(LONDON) — Buckingham Palace released a new official photo of the king, the queen consort and the prince and princess of Wales following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla posed alongside Prince William, the next heir apparent to the British throne, and his wife Princess Catherine of Wales — all of whom were given new titles after the death of the late queen.
The photo was taken 10 days after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, on Sept. 18, ahead of the reception for Heads of State and Official Overseas Guests at Buckingham Palace.
📸 Their Majesties The King and The Queen Consort with Their Royal Highnesses The Prince and Princess of Wales.
King Charles III is the current monarch of the United Kingdom who succeeded his late mother Queen Elizabeth II last month.
Charles stood next to his wife of 17 years, Queen Consort Camilla, who was given the title per the late Elizabeth’s request. The queen consort has been a member of the British royal family since 2005 and was made a duchess upon her marriage to Charles, then-prince of Wales.
William, prince of Wales, is the eldest son of King Charles III, and Diana, the late princess of Wales. His wife Catherine, now the princess of Wales, became a member of the royal family in 2011 when they were married and bestowed the titles duke and duchess of Cambridge.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel this week to Puerto Rico and then Florida after hurricanes ravaged the two areas.
The Bidens head to Puerto Rico on Monday to survey damage from Hurricane Fiona, which killed more than two dozen people on the island last month, officials have said. Hurricane Ian shortly after struck Florida, killing more than 70 people before moving up along the Atlantic coast and killing at least four more people in North Carolina.
While in Puerto Rico, the president and first lady will “meet with families and community leaders impacted by Hurricane Fiona” and “participate in a community service project to help pack bags with food and other essential items,” according to a White House official.
The president will also receive a briefing on recovery efforts, the official said — and he will announce more than $60 million in funding from last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law that will “shore up levees, strengthen flood walls, and create a new flood warning system to help Puerto Rico become better prepared for future storms,” according to the official. (The federal government continues to dole out funding from last year’s legislation through a variety of avenues.)
The Bidens will visit Ponce, on the south side of Puerto Rico, and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell will join them, the official said.
Fiona lashed an already-weakened power grid in Puerto Rico in September, leaving much of the island in darkness and struggling to recover. However, Criswell said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that 90% of residents had since had power restored.
The president’s trip comes as the damage in Florida from Ian only starts to come into view.
The western edge of the state was ravaged by severe flooding, leaving numerous buildings leveled or seriously damaged. Hundreds of thousands of residents were left without power. Significant flooding was also reported across the Carolinas.
Search-and-rescue efforts were ongoing as of Sunday, Criswell said on “This Week,” meaning the death toll could easily rise as more of the area is surveyed.
“Our hearts … are heavy, the devastating hurricanes, storms in Puerto Rico, Florida and South Carolina. And just know, we owe Puerto Rico a hell of a lot more than they’ve already gotten,” Biden said at a Congressional Black Caucus awards dinner Saturday, seeming to reference worries that damage from Ian would distract the federal government from the effects of Fiona on Puerto Rico.
(NEW YORK) — The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday charged reality star Kim Kardashian over a post she made promoting a crypto asset security sold by EthereumMax “without disclosing the payment she received for the promotion.”
Kardashian will pay $1.26 million to settle the civil charges, the SEC said in its announcement.
The SEC alleged that Kardashian failed to disclose that she received $250,000 to publish a post on her Instagram account about EMAX tokens, the crypto asset security being offered by EthereumMax.
“This case is a reminder that, when celebrities or influencers endorse investment opportunities, including crypto asset securities, it doesn’t mean that those investment products are right for all investors,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a statement.
“We encourage investors to consider an investment’s potential risks and opportunities in light of their own financial goals,” he added.
The $1.26 million settlement equals the payment Kardashian received for the promotion as well as a $1 million penalty, the SEC said. Kardashian also agreed to forego the promotion of any crypto asset securities for three years, the agency added.
Kardashian is among a number of celebrities named in a class-action lawsuit filed last January in a California U.S. District Court over allegations from investors that they suffered losses after the celebrities promoted the crypto coin. That court case is ongoing.
The plaintiffs invested money after “viewing numerous celebrity endorsements of EMAX,” the lawsuit said.
Kardashian filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit last month, arguing that none of the investors claimed to have seen her promotional Instagram posts.
