Donald Trump

In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview recorded in October with Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines documentary programme, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi tells correspondent Hind Hassan that strikes by Israel and the United States in June caused “serious damage” to Iran’s nuclear facilities but insists its nuclear programme will continue.

“Technology cannot be eliminated by bombing,” he says, arguing that Iran’s scientific knowledge remains intact.

As Iran remains locked in a standoff with the US and refuses to renew negotiations while zero uranium enrichment demands remain in place, Araghchi says European snapback sanctions have undermined future cooperation with the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Iran would reconsider how it cooperates in the future.

Despite emphasising that “diplomacy is our priority,” the foreign minister insists that Iran is prepared to fight back if it is attacked again. Araghchi maintains that while Tehran has “never trusted the United States as an honest negotiating partner”, Iran remains prepared to engage diplomatically if both sides respect each other’s rights and pursue mutual interests based on equality.

Dec. 16 (UPI) — President Donald Trump is suing the BBC for $10 billion, alleging it intentionally misrepresented a speech he gave before the Jan. 6 storming of Capitol Hill in order to influence the result of the 2024 presidential election.

The lawsuit was filed in a Florida court on Monday, more than a month after Trump threatened to bring litigation against Britain’s public broadcaster over the editing of a speech he gave to supporters in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, in the documentary Trump: A Second Chance.

Trump’s lawyers described the documentary’s depiction of him as “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory and malicious,” alleging it was aired “in a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the election’s outcome to President Trump’s detriment.”

The suit is for $5 billion in damages, plus interest, costs, punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and other relief the court finds appropriate.

The BBC declined to comment Tuesday but vowed it would fight the case.

“As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings,” said a spokesman.

The Panorama documentary aired in Britain on Oct. 28, 2024, just days ahead of the Nov. 5 election. The BBC stresses it was not broadcast in the United States and that it did not make it available to view there.

In the documentary, video of Trump’s speech was edited to piece together two comments the president made about 50 minutes apart, while omitting other parts of his speech.

“[T]he BBC “intentionally and maliciously sought to fully mislead its viewers around the world by splicing together two entirely separate parts of Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021,” his lawyers state in the lawsuit.

“The Panorama Documentary deliberately omitted another critical part of the Speech in such a manner as to intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said.”

The claim refers to the splicing together of excerpts lifted from the video that made it sound as if Trump was inciting his supporters to march on the Capitol and fight:

“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell,” was what viewers of the program saw, when Trump’s actual words were, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”

It wasn’t until 50 minutes later in the speech that Trump made the comments about fighting.

The infraction went unnoticed until early November when The Telegraph published an exclusive on a leaked internal BBC memo in which a former external ethics adviser allegedly suggested that the documentary edited Trump’s speech to make it appear he directed the Jan. 6 attack on Congress.

Following the report, the BBC’s director-general, Tim Davie, and head of news, Deborah Turness, resigned.

BBC chairman Samir Shah immediately apologized for what he called an unintentional “error of judgment.”

After Trump wrote the BBC demanding a correction, compensation and threatening a $1 billion lawsuit, the corporation formally apologized and issued a retraction that was the lead story across all of its news platforms on television, radio and online — but said it strongly disagreed “there is a basis for a defamation claim.”

To win the case, Trump’s legal team would need to convince the court the program had caused Trump “overwhelming financial and reputational harm.”

The BBC has said that since the program was not broadcast in the United States or available to view there, Trump was not harmed by it and the choices voters made in the election were not affected as he was re-elected days after.

However, Trump’s legal team alleges the BBC had a deal with a third-party media company that had rights to air the documentary outside of the United Kingdom.

The blunder has reignited a furious national debate about the BBC’s editorial impartiality and the institution itself, which is funded by a $229 annual license that households with a TV must pay.

It also comes as the future of the BBC is under review, with the renewal date of its royal charter approaching on the centenary of its founding in 2027.

Trump has won out-of-court settlements in a series of disputes with U.S. broadcasters, although largely at significantly reduced sums than those sought in the original lawsuit.

In July, CBS settled a $20 billion claim out of court for $16 million over an interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris that aired four weeks before the election on Nov. 5.

ABC News paid Trump $15 million and apologized to settle a defamation suit over comments by presenter George Stephanopoulos that incorrectly stated Trump was “liable for rape.”

