Zelenskyy receives warm welcome from British prime minister, a day after White House blowup
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(LONDON) — One day after the meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump blew up, the Ukrainian president was warmly welcomed by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Zelenskyy was all smiles on Saturday as he was greeted by Starmer outside No. 10 Downing Street, and the pleasantries continued during their photo spray inside.
Starmer pledged the United Kingdom’s “unwaving” support for Ukraine.
“We stand with Ukraine for as long as it may take,” said the prime minister, who also visited Trump this week.
Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude to Starmer.
“We are happy to have such partners and such friends,” he said.
Starmer will host a summit of European leaders on Sunday to discuss ideas to end the war in Ukraine. Zelenskyy was slated to meet with King Charles III as well, the president’s spokesman Serhiy Nykyforov told ABC News.
Buckingham Palace had not confirmed the meeting as of Saturday afternoon.
The meeting followed Zelenskyy leaving the White House on Friday after Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance got into a fiery argument with the Ukrainian president.
Zelenskyy was supposed to sign a deal that would have given the United States access to his country’s critical minerals, but the deal-signing ceremony was canceled after the blowup.
After his meeting with Starmer, Zelenskyy posted on X that the U.K. had agreed to a loan agreement.
“This loan will enhance Ukraine’s defense capabilities and will be repaid using revenues from frozen Russian assets,” he said. “The funds will be directed toward weapons production in Ukraine. This is true justice — the one who started the war must be the one to pay.”
(LONDON) — After dedicating his life to fighting the regime of Assad, Mazen Al-Hamada did not live to see it fall.
A symbol of resilience and courage, the famous Syrian activist was found dead in the “slaughterhouse” prison of Saydnaya in Damascus, as confirmed by the Syrian Emergency Task Force to ABC News.
An unverified photo circulating online shows his disfigured face and suggests he was killed just before the rebels that ousted Assad reached the prison to liberate detainees, according to independent observers.
On Thursday, hundreds gathered in Damascus for Al-Hamada’s funeral, where one of his sisters leading the procession called him “a martyr of revolution and freedom.”
Originally from Deir Ezzor, Al-Hamada was first arrested in 2011 when he organized pro-democracy rallies in the context of the Arab Spring and documented the brutal repression from the Syrian government.
In 2012, he was arrested again for trying to smuggle baby formula into a besieged suburb of Damascus, returning to prison a second time.
He left Syria in 2013 and was granted asylum in the Netherlands a year later.
Once abroad, the world got to know the horrors endured by Al-Hamada, along with thousands of detainees, as he described them to huge crowds of students, policymakers and the press. He did not spare details of the numerous ways in which he had been tortured, reliving his trauma over and over again to raise awareness.
“Mazen poured his heart into every meeting and to anyone he spoke with,” Humanitarian Programs Director at the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF) Natalie Larrison, who was on the road with him and became his close friend, told ABC News. As they traveled the United States, meeting everyone who would listen, from congress members in Washington, D.C., to students in Arkansas, Larrison said he was always “in the backseat singing and clapping and jumping up and down.”
Larrison also said Al-Hamada loved American tacos, especially from Taco Bell, and that he told her he was engaged and kept the ring even after his fiancé had been killed while he was in prison the first time.
With every testimony, Al-Hamada quickly became one of the most prominent advocates for Syrian prisoners held by Assad’s regime, at least 157,000 between 2011 and August 2024, including thousands of women and children, according to a report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR).
“Mazen was a gentle soul,” Sara Afshar, a friend of Al-Hamada and the director of the 2017 documentary “Syria’s Disappeared” in which he was featured, told ABC News, “A lot of people in his situation would focus on looking after themselves… but everything that motivated him, with an incredible sense of urgency, every second of the day, was how to get the other prisoners out. Because he knew what they were going through.”
Along with thousands of users on social media, Afshar called for justice for Al-Hamada and the other Syrian detainees who are dead or unaccounted for, echoing the words that Al-Hamada himself said in an interview which has been trending on social media since the news of his death.
“I will not rest until I take them to court and get justice,” Al-Hamada said in the interview, his sunken eyes in tears unable to hide the pain behind his words. “Justice for me and my friends who they killed. Even if it costs my life. Bring them to justice, no matter what.”
Al-Hamada returned to Syria four years ago in a shocking move that some people close to him described as the result of his disappointment in the international community. The last time he was active on his WhatsApp was on Feb. 22, 2020, according to the SETF.
“He became discouraged over time because he gave it his all with people promising to help, and nothing changed,” Larrison told ABC News.
Others, including his sister who spoke at his funeral on Thursday, believe the regime promised him safety if he returned to Syria in an attempt to stop his international anti-Assad campaign. She also said they threatened to hurt his family still in Syria.
