Romania’s foreign minister said he had not come under pressure from US President Donald Trump’s envoy to lift restrictions on social media influencer Andrew Tate, who faces human trafficking charges, despite them discussing the case.

The Financial Times reported on Monday, citing sources, that US officials had brought up the case of Tate and his brother Tristan, both former kickboxers with dual US and British citizenship, in a phone call to the Romanian government.

It said Trump’s special envoy Richard Grenell followed up with Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu at the Munich Security Conference. A source told the FT a request was made to return the brothers’ passports and allow them to travel while they wait for court proceedings to conclude.

The brothers are banned from leaving Romania pending a criminal investigation on accusations of forming an organized criminal group, human trafficking, trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor and money laundering. They have denied all wrongdoing.

Tate, the highest profile suspect facing trial for human trafficking in Romania, was banned from almost all social media platforms before Trump’s now adviser Elon Musk took over X and reinstated his account.

Hurezeanu told Euronews late on Tuesday he had had an informal chat with Grenell in a hallway during the Munich conference. Hurezeanu cited Grenell as saying he remained interested in the fate of the Tate brothers.

“I did not perceive this statement as pressure, just a repeat of a known stance,” Hurezeanu said.

“I don’t know what pressures of another nature were made before or after but what I discussed with Mr. Grenell was cordial, informal, brief, non-binding and I certainly did not detect any form of pressure.”

A first criminal case against Tate and his brother failed in December when a Bucharest court decided not to start the trial, citing flaws in the indictment.

A Romanian court lifted a house arrest order against Tate in January, replacing it with a lighter preventative measure. In October, a court ruled he should get back luxury cars worth about 4 million euros ($4.43 million) that were seized by prosecutors, pending the investigations.

In Munich last week US Vice President JD Vance took a swipe at European governments for what he described as their censorship of free speech and their political opponents and specifically mentioned the cancellation of Romania’s presidential election based on what he said was flimsy evidence.

Romania’s top court ordered a rerun of the vote following suspicion of Russian interference in favor of the unexpected first round winner, the pro-Russian far-right Calin Georgescu. Russia denied any interference in Romania’s election campaigns.

A British journalist living in Brazil has been missing in the South American country for nearly two weeks, according to an association of foreign correspondents.

Charlotte Peet, 32, last contacted a friend in Rio de Janeiro on February 8, according to a Tuesday statement from the Association of Foreign Press Correspondents in Brazil (ACIE).

Texting over WhatsApp, Peet asked the friend for a place to stay, saying she was in São Paulo and was planning to head to Rio, the statement said.

“The friend, unable to host her, later learned from Peet’s family that they had lost contact with her,” the statement continued.

ACIE’s statement says Peet’s disappearance was reported to Brazilian police on February 17. After an initial review by the Tourist Assistance Police in Rio, the case was transferred to São Paulo’s homicide and personal protection division (DHPP), which handles missing persons cases, it added.

“ACIE and its board of directors appeal to the competent authorities to intensify the search in order to find the British journalist as soon as possible,” ACIE added.

Peet lived in Brazil as a correspondent “more two years ago,” wrote ACIE. After a brief return to the United Kingdom, she moved back to Brazil in November 2024.

Peet writes on her LinkedIn profile that she is fluent in Portuguese, and her online portfolio shows that she has freelanced in Brazil for several publications over the course of her career.

Iranian authorities have accused a British couple detained in the country since January of spying, state media reported Tuesday.

Mizanonline.ir, a news website affiliated with the country’s judiciary, cited Asghar Jahangir, a spokesman for the judiciary as saying that the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence forces incarcerated the couple, a man and a woman, while in the southern city of Kerman at the time.

They are accused of spying and having links to intelligence agencies of “hostile countries” and collecting information from several Iranian provinces, according to Jahangir who didn’t provide further details.

The report didn’t name the couple, however, a family statement released Saturday through the UK Foreign Office identified them as Craig and Lindsay Foreman, saying their situation was distressing and causing “significant concern.”

A spokesperson for the UK’s Foreign Office said Tuesday: “We are deeply concerned by reports that two British nationals have been charged with espionage in Iran. We continue to raise this case directly with the Iranian authorities.

“We are providing them with consular assistance and remain in close contact with their family members.”

The two were reportedly traveling around the world on motorbikes when they were detained in January. British media, citing social media posts, reported that they had crossed into Iran from Armenia on Dec. 30 and were planning to enter Pakistan next.