In 2022, CNN fought and successfully defended a $475 million suit alleging it had defamed Trump by dubbing his claim the 2020 election was stolen from him as the “Big Lie.” The judge ruled it did not meet the legal standard of defamation.

He has live cases pending cases against the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

SEOUL, Dec. 16 (UPI) — The likelihood of a renewed summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has increased, even as Pyongyang presses ahead with nuclear weapons development, a South Korean think tank said Tuesday.

In an annual forecast released by the Foreign Ministry-linked Korea National Diplomatic Academy, analysts said Trump is expected to continue a top-down approach to North Korea under which leader-level talks could resume.

“The likelihood of a North Korea-U.S. summit has increased somewhat due to common ground in the two leaders’ desire to hold a summit, pursue peaceful coexistence and lower the priority of the denuclearization issue,” the report said.

Trump met Kim three times during his first term — in Singapore in 2018, in Hanoi in 2019 and briefly at the Demilitarized Zone later that year — but talks collapsed amid disagreements over sanctions relief and steps toward denuclearization.

Since returning to office, Trump has floated another summit with Kim on numerous occasions, telling reporters in October he “would love” to meet the North Korean leader during a visit to South Korea.

Kim has also signaled a willingness to resume diplomacy with Washington, saying he has “fond memories” of Trump, while warning that any discussion of giving up his regime’s nuclear arsenal would be off the table.

Despite the prospect of renewed diplomacy, the KNDA report said engagement with Washington is unlikely to slow Pyongyang’s military buildup.

North Korea is expected to “accelerate the production of nuclear materials and the development and deployment of new missile systems” in 2026 as it works to operationalize a broader range of nuclear strike capabilities, the report said.

The academy added that a seventh nuclear test remains a “military and technological necessity,” although Pyongyang is likely to exercise restraint as it weighs the impact on its relations with China and the United States.

North Korea last conducted a nuclear test in September 2017 at its Punggye-ri site. During a period of detente with Seoul and Washington the following year, Pyongyang demolished the entrances to two test tunnels in a highly publicized move.

Those steps have since been reversed, however. The U.N. nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency said North Korea began restoring tunnels at the site in 2022, and a 2025 U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessment concluded the country is now “postured to conduct a seventh nuclear test at a time of its choosing.”

Prospects for inter-Korean relations remain dim, the report said, despite efforts by South Korean President Lee Jae Myung to rehabilitate ties since taking office in June

Communication between Seoul and Pyongyang is unlikely to resume as the North continues to promote its “hostile two-state doctrine,” which defines the two Koreas as permanently separate adversaries.

“The likelihood of inter-Korean dialogue reopening is not high,” the report said.

As Donald Trump threatens legal action against the Beeb, the Mirror takes a look at the broadcaster’s most recent list of top earners, which includes some surprises

US President Donald Trump is suing the BBC to the tune of $5 billion, yesterday claiming, “they put words in my mouth”.

POTUS is here referring to an episode of Panorama which aired a week before the 2024 US election, which showed comments he made to supporters ahead of the deadly 2021 Capitol riots. The episode appears to show Trump telling crowds: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell.”

However, these words were created from different segments of the 79-year-old’s speech, delivered nearly one hour apart. The BBC has since issued an apology over the edit, admitting to an “error of judgment” while clarifying there was no legal basis for Trump’s claim. As the row continues, the Mirror takes a look at the Beeb’s list of top earners.

READ MORE: Donald Trump sues BBC $5 billion for Panorama speech edit: ‘They put words in my mouth’

Back in July, the BBC published the salaries of its highest-paid stars as part of its annual report, and a number of significant changes amongst the top earners. Former Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker, who this year left the corporation was once again the top earner with a take home salary of £1.35million. This was followed by former Radio 2 breakfast host Zoe Ball, who took home £515,000 despite being replaced on the Breakfast Show by Scott Mills.

Match of the Day Host Alan Shearer emerged as the third highest paid BBC star of the year, increasing his salary from the year before after covering the Euros last year. The former Newcastle star boosted his paycheck to almost half a million pounds with his punditry at the tournament.

Radio host and political expert Nick Robinson also had a pay rise last year, while Radio 2 host Vernon Kay joined the top 10 for the first time. Perhaps surprisingly, BBC North America Editor Justin Webb also made the top 10, with a very impressive salary of £365,000.