The value of an EthereumMax coin fell 1.75% on Monday.
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration on Monday announced more than $300 million in new mental health funding, via awards and grants, with much of the money coming from the bipartisan anti-gun violence law passed this summer by Congress.
The Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services, through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), is rolling out the roughly $314 million for health professionals in schools and in emergency departments.
The new funds allocated under annual appropriations as well as the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) — which was passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in June — are intended to help create healthier and safer learning environments for children, with the DOE granting some $280 million in competitive grants to schools to aid mental health staffing, it said Monday.
The DOE said it is dedicating $144 million a year for five years to a grant program for growing the amount of mental health professionals in schools, plus $143 million a year for five years to a grant program for “boosting the mental health profession pipeline” around schools that are most in need.
Notices inviting applications for both grant programs will open Monday morning and in the federal register on Tuesday.
Roberto RodrĂguez, the education department assistant secretary for planning, evaluation and policy development, touted this spending in major terms — calling the administration’s response to mental health “historic.”
“We’ve never seen an effort of this magnitude in relation to the challenge that we have around mental health,” RodrĂguez told ABC News, adding, “We also have never seen this level of investment from the federal level, more specifically in mental health professionals, so we are making a big bet on supporting, attracting, developing and retaining our school psychologists, social workers [and] counselors to really work in support of our students.”
HRSA Administrator Carole Johnson said that the HHS also awarding nearly $27 million for a pediatric mental health access program for emergency department providers — by training pediatricians to treat “mental health conditions and by [provide] tele-consultation to bring mental health expert support,” the government said — is an important step that will have a “substantial impact.”
Johnson told ABC News that pediatric primary health care providers will, with this new money, receive support and training in analyzing mental health conditions. The virtual training sessions with mental health care specialists will help a range of providers, including family medicine physicians, diagnose and treat children before referring them to mental health services, Johnson said.
“[If] that pediatrician is more equipped to identify mental health issues and treat them, then that will make a big difference for that family,” Johnson said. “If your school nurse is better able to identify early issues with mental health concerns and get that child referred to the right place, that’ll make a big difference for children as well.”
The HHS already provides $300,000 per week in additional resources to mostly state awardees, as well as tribal organizations and Washington, D.C., and almost $9 million to new grantees through the American Rescue Plan (ARP), officials said.
Johnson emphasized that the government believes the new funding will help reduce the burden on families and extend the “reach” of the mental health workforce in helping those in need.
“Our goal here is that there’s no wrong door for getting kids connected to mental health services and pediatricians to be part of that solution,” Johnson said. “As part of this project, [one can] call in to what we call a tele-consultation line where the project supports, in every one of our grantees, a tele-consultation service that allows pediatricians to connect directly with mental health experts. That might be psychiatrists or psychologists, social workers and care navigators that really help bring that mental health expertise into the pediatrician’s office so that they can help — in real time — manage mental health care needs.”
RodrĂguez, the assistant education secretary, said that the department’s mental health funding aims to target school districts in underserved areas.
“We’re looking at communities that have high concentrations of poverty, communities where they may disproportionately lack access,” RodrĂguez said. “That includes not just our urban communities — that includes our rural communities as well as suburban communities. What we’ve permitted here is the opportunity for states to apply on behalf of high need Local Education Agencies (LEAs) too, so if school districts don’t have a capacity to pull together applications, states can work closely with school districts to do more of a comprehensive response.”
The administration’s funding commitment comes as various districts have sounded the alarm on their ability to handle mental health issues at their schools this year. The most recent National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) report found mental health professionals are one of the top five most understaffed positions reported in schools.
Amid a widespread educator shortage, RodrĂguez said that the Education Department is also focusing on the next generation of mental health professionals by working with higher-education programs. These are partnerships between K-12 and colleges and universities, he said, to train school-based mental health service providers.
The new spending helps President Biden inch closer to his goal of “doubling” the amount of mental health professionals in schools. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wrote in an advisory on protecting youth mental health that students lost access to teachers, counselors and mental health professionals when COVID-19-related measures forced schools to shut down for in-person learning in 2020 and 2021.
The BSCA, which Biden signed in June, will invest an additional $1 billion over the next five years in mental health supports in U.S. schools, according to the White House.
