While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, March 18, 2025

Trump says he and Putin will discuss power plants, land in Ukraine ceasefire talks

US President Donald Trump said he would speak to Russia’s Vladimir Putin on March 18 about ending the Ukraine war, with territorial concessions by Kyiv and control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant likely to feature prominently in the talks.

“We want to see if we can bring that war to an end,” Mr Trump told reporters on Air Force One during a flight to the Washington area from Florida. “Maybe we can, maybe we can’t, but I think we have a very good chance.

“I’ll be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday. A lot of work’s been done over the weekend.”

Mr Trump is trying to win Mr Putin’s support for a 30-day ceasefire proposal that Ukraine accepted last week, as both sides continued trading heavy aerial strikes through the weekend and Russia moved closer to ejecting Ukrainian forces from their months-old foothold in the western Russian region of Kursk.

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US to withdraw from body investigating responsibility for Ukraine invasion

The Justice Department has informed European officials that the United States is withdrawing from a multinational group created to investigate leaders responsible for the invasion of Ukraine, including President Vladimir Putin of Russia, according to a letter sent to members of the organisation on March 17.

The decision to withdraw from the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, which the Biden administration joined in 2023, is the latest indication of the Trump administration’s move away from former president Joe Biden’s commitment to holding Mr Putin personally accountable for crimes committed against Ukrainians.

The group was created to hold the leadership of Russia, along with its allies in Belarus, North Korea and Iran, accountable for a category of crimes – defined as aggression under international law and treaties that violates another country’s sovereignty and is not initiated in self-defense.

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EU and its partners pledge $8.4 billion for Syria

The EU led the way as donors on March 17 pledged €5.8 billion (S$8.4 billion) in aid for Syria at a conference in Brussels – but the call for funding to help the war-torn country after Bashar al-Assad’s ouster fell short of last year as US support dries up.

Western and regional powers are desperate to steer Syria onto the road to stability after 14 years of civil war that have sent millions of refugees over its borders.

For the first time, the Syrian authorities were represented at the annual aid conference in Brussels – with interim foreign minister Assaad al-Shibani attending.

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US reports first outbreak of deadly H7N9 bird flu since 2017

The United States reported the first outbreak of the deadly H7N9 bird flu on a poultry farm since 2017, as the country continues to grapple with another bird flu strain that has infected humans and caused egg prices to hit record highs.

The spread of avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, has ravaged flocks around the world, disrupting supply and fuelling higher food prices. Its spread to mammals, including dairy cows in the US, has raised concerns among governments about a risk of a new pandemic.

The strain that has caused most damage to poultry in recent years and the death of one person in the US is the H5N1.

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Belarus sentences Japanese man to seven years for spying

A court in Belarus has sentenced a Japanese citizen to seven years in prison for spying, prosecutors said March 17, in a case that officials in the Russian-allied country have not fully explained.

The man, identified by prosecutors as Nakanishi Masatoshi, was detained in July 2024, but Minsk announced the arrest only last September.

A Minsk court found him guilty of “espionage activity”, the office of Belarus’s prosecutor-general said.

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