“The circumstances of Mazen’s death underscore the heavy price borne by those who dared speak out against Assad’s brutal regime,” the Syrian Emergency Task Force said in a statement remembering Al-Hamada.
The Dutch government never commented on his departure, fostering rumors that it failed to support the refugee and his efforts to raise awareness for the Syrian cause.
When asked about Al-Hamada’s legacy, the people who knew him said it would be justice and his contribution to freeing Syria from Assad’s five decadeslong regime.
“Seeing his funeral service today in Damascus is a testimony to what he meant to the Syrian people. His tireless journey has not been for nothing and his legacy will continue to live on in a free Syria, and he will be remembered always for helping his people be free,” Larrison told ABC News.
“We talked about justice and accountability when he recounted the horrors he had experienced. He didn’t want revenge. What he wanted was justice in a court of law,” Afshar told ABC News. “The world failed him and the other disappeared, and now they are dead. But with all the evidence that is being gathered and the work that so many Syrians have done for years, I have hope that there will be justice. That will be Mazen’s legacy.”
(LONDON) — Russia’s war on Ukraine dominated the opening stages of President Vladimir Putin’s annual marathon press conference on Thursday, with the Russian leader also addressing issues including future relations with President-elect Donald Trump and the situation in Syria.
Among the questions was how Moscow would deal with the incoming Trump administration given Russia was in a “weaker position.”
In response, Putin said he had not spoken to Trump for four years but was ready for a meeting. “You would very much like Russia to be in a weakened position, but I hold a different point of view,” he said.
Discussing the ongoing war in Ukraine, Putin claimed that the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile recently used to strike the Ukrainian city of Dnipro cannot be intercepted by Western air defense systems.
Western technology, he said, “stands no chance” against the missile.
Putin even suggested arranging “an experiment or a duel” in which Russia would select a target for an Oreshnik strike in Kyiv and Ukraine would set up its Western-supplied air defenses to intercept the missile.
“It will be interesting for us,” Putin said.
Asked about missing U.S. journalist Austin Tice — who disappeared in Syria 12 years ago — Putin said he would raise the issue with former Syrian President Bashar Assad, now living in exile in Russia having been toppled by a rebel offensive earlier this month.
Tice’s mother has reportedly written to Putin asking for help in finding Tice, who is now the subject of a major search effort by the U.S. with assistance from regional allies and the new rebel-led authorities in Syria.
Putin said he has not seen Assad in Moscow since he was granted asylum there, but he will raise the issue of Tice’s whereabouts.
“I promise that I will definitely ask this question,” he said. “I can also ask questions to people who control the situation.”
ABC News’ Anastasia Bagaeva, Tanya Stukalova and Fidel Pavlenko contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Despite President Donald Trump’s push for the forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza — a move that, if carried out, would be a violation of international law that some experts and U.S. allies have called ethnic cleansing — he is facing significant pushback from allies and states in the region.
There is “zero possibility” that Palestinians will be forcibly displaced from Gaza and into Jordan and Egypt, one expert told ABC News.
“I see no scenario where this happens,” Brian Katulis, a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Middle East Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, told ABC News. “This is their home. They’ve endured so much to stay in their home, even if their home — literal homes, family homes — have been destroyed.”
“It’s a model that just won’t work in today’s Middle East,” Katulis said, referring to the forced displacement of Palestinians.
“The risk is that [this] comes at a very uncertain time with the ceasefire and hostage release deal on thin ice, and it actually serves to distract from the important work of trying to keep that process moving forward — to get hostages released and much-needed aid into the people … and to actually try to move forward to something that is realistic,” Katulis said.
Trump at one point threatened to withdraw aid to Egypt and Jordan if they didn’t agree to take in Palestinians, though less than 24 hours later, he said, “I don’t have to threaten that, I don’t think. I think we’re above that.”
“The point of this is to ostensibly force Egypt and Jordan to accept all of the Palestinians currently living in the Gaza Strip, so they can engage, so the U.S. can annex the territory. I think it’s safe to say it’s a non-starter for the Saudis,” Daniel Drezner, a professor of international politics at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, told ABC News.
“The Jordanians, in particular, need the money. They’re not oil rich, and same with Egypt, but in some ways the expectation would be that if Trump actually threatened to cut them off, they would likely turn first to Saudi Arabia and the Emiratis,” Drezner said.
Arab nations quickly rejected Trump’s proposal to forcibly displace Palestinians and relocate them in neighboring states, with several calling it a hard line.
