Russia Responds To US Strikes, Will Hold Direct Talks With Iran
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
The Russian government on Sunday "strongly condemned" the United States' strikes the day before against three key Iranian nuclear facilities and is preparing to hold direct talks with Iranian officials to address the fallout.
Why It Matters
Trump on Saturday evening announced what he described as a "very successful attack" against three Iranian nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
U.S. officials said the attacks caused severe damage, but questions remain about the full extent of the damage and how much of a setback it is for Iran's nuclear program.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the Trump administration for taking an offensive position in the conflict, which Israeli officials have strongly advocated for since Israel first ignited the war on June 13.
The Israelis said the U.S. should strike Iran's nuclear facilities because Tehran was getting close to developing a nuclear weapon. Iran denies the charge, saying its nuclear program is for civilian purposes.
Iran vowed to retaliate after Saturday's strikes, accusing the U.S. of crossing "a very big red line" with its decision to pummel the three nuclear sites with 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs.
What To Know
"It is already clear that a dangerous escalation has begun, fraught with further undermining of regional and global security," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement addressing the U.S.'s strikes. "The risk of the conflict spreading in the Middle East, which is already gripped by multiple crises, has increased significantly."
Russia also called the strikes "irresponsible" and a "gross violation of international law."
Iran and Russia will hold talks in the aftermath of the U.S. strikes and Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said hours after the attacks that he will travel to Moscow while emphasizing Iran's "strategic partnership" with Russia.
A top Russian official and close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin also skewered Trump on social media after he announced the U.S.'s strikes, which hit Iranian nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
"The US is now entangled in a new conflict, with prospects of a ground operation looming on the horizon," Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, wrote in a thread on X (formerly Twitter).
Medvedev went on to praise Iran's "political regime," saying it "survived" the strikes and "in all likelihood, has come out even stronger."
"Donald Trump, once hailed as 'president of peace,' has now pushed the US into another war," Medvedev wrote, taunting Trump. The vast majority of countries around the world oppose the actions of Israel and the United States."
"At this rate, Trump can forget about the Nobel Peace Prize — not even with how rigged it has become," he added. "What a way to kick things off, Mr. President. Congratulations!"
Trump, for his part, said on social media after that if Iran retaliated against the U.S., it would "BE MET WITH FORCE FAR GREATER THAN WHAT WAS WITNESSED TONIGHT."
This is a breaking news story. Updates to follow.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
13 minutes ago
- The Hill
Hundreds protest in The Hague against NATO, days before the Dutch city hosts alliance summit
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Hundreds of people protested Sunday against NATO and military spending and against a possible conflict with Iran, two days before a summit of the alliance in The Hague that is seeking to increase allies' defense budgets. 'Let's invest in peace and sustainable energy,' Belgian politician Jos d'Haese told the crowd at a park not far from the summit venue. Although billed as a demonstration against NATO and the war in Gaza, protesters were joined by Iranians who held up banners saying 'No Iran War,' the day after the United States launched attacks against three of Iran's nuclear sites. 'We are opposed to war. People want to live a peaceful life,' said 74-year-old Hossein Hamadani, an Iranian who lives in the Netherlands. Look at the environment. 'Things are not good. So why do we spend money on war?' he added. The Netherlands is hosting the annual meeting of the 32-nation alliance starting Tuesday, with leaders scheduled to meet Wednesday. The heads of government want to hammer out an agreement on a hike in defense spending demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump. The deal appeared largely done last week, until Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that committing Madrid to spending 5% of its gross domestic product on defense 'would not only be unreasonable, but also counterproductive.' U.S. allies have ramped up defense spending since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago, but almost a third of them still don't meet NATO's current target of at least 2% of their gross domestic product. The summit is being protected by the biggest ever Dutch security operation, code named 'Orange Shield,' involving thousands of police and military personnel, drones, no-fly zones and cybersecurity experts. ___ Associated Press writer Molly Quell in The Hague contributed.