The BBC’s top earners:

1. Gary Lineker £1,350,000-£1,354,999 (no change)
2. Zoe Ball £515,000-£519,999 (down from £950,000-£954,999)
3. Alan Shearer £440,000-445,000 (up from £380,000-£384,999)
4. Greg James £425,000-£429,999 (up from £415,000-£419,999)
5. Fiona Bruce £410,000-£414,999 (up from £405,000-£409,999) and Nick Robinson £410,000-£414,999 (Up from £345,000 and £349,000)
6. Stephen Nolan £405,000-£409,999 (up from £400,000-£404,999)
7. Laura Kuenssberg £395,000-£399,999 (up from £325,000-£329,999)
8. Vernon Kay £390,000 – £394,999 (joined Radio 2 in May 2023)
9. Justin Webb £365,000-£369,999 (up from £320,000-£324,999)
10. Naga Munchetty £355,000-£359,999 (up from £345,000-£349,999)
11. Scott Mills £355,000-£359,999 (up from £315,000 – £319,999)

Last year, Vernon Kay made the list for the very first time after joining BBC Radio 2. The Bolton born presenter replaced Ken Bruce and took home a whopping £320,000 from the corporation in his first year. Despite this staggering sum, his take-home pay was almost 20 per cent less than what Ken earned in the previous year in the slot.

Meanwhile, disgraced BBC News host Huw Edwards also remained on the list last year, coming in at third place with a wage of £475,000-£479,999 (up from £435,000-£439,999). Edwards, who had been off-air since July 2023, left the BBC after being named as the presenter at the centre of days of allegations and speculation regarding his private life.

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Dec. 16 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has awarded 13 soldiers and Marines the newly established Mexican Border Defense Medal for their contributions to safeguarding the U.S. southern border.

The service members are the first to receive the commendation, created Aug. 13 in a memo signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to honor those deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border.

The commander-in-chief awarded the medals to the service members at the White House.

“On day one of my administration, I signed an executive order making it [the] core mission of the United States military to protect and defend the homeland. And today, we’re here to honor our military men and women for their central role in the protection of our border,” Trump said during the ceremony.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has overseen crackdowns on immigration and crime that have included the deployment of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

More than 10,000 U.S. military service members attached to Joint Task Force Southern Border have been deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border in support of the Department of Homeland Security, with the missions to secure the border, disrupt transnational criminal organizations and respond to national security threats.

Trump said Monday that more than 25,000 service members have served in this “incredible and historic operation,” which has overseen 13,000 patrols along the border.

“They’ve spent night and day enduring scorching hot and bitter cold, and they’ve given up their holidays and their weekends, working with the offices of Customs and Border Protection,” Trump said.

“And today, we give these great warriors the recognition that they have earned — and they have really earned it.”

The medal, according to the Department of Defense, is identical to the Mexican Border Service Medal awarded for service in 1916 and 1917 in the Mexican state of Chihuahua as well as the U.S.-Mexico border regions in New Mexico and Texas.

It is bronze with a sheathed Roman sword hanging on a tablet on the front, which bears an inscription that reads: “For Service on the Mexican Border.”

Those eligible for the award must have been permanently assigned to a designated Department of Defense military operation supporting CBP within the area of eligibility for at least 30 consecutive or non-consecutive days from Jan. 20 of this year.

“We’re proud of this mission,” Hegseth said during the White House event. “We’re proud to defend the American people and pinning these medals on is an example of how important it is to us.”

The Trump administration states that its crackdown has resulted in more than 2.5 million undocumented migrants removed from the United States and the lowest level of illegal border crossings since 1970.

Lawyers for US President Donald Trump say the BBC caused him overwhelming reputational and financial harm.

United States President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit seeking at least $10bn from the BBC over a documentary that edited his speech to supporters before the US Capitol riot in 2021.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami on Monday, seeks “damages in an amount not less than $5,000,000,000” for each of two counts against the United Kingdom broadcaster for alleged defamation and violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Earlier in the day, Trump confirmed his plans to file the lawsuit.

“I’m suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth, literally… I guess they used AI or something,” he told reporters at the White House.

“That’s called fake news .”

President Trump: “I’m suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth, literally…I guess they used AI or something…they actually put terrible words in my mouth having to do with January 6th that I didn’t say.” pic.twitter.com/cUwXqBq3Zd

— CSPAN (@cspan) December 15, 2025

Trump has accused the UK publicly-owned broadcaster of defaming him by splicing together parts of a January 6, 2021, speech, including one section where he told supporters to march on the Capitol, and another where he said, “Fight like hell”.