“The Foreign Ministry affirms that Saudi Arabia’s position on the establishment of a Palestinian state is firm and unwavering. HRH Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Prime Minister clearly and unequivocally reaffirmed this stance,” Saudi Arabia said last week, just hours after Trump called for the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
As much as a bind Jordan is in, it is unlikely that it would accept anything along the lines of what Trump proposed, Drezner said, adding the proposal is worse than losing the $1.5 billion in annual aid that it receives from the U.S.
“The question is the extent to which the Saudis are willing to bankroll both the Jordanians and the Egyptians,” Drezner said.
“Pay attention to how the Gulf states are reacting to all this, because they’re the ones that are simultaneously most likely to be able to resist Trump’s pressures, and also it will send a regional signal to Egypt and Jordan as to what their options are,” Drezner said.
After Trump’s comments, Egypt expressed its support for the legitimate and inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, calling for the need for a two-state solution and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
As Trump continued to double down on forcing out the Palestinians, Egyptian President Abdelfatah El Sisi announced he will indefinitely postpone his plan to visit Trump at the White House. According to Saudi-owned Al Arabiya News, Sisi said he won’t attend any White House talks if the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza is on the agenda.
“They’re probably trying to figure out how do they reposition themselves in light of Trump’s incendiary remarks, because they come directly at odds with Egypt’s own positions on this issue and its national security interests. And I don’t think they want to be put in any sort of position to actually directly challenge Trump right now until they assess,” Katulis said.
“[Egypt]’s security aid from the U.S. is part of a package that came out of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty. And if Trump wants to play games with that, he’s actually going to undercut a lot of America’s long-standing traditional security relationships in the region,” Katulis said.
Egypt also announced it plans to host a meeting with Arab states in Cairo later this month where they will discuss a counterproposal.
After meeting with Trump, King Abdullah of Jordan said in a statement he “reiterated Jordan’s steadfast position against the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. This is the unified Arab position. Rebuilding Gaza without displacing the Palestinians and addressing the dire humanitarian situation should be the priority for all.”
Trump appeared to walk back his threat of withdrawing aid after his meeting this week with King Abdullah resulted in the news that Jordan would take in 2,000 sick Palestinian children for treatment.
“This is a replay of what we’ve seen with regard to threatening Canada and Mexico [with tariffs] — it’s the shining orb strategy. It turns out if you offer Trump like a pretty gaudy but not terribly significant concession, he’ll back down,” Drezner said.
“Jordan can never agree to this — to Trump’s proposal — that would be the end of the regime. And that’s the fundamental thing that I assume someone must have told Donald Trump,” Drezner said.
In addition to opposing the forced displacement of Palestinians, Jordan and Egypt also have strains on their economies and taking in millions of refugees could potentially produce more economic and security challenges.
For the last 20 years, Jordan has faced an influx of refugees from Iraq and Syria, which has strained their economy and their social fabric, according to Katulis.
Egypt’s economy has also faced strains, with the Egyptian pound being depreciated several times in recent years. According to the World Food Programme, from January 2016 to January 2025, the Egyptian pound was devalued by 84.5% relative to the U.S. dollar — a move that governments use to increase its competitiveness or trade balance. And the U.S. dollar appreciated by 543.8% relative to the Egyptian pound during that same time period, based on the official exchange rate, according to the World Food Programme.
Taking in all Palestinians living in Gaza could also pull other countries into a confrontation with Israel, Drezner noted.
“There is no scenario whereby the Palestinians that are displaced are not going to want to return. Essentially, you’re introducing the possibility of violent non-state actors to operate within your territory,” Drezner said.
Other international powers
While Egypt and Jordan are most likely to look to Gulf states for alternate sources of aid, other international actors could also fill a gap created by the U.S. if Trump follows through on his threats.
“I’m not sure Russia is really in all that strong a position, particularly in the Middle East, since they lost their last port [when the regime fell in Syria] and we just saw what happened to Bashar Al Assad. I’m not sure that [Vladimir Putin]’s necessarily a reliable benefactor,” Drezner said.
“It would make much more sense to make a pivot towards China, in no small part because, among other things, China actually has reasons to want to be involved in the region, given their various energy demands,” Drezner said.
But, Jordan and Egypt rely on military supplies from the U.S. and the West.
“The longer-term issue is that you can argue that the militaries in both Jordan and Egypt are a little bit stuck in that they rely primarily on U.S. weaponry. So to engage in a radical pivot means that in some ways you’re also weakening your own coercive apparatus at the same time,” Drezner said.
It would take time before the militaries would be prepared to use weaponry from a different source, and weapons from another source would likely also be incompatible with their existing military stock, according to Drezner.
“It would be hard to pivot to either Russia or China as your primary arms manufacturer,” Drezner said.