The British ambassador to Iran, Hugo Shorter, met the two in Kerman on Wednesday in the presence of officials from Iran’s justice department and the governor’s office.

Iran has a history of detaining and releasing western nationals on security charges. The country has long been accused of holding those with Western ties as prisoners to be used as bargaining chips in negotiations with the West. Iran denies those accusations.

The suspicion this was personal always lingered. But there was hope the greater good of both the US and Ukraine would win out.

The past 24 hours has seen US President Donald Trump’s slow-burn, apparent dislike for his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, belch out into the open. And with it comes a real and new uncertainty about the future of Ukraine, and more widely the security of Europe.

Last week, Trump hinted he felt Zelensky’s poll numbers were low and he would have to face elections, but Tuesday night he dug deeper, falsely stating the wartime leader was at 4 per cent favorability and Ukraine had started the war.

This is pretty close to Kremlin talking points. Moscow has been at pains to incorrectly suggest Ukraine’s imminent joining of NATO was behind its unprovoked attack in 2022, and that Zelensky is illegitimate as Ukraine has not undertaken the immense challenge of running elections in wartime.

Zelensky has for months flattered Trump as one who can bring peace through strength. Kyiv knew the Trump team’s rhetoric on the campaign trail spelt a likely sea change for Ukraine, but held out hope, with European allies, that Trump would seek to avoid an Kabul Airport Moment of collapse in security on the continent, and keep Russia back.

In the background, lingered the risk their contentious relationship in Trump’s first term – when Zelensky didn’t give Trump what he wanted in a “perfect” phone call that led to impeachment – was a dark, inescapable cloud that would hang over their future interactions. Now that cloud has loudly broken and Ukraine is getting wet.

Zelensky has tempered his remarks about Trump living in a “disinformation space” by adding he has great respect for this US president and the American people. But Trump sought no such caveats, even adding the “dictator” needed to move fast to save Ukraine and was on a “gravy train.”

Twice in five days this White House has dubbed European democratic leaders tyrants, falsely, while declining to mention the Kremlin’s authoritarian record in the same speech. US Vice President JD Vance at the weekend in Munich said Europe’s most democratic US allies were afraid of their voters. Now Trump says Russia’s greatest adversary is himself a “dictator” on the make. Putin’s army of propagandists are being outwritten on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The existential dilemma now for Ukraine is whether it even has the luxury of choice between its wartime president and its main military backer, the United States. Is enough left intact of either?

Zelensky is now the subject of withering posts by the world’s most powerful man, who is parroting a regular supply of Kremlin talking points stemming from somewhere yet unknown, altering the course of the largest war in Europe since the 1940s.

The Trump administration’s financial support for Ukraine – without which its survival is truly in doubt – is now endangered. Trump has repeatedly referred – falsely – to how Ukraine’s aid is “MISSING,” and somehow that Zelensky is on a “gravy train.” He is preparing a narrative for the American people that probably ends in the aid itself being curtailed.

So why doesn’t Zelensky, who has spent half of his six years in power fighting a war he did not initially believe was going to happen, just call a vote and be done with talk of his legitimacy? Elections in Ukraine have been tough in the past two decades, even in peacetime. Russia has sought to meddle, in 2004 stealing the vote and sparking huge protests that unseated its proxy candidate who stole the vote.

In wartime, elections are suspended during martial law. A ceasefire, proposed also by Trump’s team, could lead to this being suspended, and allowing soldiers to vote. But what of the millions of Ukrainians abroad as refugees? What of the electoral reform and emergency legislation needed for a legitimate, modern vote? Should it be rushed to get a quick result, or labored over to reach the full, gold standards of international legitimacy? What if a Russian drone assault or missiles derail the voting day? Everything could go wrong and almost certainly will.

The result would irrevocably be shrouded in doubt, further damaging the mandate Zelensky is falsely accused of lacking, or empowering an alternative who would also lack full legitimacy. It would sow chaos on the front lines, at the kitchen tables and in the coffee shops of Kyiv, and in the Ukrainian diaspora around Europe. This is exactly what the Kremlin wants: political torment to add to Kyiv’s woes across the front line.

It is becoming harder to divine Trump’s motives. You cannot bluff when it comes to geopolitical security and NATO; your opponents will hear weakness in an alliance, and not fear you more as you strike a hard negotiating pose against your own allies. You cannot force a flawed peace upon a country fearing for the survival of its own borders and people. You cannot undermine a wartime leader and not expect his troops to also falter on the front lines. Only one strategic interest has been served by Trump’s radical rewriting of the global order in the past fortnight. And it is that of the one adversary NATO was founded to confront.