The edited sections of his speech omitted words in which Trump also called for peaceful protest.

Trump’s lawsuit alleges that the BBC defamed him, and his lawyers say the documentary caused him overwhelming reputational and financial harm.

The BBC has already apologised to Trump, admitted an error of judgement and acknowledged that the edit gave the mistaken impression that he had made a direct call for violent action.

The broadcaster also said that there was no legal basis for the lawsuit, and that to overcome the US Constitution’s strong legal protections for free speech and the press, Trump will need to prove in court not only that the edit was false and defamatory, but also that the BBC knowingly misled viewers or acted recklessly.

The broadcaster could argue that the documentary was substantially true and its editing decisions did not create a false impression, legal experts said. It could also claim the programme did not damage Trump’s reputation.

Trump, in his lawsuit, said that the BBC, despite its apology, “has made no showing of actual remorse for its wrongdoing nor meaningful institutional changes to prevent future journalistic abuses”.

A spokesman for Trump’s legal team said in a statement that the BBC had “a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda”.

The BBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the lawsuit was filed on Monday.

The dispute over the edited speech, featured on the BBC’s Panorama documentary show shortly before the 2024 presidential election, prompted a public relations crisis for the broadcaster, leading to the resignations of its two most senior officials.

Other media organisations have settled with Trump, including CBS and ABC, when Trump sued them following his comeback win in the November 2024 election.

Trump has also filed lawsuits against The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and a newspaper in Iowa, all of which have denied wrongdoing.

These are the key developments from day 1,391 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Tuesday, December 16:

Fighting

• A Russian drone attack killed a 62-year-old Ukrainian man as he was riding a bicycle in the Velyka Pysarivka community of Ukraine’s Sumy region, Governor Oleh Hryhorov said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
• Russian forces launched 850 attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region in a single day, injuring 14 people and damaging houses, cars and infrastructure, Governor Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram.
• Russian forces injured five people in attacks on Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, and six people in the Kherson region in the past day, local officials said, according to the Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform.
• In Dnipropetrovsk, those injured included a firefighter and factory worker, hurt after Russian forces launched a second attack on a factory in the Synelnykivskyi district, as rescuers tried to respond to a fire caused by an earlier Russian attack, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine reported on its website.
• Russian attacks caused power outages in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, as well as the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, the Ukrainian energy company NPC Ukrenergo said on Facebook.
• Ukraine claimed that underwater drones had, for the first time in the war, struck a Russian submarine docked in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.
• The head of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet press service, Aleksei Rulyov, denied that the underwater drone attack was successful. “Not a single ship or submarine of the Black Sea Fleet located at the base in Novorossiysk Bay was damaged,” he said. “The enemy’s attempt at sabotage through underwater drones failed to achieve its aims.”

Ceasefire talks

• US President Donald Trump said a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine was “closer than ever” after American, Ukrainian, European and NATO leaders met in Berlin for hours of talks on a potential settlement, hosted by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
• European leaders issued a joint statement after the talks, saying that any decisions on potential Ukrainian territorial concessions to Russia can only be made by the people of Ukraine, and once robust security guarantees are in place for Kyiv.
• They also said that US and European leaders had agreed to “work together to provide robust security guarantees”, including a European-led “multinational force” made up of nations willing to assist “in securing Ukraine’s skies, and in supporting safer seas, including through operating inside Ukraine”.
• Speaking at a news conference after the talks, Merz said that the US had offered “considerable” security guarantees, and that although there is now a “chance for a real peace process”, “territorial settlement remains a key question”.

Regional security

• Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov called “the EU’s aggressive actions the main threat in the world at the moment”, and claimed that the US is trying to put Europe “in its place”, in an interview with Iranian state television.
• Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, suffered a major email outage. Officials told UK newspaper The Financial Times that they suspect it was a cyberattack, while the Ukraine ceasefire talks were taking place in Berlin.
• Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the new head of the UK’s armed forces, has called for “national resilience” in the face of a “growing” risk from Russia. “It means more people being ready to fight for their country,” Knighton said of the threat from Moscow, while also referring to recent comments from his French counterpart, Fabien Mandon, who said France must be ready to “lose its children”.