New York Post
20 minutes ago
- New York Post
Miranda Devine: Trump's ‘spectacular' Iran strike could carve his place in history as most courageous leader since Ronald Reagan
What an impressive sight it was Sunday, when the futuristic B-2 stealth bombers sliced through the powder-blue Missouri sky on their triumphant return to home base in the American heartland after dropping their Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs on Iran's underground nuclear sites. The strikes were 'a spectacular military success,' President Trump told the world Saturday night, after emerging from the Situation Room. 'Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace,' he said. Advertisement While Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan 'Razing' Caine said Sunday it was 'way too early' to know the full extent of damage at Iran's Fordow uranium-enrichment complex, satellite images show several large holes and a layer of gray-blue ash where all 14 massive 'bunker buster' bombs, each weighing 30,000 pounds, hit their target Saturday night in Operation Midnight Hammer. The strikes were also a spectacular political calculation by the president who ran on no new wars, and managed to keep a poker face all week as he was given advice by all and sundry. 'Unconventional' He made the right decision, and it appears to have been executed flawlessly. A limited strike, in and out. Iran's nuclear capability has been eliminated or at least severely degraded. No regime change. If the nuclear threat from Iran is indeed neutralized, leading to the extension of the Abraham Accords and peace in the Middle East, Trump will have achieved what countless predecessors failed to do. Advertisement If he pulls it off, without embroiling us in a larger war, he will have carved his role in history as the most courageous and consequential leader since Ronald Reagan. The man who rose from the stage in Butler, blood pouring down his face, raised his fist in the air and said, 'Fight, Fight Fight,' is exactly who you want as commander in chief at a time like this, especially as it's not his first rodeo. Photographs released by the White House show a serious-faced Trump inside the Situation Room Saturday night, wearing his trademark suit and red tie, not cosplaying a flyboy as his more casually-attired predecessors liked to do. His only bow to informality was a red MAGA hat with '45-47' on the side, representing his bifurcated presidential terms and the relentless grit it took to come back from the political dead. Advertisement So much for 'TACO Don.' He outfoxed everyone. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, just after emerging from the Situation Room last week where he watched the president deal with the complexities of the Iran-Israel war, likened Trump to Winston Churchill. 'He has a strategy and it's not a conventional strategy, but what conventional person has ever done great things?' said Bessent, in an interview for my new podcast Pod Force One. 'Does anybody think that Winston Churchill was conventional? '[Trump is] also so flexible in terms of the way he looks at things,' Bessent said. 'We've just spent basically the past 24 hours in the Situation Room over the Iran-Israel conflict, and I can tell you that the American people should know, and the American troops should know, that Donald Trump is doing an incredible job looking after their interests in what could turn, without someone like him, could turn into a widespread conflict that US soldiers and interests could get sucked into.' New team Advertisement In one fell swoop, Trump also restored the prestige of the US military, which had plummeted under Joe Biden. Most welcome was the upgrade from Gen. Mark 'Thoroughly Modern' Milley of 'white rage' fame, whom Biden had to give a preemptive pardon on his way out the door, presumably for his Trump-deranged outbursts to the Chinese. In Milley's place we now have 'Razing Caine,' once a daring F-16 pilot, and as cool and contained a general as you could find. 'This mission demonstrates the unmatched reach, coordination, and capability of the United States military,' he told reporters in a Sunday news conference alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, another veteran whose rapport with 'war fighters' has helped revive recruitment to record levels. 'In just a matter of weeks, this went from strategic planning to global execution,' said Caine. 'As the president clearly said last night, no other military in the world could have done this.' Every week, Post columnist Miranda Devine sits down for exclusive and candid conversations with the most influential disruptors in Washington. Subscribe here! What a contrast to the previous administration. Under Biden, our military was humiliated. Preposterous wokery and weak leadership led to a breakdown in discipline embodied in online displays of perverts in uniform dolled up in kinky dog masks and bondage gear. Advertisement Under Biden, incompetence was the order of the day, from the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, leaving behind $7 billion of equipment, to the failure to bring our astronauts home from the International Space Station, to the $230 million Gaza pier debacle which resulted in the death of one young soldier and dozens of troops injured while delivering minimal aid. The morale and reputation of our armed forces was severely depleted, making a mockery of Biden's frequent refrain' God bless our troops.' Under Biden, Obama's benighted Iran deal that Trump axed in his first term was reanimated. Trump 1.0 left Iran on its knees, unable to fund its proxies to attack Israel. Biden, in his wisdom, empowered and enriched Iran, reappointing Robert Malley, Antony Blinken's childhood friend from their prestigious Parisienne école, as Iran envoy. Malley was then suspended without pay pending an FBI investigation into an Iranian influence ring and his 'mishandling' of classified information. Naturally, the Ivy League came to his rescue, giving him gigs at Yale and Princeton. That is Biden's legacy. Advertisement But