(WASHINGTON) — Jillian Hughes, 33, of Washington, D.C., said she dealt with symptoms of anxiety for more than a decade before getting a diagnosis of and treatment for anxiety disorder in her 20s.
Lanee Higgins, of Baltimore, remembers being labeled a “worrier” as a child, a label she said stuck with her all the way through this year, when, as a 30-year-old, she was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, a condition that “involves a persistent feeling of anxiety or dread that interferes with how you live your life,” according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
In California, Debbie Paperman, who is in her 40s, said she struggled with anxiety for at least two decades before being diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.
“Everyone’s anxiety is different, but I think too many people think anxiety is something you just have to blow off and not think it’s something to address,” Paperman told ABC News. “A lot of times, people think anxiety is something that is happening because of something and not just because it’s part of your brain structure.”
Anxiety is the feeling evoked when someone experiences fear of something bad happening, and it can lead to avoidance, panic attacks, excessive worrying or other symptoms. Anyone can have anxiety at times, but when anxiety becomes overwhelming to the point that it consistently interferes with daily life, it can be an anxiety disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
In the United States, anxiety disorders affect as many as one in five adults, data shows.
Now, for the first time, a panel of national medical experts has recommended that adults under age 65 get screened for anxiety during routine medical visits.
The draft recommendations issued last week by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force call on physicians to use standardized anxiety screenings like existing questionnaires to assess whether patients may have some of the signs and symptoms of anxiety.
The recommendations are intended as one way to help prevent mental health conditions from going undetected, according to Lori Pbert, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School professor, who serves on the task force.
“What we found was that screening for anxiety in adults younger than 65, including people who are pregnant and postpartum, can help identify anxiety early so people can be connected to the care they need,” Pbert told ABC News. “This recommendation is specifically for individuals who do not have a mental health diagnosis and are not showing recognized signs or symptoms of an anxiety disorder.”
People who have signs and symptoms of anxiety should proactively reach out to a doctor for help, she added.
The first-of-its-kind anxiety screening recommendation is seen as of particular importance to women, who suffer from anxiety disorder at greater rates than men, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Women are more than twice as likely as men to get an anxiety disorder in their lifetime, according to the U.S. Office on Women’s Health. Risk factors for anxiety disorders can include genetics, hormonal changes and traumatic events, according to the office.
All three women who spoke with ABC News about their anxiety disorders said they struggled with not having a diagnosis of anxiety for so many years.
All said they believe they would have benefited if their primary health doctors had asked about their mental health, anxiety in particular.
“I definitely would have appreciated at the ages of 13, 14, 15 or in my 20s, a screening and then a referral to resources that I could access,” said Hughes, now executive vice president of communications at Mental Health America, a nonprofit organization that supports mental health advocacy, education and research. “I definitely would have benefited from coping skills and some different framing in my mind of my anxiety and how it affects me.”
Paperman, of California, put it more simply, saying of her decadeslong wait for a diagnosis, “It shouldn’t have taken this long.”
Why women suffer from anxiety disorders at a higher rate than men is a discrepancy not yet completely understood from a medical perspective. Some experts say it may be due, in part, to women’s changing hormones during their menstrual cycle and reproductive years, and women may report symptoms of anxiety more frequently than men.
“I don’t know that anybody has clear evidence,” said Dr. Beth Salcedo, past president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America and medical director of The Ross Center, a mental health treatment center. “With women’s reproductive changes, they’re a little bit more likely to see anxiety or mood disorders show up, but nobody really has an idea why it’s different among the sexes from a biological perspective.”
Salcedo, a practicing psychiatrist, said she applauds the task force’s recommendation for more frequent and accessible anxiety screenings, but said it’s only a first step in the process of getting care to people who need it.
“It’s a value-add overall, but the medical system needs to change to be able to manage these things,” Salcedo said. “If the government was willing to put a trained clinician in every one of these offices to look at the screens and evaluate the patients and make recommendations for therapy and give access to good treatment, that would be ideal, but that’s not what this is, unfortunately.”
Pbert said that with the recommendation that doctors include anxiety screenings in appointments, the hope is that people who may have vague symptoms they don’t recognize as anxiety can be helped early.