Statement comes as regional body says no evidence of fraud in November vote that Trump-backed candidate Asfura leads.

The head of Honduras’s National Electoral Council (CNE) has decried acts preventing the ongoing recount of the Central American country’s presidential election, as a regional body said there was no reason to suspect fraud in the November 30 vote.

Ana Paola Hall’s statement on Monday came amid ongoing protests and unrest over the unresolved election. Nasry Asfura, a right-wing businessman publicly supported by US President Donald Trump, has held a razor-thin lead over his top opponent, Salvador Nasralla.

At least 99 percent of votes have already been counted, but CNE has said that nearly 2,800 ballots will need to be re-examined through a special recount.

In a post on X, Hall said disturbances seen in the country’s capital, Tegucigalpa, have “prevented the necessary conditions for the special recount to begin”.

Observers have said infighting at the CNE, which is run by three officials each representing one of the major political parties, has delayed reaching the final results.

Both Nasralla, a conservative, and outgoing left-wing President Xiomara Castro have alleged vote tampering, although several international missions have dismissed the claims.

On Monday, the Organization of American States (OAS), a regional body, said that despite a lack of expertise in overseeing the election, there was not “any evidence that would cast doubt on the results”.

The OAS mission “urgently calls on the electoral authorities to immediately begin the special recount and to explore all possible ways to obtain the official results as quickly as possible,” OAS official Eladio Loizaga said in a report he read to the group’s members.

“The current delay in processing and publishing the results is not justifiable,” he said in the report.

The OAS statement added that its mission of 101 observers from 19 countries “did not observe any malice or obvious manipulation of the electoral materials or computer systems”. The finding was in line with that of a parallel European Union mission.

The election in Honduras had been in turmoil even before polls opened, with several major parties, political figures, and foreign interference for months casting doubt on the election’s integrity.

The most prominent scandal involved an investigation by the attorney general into a member of Asfura’s National Party for allegedly discussing plans with a military officer to influence the vote.

The candidate for outgoing President Castro’s LIBRE party, Rixi Moncada, later told Reuters news agency that the alleged conspiracy proved the election was “the most rigged in history”.

Several candidates have also criticised the influence of Trump, who endorsed Asfura in the final stretch of the race and vowed to withhold US funding if his candidate did not win.

The US president also pardoned former Honduran President and National Party member Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had been convicted in the US of drug trafficking, two days before the vote.

Authorities in Honduras, a country of about 11 million, subsequently issued a fresh arrest warrant for Hernandez.

Dec. 15 (UPI) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz were set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. officials in Berlin on Monday in an effort to reach a consensus on what any peace deal with Russia should look like.

The European leaders, along with French President Emmanuel Macron, who has yet to confirm his attendance, will seek to negotiate an alternative to the U.S.-Russia plan currently on the table with a stronger deal for Ukraine with better protections for its security.

The talks will also attempt to keep afloat an EU-brokered agreement to loan Ukraine some of the $246.7 billion of Russia’s assets frozen in European banks and other institutions to help it defend itself and take “forward peace talks from a position of strength,” amid mounting opposition to the plan.

The meeting follows five hours of talks on Sunday between Zelensky and U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump‘s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at the Federal Chancellery that Witkoff said were productive and would resume on Monday.

“Representatives held in-depth discussions regarding the 20-point plan for peace, economic agendas, and more. A lot of progress was made, and they will meet again tomorrow morning,” Witkoff posted on X on Sunday evening.

Zelensky was reported to have dropped demands for NATO membership, if it was what was required to end the war, in exchange for a bilateral defense agreement with the United States similar to an Article 5-like guarantee, along with other guarantees from Ukraine’s European partners.

Article 5 is a cast-iron guarantee, a collective defense principle enshrined in NATO’s constitution under which an armed attack on one member is considered an attack on all members and triggers an obligation for each member to come to its defense.

Following the initial discussions on Monday, Merz’s spokesman confirmed the group would be widened to include “numerous European heads of state and government, as well as the leaders of the EU and NATO.”

The diplomatic focus will shift to Brussels on Thursday when the leaders of all 27 EU nations converge on the Belgian capital for a meeting of the European Council with Ukraine and European security topping the agenda.

Council President Antonio Costa said the summit would address how best to continue defending Europe’s interests and how to “strengthen Ukraine’s negotiating position,” a key element of which necessitated “increased pressure on Russia.”