instead of thanking Trump for saving the world from a nuclear Iran, Democrats are pretending that he did something unconstitutional, and are whining because he didn't inform Democrat leaders in Congress before the top-secret operation. They only have themselves to blame for proving to be so unreliable with secrets in the past. Hello, Schifty Schiff. Dems were fine with Obama bombing Libya, Syria and Pakistan an estimated 13,000 times, killing thousands of people, without asking Congress for permission. Remember then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cackling over Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy's gruesome end when he was sodomized and brutalized to death on camera as she watched lasciviously from afar: 'We came, we saw, he died,' she said. Strong stance Advertisement Democrats should sit this one out. Despite their threats to impeach him, Trump has seized the moral authority and no doubt his already buoyant approval ratings will soar. That's the political dividend of strong leadership. What GOP senator could refuse to pass Trump's beloved Big Beautiful Bill now? And as with everything Trump does, the visuals were impeccable. The icing on the cake was his brand new 100-foot flagpole out the front of the White House, with Old Glory waving languidly in the night breeze as the B-2s worked their magic half a world away. Advertisement You're paying for radical Zoh New York, we have a problem. How could a candidate as toxic and radical as Zohran Mamdani be so close to victory in Tuesday's Democratic mayoral primary? An antisemitic socialist who is running to defund the police and raise more taxes for illegal migrants should be a political impossibility, yet he has surged to second place behind Andrew Cuomo in the polls. Attorney Denise Cohen, who writes a substack as 'Rational New Yorker,' has figured out this dangerous man 'could attain the highest office in NYC using public money that most of us didn't approve through a slush fund that we unwittingly paid for.' Mamdani has the highest social media engagement of all mayoral candidates with almost 6 million likes on TikTok, and has created the false appearance of a vibrant grassroots campaign with tens of thousands of small dollar donors, she writes. But he didn't amass a $8.4 million war chest from grassroots donations. Eighty percent of it came from taxpayers thanks to a New York campaign finance law in which the New York City Campaign Finance Board matches small donations by $8 for every $1 raised. If Mamdani wins, you and I probably paid for his campaign.
Los Angeles Times
21 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Trump says he's open to ‘regime change' in Iran, even as his aides insist otherwise
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Sunday called into question the future of Iran's ruling theocracy after a surprise attack on three of the country's nuclear sites, seemingly contradicting his administration's calls to resume negotiations and avoid an escalation in fighting. 'It's not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change???' Trump posted on social media. 'MIGA!!!' The post on his social media platform marked a stark reversal from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's Sunday morning news conference that detailed the aerial bombing of Iran early Sunday. 'This mission was not and has not been about regime change,' Hegseth said. The administration has made clear it wants Iran to stop any development of nuclear weapons, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned on Fox News' 'Sunday Morning Futures' that any retaliation against the U.S. or a rush toward building a nuclear weapon would 'put the regime at risk.' But beyond that, the world is awash in uncertainty at a fragile moment that could decide whether parts of the globe tip into war or find a way to salvage a relative peace. Trump's message to Iran's leadership comes as the U.S. has warned Iran against retaliating for the bombardment targeting the heart of a nuclear program that it spent decades developing. The Trump administration has made a series of intimidating statements even as it has called for a restart of negotiations, making it hard to get a read on whether the U.S. president is simply taunting an adversary or using inflammatory words that could further widen the war between Israel and Iran that began with Israeli attacks on June 13. Until Trump's post Sunday afternoon, the coordinated messaging by his vice president, Pentagon chief, top military advisor and secretary of State suggested a confidence that any fallout would be manageable and that Iran's lack of military capabilities would ultimately force it back to the bargaining table. Hegseth had said that America 'does not seek war' with Iran, while Vice President JD Vance said the strikes had given Tehran the possibility of returning to negotiate with Washington. But the unfolding situation is not entirely under Washington's control, as Tehran has a series of levers to respond to the aerial bombings that could intensify the conflict in the Middle East with possible global repercussions. Iran can block oil being shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, attack U.S. bases in the region, engage in cyberattacks or accelerate its nuclear program — which might seem more of a necessity after the U.S. strikes. All of that raises the question of whether the U.S. bombing will open up a more brutal phase of fighting or revive negotiations out of an abundance of caution. In the U.S., the attack quickly spilled over into domestic politics, with Trump spending part of his Sunday going after his critics in Congress. He used a social media post to lambaste Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a stalwart Trump supporter who had objected to the president taking military action without specific congressional approval. 'We had a spectacular military success yesterday, taking the 'bomb' right out of their hands (and they would use it if they could!)' Trump wrote. Boak and Pesoli write for the Associated Press.