Symptoms of anxiety disorders can include physical symptoms like restlessness, fatigue and even sometimes chest discomfort or trouble breathing, as well as mental symptoms such as fear and dread about things that may happen, according to the Office on Women’s Health.
“Screening for anxiety disorders is not the only step. It’s the first step,” Pbert said, adding that if a person shows signs of an anxiety disorder on the screener, “they then can be linked up with appropriate treatment and follow-up care.”
Pbert said the task force’s recommendation will not be finalized until after the panel reviews public comments, which could take several months.
While the task force’s recommendation would not be mandatory for doctors, it carries enormous weight in the medical community and its recommendations often change the way doctors practice medicine.
What to know about anxiety disorders
Like most mental health conditions, anxiety falls on a spectrum, with differing degrees of severity.
There are four main types of anxiety disorders.
Generalized anxiety disorder, or GAD, is described as worrying “excessively about ordinary, day-to-day issues, such as health, money, work, and family,” according to the OWH. Women with GAD may be anxious about just getting through the day, may have difficulty doing everyday tasks and may have stress-related physical symptoms, like difficulty sleeping or stomachaches, according to the Office on Women’s Health.
Panic disorder, also twice as common in women as in men, may see people having panic attacks, described by the Office on Women’s Health as “sudden attacks of terror when there is no actual danger.” People having panic attacks may feel like they’re having a heart attack, dying or losing their minds.
A third type of anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, is diagnosed when people “become very anxious and self-conscious in everyday social situations,” including embarrassing easily, according to the Office on Women’s Health. People with social anxiety disorder can often have panic attack symptoms around social situations.
The fourth type of disorder, specific phobia, is an intense fear of something, such as heights, water, animals or specific situations, that possess “little or no actual danger,” according to the Office on Women’s Health.
Each type of anxiety disorder can bring with it different symptoms, but they all involve a “fear and dread about things that may happen now or in the future,” according to the Office on Women’s Health.
Treatment for anxiety disorders often includes a combination of counseling and medication — and both together are often most effective.
When it comes to counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is often used to help people change thinking patterns around their fears, according to the Office on Women’s Health. With medication, a prescription medication to treat and prevent future episodes of anxiety on a long-term basis is different than a medication such as Xanax or Valium that is intended for infrequent treatment of acute anxiety.
Treatment options for anxiety are shown here.
Other factors such as physical activity, nutrition and mindfulness can also play a role in coping with anxiety, although less is known about the role they play in treating anxiety disorders, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, an entity of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Melissa Presser, a mom of three in south Florida, said it took a combination of many therapies for her to learn how to cope with the anxiety she said she’s lived with for much of her life.
“Exercises that are quieting the mind, that has been a big part of my healing,” said Presser, also an attorney and writer. “Another big part of my recovery has been a peer group. That was so overwhelmingly helpful, to sit with peers who were also suffering to varying degrees.”
Presser said she has learned that anxiety disorders are not a condition you can diagnose by looking at someone, which is why she said it’s important for doctors to talk with patients about the condition and empower them to get care.
“People who suffer from anxiety, you would never know it for most people from the outside,” she said. “If you saw me on the street, you’d have no idea that I was suffering. I’m a person who functions with anxiety.”
(NEW YORK) — Five days since Hurricane Ian made landfall as a Category 4 storm, hundreds of families are trying to pick up the pieces as the recovery process continues.
In the close-knit community of Harlem Heights in Fort Myers, Florida, Ian decimated the area, leaving some homes and buildings submerged in several feet of water. Among them is the Gladiolus Food Pantry, which provides about 250 low-income families with food and household goods like diapers and toothpaste on a weekly basis.
After the hurricane, Gladiolus Food Pantry was flooded and the essential supplies inside the building were all destroyed.
“I mean, when the storm came, we lost power. We don’t have any water. I mean, my food is spoiling in the refrigerator,” Keyondra Smith, a local resident, said.
Neighbors and community members have since teamed up to pitch in at Gladiolus, handing out food and water to anyone who needs them.
“People have worked their whole lives to get a tiny little sliver of something and it’s gone,” Jessica Woods said. “So that’s what hurts, I think, the most.”
Woods called her friends following Ian’s aftermath and they’re now volunteering to support their community in this crucial time of need.
“When everybody has cleared this tent, that’s when we’ll be done,” Woods said. “Our community is really hurting.”