Since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack, Israel has engaged in an increasingly militarized campaign that it says targets West Bank militants, employing tactics like airstrikes that were once nearly unheard of there.

The Israel Defense Forces launched a major campaign – “Operation Iron Wall” – focused on the northern West Bank last month.

That operation, Israel’s defense minister said last month, was explicitly applying the lessons of Israel’s “repeated raids in Gaza.” Israel’s war in Gaza has destroyed around 90% of housing units, according to the United Nations.

The West Bank operation has displaced at least 40,000 Palestinians in the northern West Bank from their homes, according to the United Nations.

“The Israeli military are doing this under pretext of security and fighting terrorism,” he said. It is a “purely political” operation, he alleged, to satisfy hardliners in the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In November, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – who is in charge of Jewish settlements in the West Bank – ordered preparations for the annexation of the settlements, saying that US President Donald Trump’s victory “brings an important opportunity for the state of Israel.”

Palestinians want the West Bank, as well as Gaza and occupied East Jerusalem, for a future independent state. Jewish settlements there are considered illegal under international law.

Israel launched Operation Iron Wall two days after the Gaza ceasefire began, saying it was aimed at eliminating “terrorists and terror infrastructure” and at “ensuring terrorism does not return” following its completion. The Israeli military said on Tuesday that its soldiers were operating in Tulkarem to “neutralize terrorist infrastructure.” It said that its clearing operations would enable “freedom of movement within the camp area, thereby enhancing operational flexibility for forces to effectively thwart terrorism in the region.”

The Israeli military also said Tuesday it had arrested 25 people in the northern West Bank it says were suspected of “involvement in terrorist activity across the area.”

“During the activity, the troops collected findings and weapons used by the enemy,” the military added.

‘Spillover’ of Gaza war

Israel’s military operation in the West Bank that started in the Jenin refugee camp last month has since expanded to the Tulkarem, Nur Shams, and El Far’a refugee camps, according to UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.

He alleged that Israeli forces had raided houses in the middle of the night. Many properties in the Nur Shams camp had been extensively damaged, he said, and water and electricity in both camps had been cut off.

UNRWA warned that the forced displacement of Palestinian communities in the northern West Bank had been escalating at an “alarming pace.”

The agency said the West Bank had suffered 38 airstrikes this year alone, with advanced weaponry and controlled detonations becoming more commonplace, marking a “spillover of the war in Gaza.”

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa on Tuesday directed urgent humanitarian aid and shelter for “Palestinian people forcibly displaced” by Israeli forces in the “northern West Bank, particularly in the refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams” until “Israeli forces withdraw from the targeted areas.”

US President Donald Trump’s push to end the war in Ukraine appears poised to hand key concessions to Russia, leaving Kyiv and its European supporters on the sidelines as they face the prospect of a peace deal made over their heads.

But they aren’t the only major players grappling with the fallout of Trump’s pivot to Russia that has upended years of US foreign policy in a burst of rapid-fire diplomacy.

In Beijing, too, the breakneck turn of events is seen to be raising questions about how the US peace drive will impact Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s carefully wrought partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin – and China’s precarious relations with the Trump administration.

Just weeks ago, China appeared set for a key role in Trump’s Ukraine peace efforts. The US leader had repeatedly suggested he could work with Xi, using China’s economic sway over Russia to help end the conflict – important leverage for Beijing as it aims to avert a trade war with the world’s largest economy.

That would have aligned with Beijing’s longstanding efforts to present itself as a neutral party and voice of the Global South that is ready to broker peace in the grinding conflict – even as NATO accused it of supplying Moscow’s defense industry with dual-use goods. China defends its “normal trade.”

Now, Beijing finds itself neither involved in the negotiations as a Russian ally nor a voice of global gravitas – so far, at least, left on the outside of the swift developments that observers say have surprised Chinese officials – and sent them scrambling to find an upside.

A ‘reverse Nixon’?

The stakes are high for Xi, who for years has assiduously cultivated both a personal bond with his “old friend” Putin and his country’s relations with Russia – seeing his northern neighbor as a pivotal partner in a larger power struggle with the West.

The Chinese leader took a calculated risk as Russian tanks rolled over the Ukrainian border three years ago. His choice not to condemn that invasion and have his country serve as Putin’s lifeline – lapping up Russian oil and supplying Moscow with key goods – lost Beijing the trust of Europe and galvanized American allies in Asia to work more closely with NATO.

