US military creates new military zone along border with Mexico

WASHINGTON: US officials have finalized new economic sanctions against Russia, including banking and energy measures, to intensify pressure on Moscow to embrace US President Donald Trump’s efforts to end its war on Ukraine, according to three US officials and a source familiar with the issue.
The targets include state-owned Russian energy giant Gazprom and major entities involved in the natural resources and banking sectors, said an administration official, who like the other sources requested anonymity to discuss the issue.
The official provided no further details.
It was far from clear, however, whether the package will be approved by Trump, whose sympathy for Moscow’s statements and actions have given way to frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spurning of his calls for a ceasefire and peace talks.
The US National Security Council “is trying to coordinate some set of more punitive actions against Russia,” said the source familiar with the issue. “This will have to be signed off by Trump.”
“It’s totally his call,” confirmed a second US official.
“From the beginning, the president has been clear about his commitment to achieving a full and comprehensive ceasefire,” said National Security Council Spokesman James Hewitt. “We do not comment on the details of ongoing negotiations.”
The US Treasury, which implements most US sanctions, did not respond to a request for comment.
An approval by Trump of new sanctions, which would follow the Wednesday signing of a US-Ukraine minerals deal that he heavily promoted as part of his peace effort, could signify a hardening of his stance toward the Kremlin.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 the United States and its allies have added layer upon layer of sanctions on the country. While the measures have been painful for Russia’s economy, Moscow has found ways to circumvent the sanctions and continue funding its war.
Trump “has been bending over backwards to give Putin every opportunity to say, ‘Okay, we’re going to have a ceasefire and an end to the war,’ and Putin keeps rejecting him,” said Kurt Volker, a former US envoy to NATO who was US special representative for Ukraine negotiations during Trump’s first term. “This is the next phase of putting some pressure on Russia.”
“Putin has been escalating,” he continued. Trump “has got the US and Ukraine now in alignment calling for an immediate and full ceasefire, and Putin is now the outlier.”
Since assuming office in January, Trump has taken steps seen as aimed at boosting Russian acceptance of his peace effort, including disbanding a Justice Department task force formed to enforce sanctions and target oligarchs close to the Kremlin.
He also has made pro-Moscow statements, falsely blaming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for starting the conflict and calling him a “dictator.”
Meanwhile, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, has advocated a peace strategy that would cede four Ukrainian regions to Moscow, and has met Putin four times, most recently last week.
But three days after that meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated Putin’s maximalist demands for a settlement and Moscow’s forces have pressed frontline attacks and missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian cities, claiming more civilian casualties.

Reuters reported
in March that the United States was drawing up a plan to potentially give Russia sanctions relief but Trump in recent weeks has expressed frustration with Putin’s foot-dragging on ending the invasion and last Saturday held a “very productive” one-on-one meeting in the Vatican with Zelensky.
The next day, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform that he was “strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions and Tariffs on Russia” that would remain until a ceasefire and final peace deal.
Volker said that Russia has been earning hard currency that funds its military through oil and gas sales to countries like India and China and that it would be “very significant” if Trump slapped secondary sanctions on such deals.
Secondary sanctions are those where one country seeks to punish a second country for trading with a third by barring access to its own market, a particularly powerful tool for the United States because of the size of its economy.

LA GRAND-COMBE, France: A French man accused of stabbing a 22-year-old Malian to death in a mosque appears to have acted alone on an obsessive “urge to kill,” a prosecutor said Friday.
The killing of Aboubakar Cisse in La Grand-Combe on Friday last week prompted President Emmanuel Macron to insist there was no place for religious hate in French society.
A French national of Bosnian origin suspected of stabbing Cisse 57 times and then filming his victim writhing in agony surrendered to police in Italy and is awaiting extradition to France.
Cecile Gensac, prosecutor for the nearby southern city of Nimes, said the 20-year-old suspect, named as Olivier Hadzovic, had been “driven by a fierce desire to kill someone and failing that, to commit suicide.”
He told someone online he would “do it in the street,” before considering attacking the mosque. Once inside, he wrote: “He’s black. I’m going to do it.”
He seemed to have “profoundly personal motives,” and the crime was not being treated as “terrorist” as not linked to an “ideological claim,” Gensac added.
Earlier, some 700 people prayed for Cisse at a funeral at the same mosque where he was a helper. Worshippers prayed in front of the coffin covered by a green cloth.
Cisse, who arrived in France as a teenager without papers, was originally from Yaguine in southwestern Mali, where he is due to be buried at a later date.
“This is an absolutely incredible act of hatred in a very peaceful place,” Dominique Sopo, a representative of campaign group SOS Racisme, told AFP.
Hundreds more prayed for the victim at a town just outside Paris.
“With the lack of support in the media and from politicians, we’re really sad and we’re really scared,” said Abdelghani Bentrari, in charge of the mosque in the town of Tremblay.
France has the largest Muslim community in the European Union, and the murder has put Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, a hard-line right-winger with a tough stance on immigration, under particular pressure.
He has not visited the scene of the killing in La Grand-Combe and has been criticized for not finding time to meet Cisse’s family.
Speaking to CNews, a broadcaster accused of fostering far-right views, Retailleau this week said it was “difficult” to find Cisse’s family because he was in France without a residence permit.
French lawmakers on Tuesday observed a minute’s silence to honor Cisse and some lawmakers met with his relatives.
According to a source close to the case, Retailleau will meet Cisse’s family in Paris on Monday, when his coffin will be in the capital for another memorial.

Cisse, nicknamed “Bouba,” was born in Mali in 2003.
He crossed the Mediterranean and arrived in the Paris region in 2018, his uncle told AFP. He traveled to the south of France in 2019 because “he did not want to be a burden” for relatives.
In Grand Combe, residents remembered him as a quiet young man who helped clean the mosque and sometimes brought pizza to share despite having little money.
The prosecutor said the suspect came from a family of non-practicing Christians with 11 children. He was “very, very often” on social media, where he had watched violent videos, including of people cutting themselves.
In the video made just after the stabbing, the killer congratulated himself, saying “I did it” and insulted “Allah.”
A witness said that the suspect had described himself as “schizophrenic” after the murder.
A man identified as the suspect’s father told broadcaster BFMTV on Friday his son was “crazy” and apologized to Cisse’s family.
Mourad Battikh, a lawyer representing the victim’s family, said earlier the murder should be reclassified as “a terrorist attack.”
“The Muslim community must be treated in the same way as any other citizens,” he said.