliance’s founding treaty.

He said Russia’s strategy appeared to be to wait and see if Western support for Ukraine dwindles, and argued that supporting Ukraine now would be a good defense investment for the U.S. in the longer term.

“This is a very, very good chance to destroy the Russian military in the field and destroy its conventional capability for potentially decades,” Arnold told CBS News “And when there’s other challenges that the Americans are concerned about, principally China —  annexation of Taiwan — well, if you can reduce the Russians by spending a very, very small percentage of your defense expenditure, then that is very, very much money well spent.”