Costa said that having already committed to providing for Ukraine’s urgent financial needs for 2026-2027, including funding for its military and defense, it was now time to decide how to implement it and that leaders must keep talking on Thursday until an agreement was reached.

Earlier this month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled two options — both controversial — to provide Ukraine with $105.8 billion of the $158.6 it is estimated it will need in the two years through 2027 to keep the country running and being able to continue fighting Russia.

The so-called “reparations loan” option involving using frozen Russian assets only requires a two-thirds majority of EU states to vote for it. The second option under which the EU would use its budget to go borrow on the international capital markets is more problematic because it could be blocked by a single state.

Hungary and Slovakia have indicated they are opposed to either route, while Belgium, home to Euroclear, the clearing house where the majority of Russia’s frozen assets are held, has expressed strong worries that it could be taken to court by Russia were the frozen assets tapped or that it may scare off foreign investors.

Russia has protested that appropriating its assets amounts to theft but the EU says that is not the case because there was nothing to preclude Russia from reclaiming the funds in future — after it has paid war reparations to Ukraine.

Ukraine is set to run out of money early in the New Year.

Dec. 14 (UPI) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that his country may give up its dreams of NATO ascension, at least temporarily, for an end to the war and security guarantees from the United States and Europe, reports said.

Zelensky, who has said that NATO ascension is unlikely because of Russian opposition, held that Ukraine would still seek security guarantees similar to the bloc’s Article 5 clause for mutual protection for members under attack.

His comments were made to journalists in a private WhatsApp chat and were reported by The New York Times and Financial Times.

“This is already a compromise on our part,” Zelensky said.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will host talks Sunday between Zelensky, as well as Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump‘s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at the Federal Chancellery.

Zelensky added that he has not yet received a response from the Trump administration on revised peace proposals sent last week, the reports said.

Under that peace plan, The New York Times reported, Ukraine said any decision to give up Ukrainian territory would need to be put to a vote and it removed a measure put in place by American negotiators preventing it from ever joining NATO, indicating that Zelensky holds on to hope Ukraine could join the defense alliance in the future.

Yuri Ushakov, the foreign policy adviser to President Vladimir Putin, said on state television Sunday that Russia would have “sharp objections” if the United States adopted any Ukrainian or European suggestions for the plan.

Both Ukraine and Russia have seemingly rejected a proposal from the Trump administration that would create a sort-of demilitarized zone in parts of eastern Ukraine that it still holds, requiring only Ukrainian troops to withdraw from the buffer area.

Zelensky said Sunday he did not consider it fair that Russian troops were not also asked to withdraw deeper into the occupied territories.

“We stand where we stand,” he said. “That is precisely a ceasefire.”

The incident involved JetBlue Flight 1112 from Curacao, which is just off the coast of Venezuela, en route to New York City’s JFK airport.

A JetBlue flight from the small Caribbean nation of Curacao halted its ascent to avoid colliding with a US Air Force refuelling tanker on Friday, with the JetBlue pilot blaming the military plane for crossing his path.

“We almost had a midair collision up here,” the JetBlue pilot said, according to a recording of his conversation with air traffic control. “They passed directly in our flight path… They don’t have their transponder turned on. It’s outrageous.”

It comes as the US military has stepped up its drug interdiction activities in the Caribbean and is also seeking to increase pressure on the Venezuelan government.

“We just had traffic pass directly in front of us, within 5 miles [8km] of us – maybe 2 or 3 miles [3 or 5km] – but it was an air-to air refueller from the United States Air Force, and he was at our altitude,” the pilot said. “We had to stop our climb.”

The pilot said the US Air Force plane then headed into Venezuelan airspace.

Derek Dombrowski, a spokesman for JetBlue, said on Sunday: “We have reported this incident to federal authorities and will participate in any investigation.”

He added, “Our crew members are trained on proper procedures for various flight situations, and we appreciate our crew for promptly reporting this situation to our leadership team.”

The Pentagon referred The Associated Press agency to the Air Force for comment. The Air Force did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The US Federal Aviation Administration last month issued a warning to US aircraft, urging them to “exercise caution” when in Venezuelan airspace, “due to the worsening security situation and heightened military activity in or around Venezuela”.

According to the air traffic recording, the controller responded to the JetBlue pilot, “It has been outrageous with the unidentified aircraft within our air.”