Chinese officials in recent days have voiced approval of the “agreement” between the US and Russia to start peace talks.

“China supports all efforts conducive to peace talks,” top diplomat Wang Yi said at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council Tuesday, the same day top Russian and US officials met in Saudi Arabia to lay the groundwork for negotiations on ending the fighting in Ukraine.

But comments from American officials in recent days are likely to have drawn attention from Beijing to potential underlying US objectives as it works with Russia.

Top US diplomat Marco Rubio named the possibility for future “geopolitical and economic cooperation” between Washington and Moscow as among four key points discussed in Riyadh.

Days earlier, the Trump administration’s Russia-Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg told a panel discussion in Munich that the US hoped “to force” Putin into actions he was “uncomfortable with,” which could include disrupting Russia’s alliances with Iran, North Korea – and China.

Observers are skeptical that Washington could shatter the Russia-China relationship, given their deep alignment against the US-led order and Moscow’s entrenched economic dependence on Beijing.

But any worries that may be playing out in China about whether Trump – a leader who’s repeatedly professed his admiration for both Putin and Xi – could unwind their bond is likely underscored by the echoes of past mistrust between the neighbors.

Bitter territorial disputes along their lengthy shared border erupted in conflict between Soviet Russia and a young People’s Republic of China in 1969 and were only largely resolved in the 1990s.

Then there’s the diplomatic coup engineered by President Richard Nixon and his adviser Henry Kissinger, who exploited a split between the Communist-ruled neighbors to establish relations with Beijing and swing the Cold War balance of power in the US’ favor.

Though that history is unlikely to be repeated, observers say even a hint of a new shift in allegiances is a boon for Washington’s goals.

“Even if it’s just 30% of a ‘reverse Nixon’ … that’s going to sow the seeds of doubt,” said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington.

“That’s going to make Xi Jinping question the strategic alignment that (he spent) the past 12 years to build with Russia – ‘maybe it’s not that dependable, maybe it’s not so solid.’”

If a day comes that China decides to invade Taiwan then, “the Chinese will have to look at their back and wonder – what is Russia going to do?” she added, referring to the self-ruling democratic island Beijing claims. “And for the United States, that’s deterrence.”

A place at the table?

But others say Beijing may have greater confidence in its ties with Moscow.

“Chinese and Russian relations are in a league of their own, they have a strong basis and strong institutional connections in the past decades,” said Yu Bin, a senior fellow at the Russian Studies Center of the East China Normal University in Shanghai.

Yu pointed to the two countries’ efforts to push for multilateralism and build out their own international organizations like BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as well as the need to maintain their own border stability. “I don’t think either side would let that go because Trump is there for four years,” he said.

Instead, China is worried “that once Russia and the US patch up their differences and achieve some degree of peace in Ukraine, that would free the Trump administration to turn its focus to China,” Yu said.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signaled as much last week, when he told European counterparts the US can’t focus primarily on security on their continent when it must prioritize “deterring war with China.”

Had Trump been unable to engage Putin directly, Beijing may have tried to ease some frictions with the US by working with Washington on bringing the Russian leader to the table – but now it’s unclear whether China will take any role in future Ukraine peace negotiations.

However, observers say that if an accord is reached, Beijing could send peacekeeping forces to Ukraine via the United Nations and would be keen to play a role in the country’s reconstruction.

For now, Chinese officials have used a flurry of diplomacy in recent days to try and win back love lost with Europe – calling in public statements for “all relevant parties and stakeholders involved in the Ukraine crisis” to “engage in the peace talks process,” in a nod to Europe’s right to a seat at the table.

At the same time, they’ve also looked to play up their potential to take a role, while implying that Trump’s apparent turn to Putin proves Beijing’s stance was correct all along.

Meanwhile, Ukraine, has raised the prospect that it could try and recruit China as its own ally.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has received little attention from Beijing since the start of the war, suggested as much following a Saturday meeting between top Chinese diplomat Wang and Ukrainian officials in Germany.

“It is important for us to engage China to help put pressure on Putin to end the war. We are seeing, I think, for the first time, China’s interest,” Zelensky told a news conference Tuesday. “This is mostly due to the fact that all the processes are now accelerating.”

As to who should be at the negotiating table, the Ukrainian leader added it should be countries “ready to take responsibility for guaranteeing security, providing assistance, stopping Putin, and investing in Ukraine’s recovery.”