Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at U.S. sanction threats against Russia, possible White House nuclear talks with Iran, and deadly clashes in Syria.

Russia ‘Pounding’ Ukraine

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Moscow on Friday with sanctions and tariffs in a bid to force both sides in the Russia-Ukraine war to come to the negotiating table. “Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at U.S. sanction threats against Russia, possible White House nuclear talks with Iran, and deadly clashes in Syria.

Russia ‘Pounding’ Ukraine

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Moscow on Friday with sanctions and tariffs in a bid to force both sides in the Russia-Ukraine war to come to the negotiating table. “Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

The “pounding” in question refers to a massive missile and drone attack that Russia launched overnight on Friday targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. According to Ukraine’s Air Force, Moscow fired 67 missiles from the air, land, and sea as well as 194 strike and decoy drones across the country, injuring at least 10 people.

“Russia is trying to hurt ordinary Ukrainians by striking energy and gas production facilities, without abandoning its goal of leaving us without light and heat, and causing the greatest harm to ordinary citizens,” Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko wrote on social media.

Russia has repeatedly targeted Kyiv’s energy sector in what Ukrainian officials have called an effort to weaponize winter. But Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov maintained on Friday that the country’s energy infrastructure is a legitimate target because it is “linked with Ukraine’s military industrial complex and weapons production.”

The Biden administration issued sanctions on Russia after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But Trump has taken a friendlier stance toward Russian President Vladimir Putin and has so far refrained from applying any additional significant financial or military pressure on Russia, in what the U.S. president and his allies portray as an attempt to bring Moscow to the negotiating table with Kyiv. Conversely, Trump has put significant pressure on Ukraine, including by pausing U.S. military aid and intelligence-sharing as well as publicly feuding with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and calling him a “dictator.”

Trump’s post taking a more aggressive tone toward Russia was thus seen as a welcome change by some Ukraine supporters, though the president’s comments later Friday somewhat dampened that sentiment.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said he still believes that Putin wants peace, adding, “I’m finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine.” Asked if he thinks Putin is taking advantage of the U.S. pause on military and intelligence aid to Ukraine to attack the country, Trump said, “No, I actually think he’s doing what anybody else would do.”

“He wants to end the war. He wants to end it. And I think he’s going to be more generous than he has to be. And that’s pretty good,” Trump added.

Earlier this week, Zelensky proposed a series of first steps to stop the fighting. They include halting missile, drone, and bomb attacks at energy and other civilian infrastructure as well as ceasing all combat operations in the Black Sea to allow for safe shipping. Several foreign leaders have backed Zelensky’s proposal, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday.

Notably, Trump is not yet one of them.

Zelensky will travel to Saudi Arabia on Monday to discuss the ongoing conflict, and a Ukrainian delegation will remain in Riyadh to meet with senior U.S. officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, and U.S. national security advisor Mike Waltz.

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What We’re Following

A new nuclear deal? Trump told Fox Business in an interview, part of which aired on Friday, that he has written a letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei seeking to discuss a new nuclear disarmament agreement. “I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing for them,” Trump said he told Khamenei in the letter.

Trump has said he would like Iran to be a successful nation but that he refuses to allow it to develop nuclear weapons. During his first presidential term, though, Trump withdrew Washington from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, arguing that the nuclear deal failed to adequately constrain Iran’s ballistic missile program and lifted sanctions on Tehran that allowed it to fund proxy militant groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah.

It is unclear what a new agreement might entail. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi opposed new talks, saying, “We will not enter any direct negotiations with the U.S. so long as they continue their maximum pressure policy and their threats.” And Russian diplomat Mikhail Ulyanov advised Washington earlier this week not to seek any ballistic missile agreement. But Trump has not said whether a new deal would focus solely on nuclear weapons or also aim to constrain Tehran’s ballistic missiles and support for proxy groups.

Challenging Damascus. Syrian security forces clashed with armed rebels loyal to ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad along the country’s western coast on Thursday and Friday, killing at least 147 people, according to the British-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The fighting—the worst violence since insurgents led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group forced Assad out of power last December—marks a major escalation in the conflict and appears to be a coordinated effort to challenge Damascus’s new Sunni-led government.

Syria’s western coast is the heartland of the country’s minority Alawite community, which Assad is a part of and which received longtime support from the deposed leader. As of Friday, large numbers of Syrian security troops were reportedly in the city of Latakia to establish a curfew.

Yet worries for the country’s stability remain. “At this critical juncture, the targeting of security forces could undermine the efforts to lead Syria into the future in unity and solidarity,” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oncu Keceli said in a statement on Friday.

A win for Yoon. A South Korean court canceled the arrest warrant for impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol on Friday, paving the way for his potential release even as he faces two trials concerning his Dec. 3, 2024, martial law order. The ruling will not dismiss the criminal charges that led to Yoon’s arrest in January nor the Constitutional Court’s case concerning his removal from office.

According to a court statement, the decision to remove Yoon’s arrest warrant was based on the timing of the indictment, which was extended after an initial 48-hour period expired, and “questions about the legality” of the investigation process. “The court’s decision to cancel the arrest showed this country’s rule of law is still alive,” Yoon’s lawyers said, calling for his immediate release.

Legal experts fear that concerns about the investigation’s proceedings could become grounds to overrule any future court decision. However, opposition Democratic Party spokesperson Han Min-soo said the arrest warrant’s removal should have no effect on Yoon’s impeachment trials.

Odds and Ends

A photographer in the Canadian province of Ontario captured a rare aviary moment this week, when a bald eagle, a symbol of the United States, swooped onto a frozen lake to face off with a lone Canadian goose. Despite 20 minutes of aggressive eagle attacks, the goose remained undefeated and eventually forced the eagle to fly away. Sound familiar?