Floyd Simmons, who has lived in Harlem Heights for the past 44 years, says his home is a “disaster” but he’s thankful for the volunteers in his community who are jumping in to help.
“It’s a beautiful thing,” Simmons said. “That’s showing love.”
Gladiolus’ director, Miriam Ortiz, said despite the storm’s immense impact, the food pantry will continue to operate. The pantry is currently accepting donations of food, water and other staples like blankets, as well as welcoming volunteers who can lend a helping hand.
For individuals looking to help, food-based organizations such as Feeding Tampa Bay and World Central Kitchen are helping local communities impacted by Hurricane Ian. Other groups are offering support beyond food needs, such as debris cleanup, financial assistance and more. These organizations include CDP Atlantic Hurricane Season Recovery Fund, Florida Disaster Fund, Good360 and Team Rubicon.
Click HERE for more information on organizations helping people impacted by Hurricane Ian.
(WASHINGTON) — Florida Sen. Rick Scott, a member of Republican leadership in the upper chamber, said Sunday that he does not “condone violence” after Donald Trump lashed out at Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell and suggested McConnell had a “death wish”– but Scott stopped short of condemning the former president.
Trump, in a post on his Truth Social website last week, wrote that McConnell must have a “death wish” after supporting a continuing resolution to fund the federal government.
Trump went on to criticize McConnell’s wife in racist terms, writing that he should “seek help and advise [sic] from his China loving wife, Coco Chow!” Trump was referring to Elaine Chao, who is Taiwanese. Chao served as Trump’s transportation secretary until she resigned after Jan. 6
Scott, who leads the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, was asked for his opinion of Trump’s attack on McConnell during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“I can never talk about and respond to why anybody else says what they said,” Scott said. “But here’s the way I look at it is I think what the president is saying is there’s been a lot of money spent over the last two years. We’ve got to make sure we don’t keep caving to Democrats, it’s causing unbelievable inflation and causing more and more debt.”
Scott then shrugged off the insult about Chao.
“As you know, the president likes to give people nicknames. You can ask him how he came up with the nickname,” Scott said. “I’m sure he has a nickname for me.”
“But here’s what I know: We’ve got to watch how we spend our money, we got to stop this inflation,” he said. “I don’t condone violence, and I hope no one else condones violence.”
Trump’s team has insisted in the wake of the former president’s “death wish” comment that it was meant in a political sense and was not advocating physical harm.
On CNN on Sunday, Scott was pressed on the racially inflammatory nature of how Trump singled out Chao. He replied that “It’s never ever OK to be a racist. I think you always have to be careful if you’re in the public eye with how you say things. You want to make sure you’re inclusive.”
Trump and McConnell, though close legislative allies through much of Trump’s administration, became estranged in the wake of Jan. 6.
While McConnell did not vote to convict Trump at his second impeachment, he said in a speech in February 2021 that Trump was “morally responsible” for the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump has since repeatedly denounced McConnell, which McConnell typically ignores in public. His office did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday.
(AURORA, Colo.) — Aurora, Colorado police fatally shot a male robbery suspect they said threatened them with a gun following a vehicle chase that ended by Denver International Airport on Saturday, authorities said at a news conference.
Denver’s chief of police, Ron Thomas, said two male suspects robbed a 7-Eleven store in Aurora around 2 a.m. Saturday morning before fleeing the scene in a small black SUV.
Around 5:00 a.m. Aurora police saw and began to pursue the vehicle toward Denver’s airport, executing an immobilization technique that caused the SUV to crash, Thomas said.
“We understand that a police pursuit, high-speed pursuits are inherently dangerous,” Thomas told reporters on Saturday. “And so, we want to end those as quickly as we possibly can when it’s safe to do so. I think those officers believed that this remote location was a safe location in order to perform that maneuver.”
Thomas said the suspect driving the car took out a long gun and threatened officers, prompting three Aurora cops to shoot the suspect.
Denver paramedics arrived and began to administer aid, but the suspect was pronounced dead on the scene. The second suspect was arrested.
An Aurora police officer did suffer injuries during the crash, a police official told ABC News. Although, no other officers were injured in the shooting.
Aurora and Denver’s police are conducting a joint investigation into the incident.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Marco Rubio and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Deanne Criswell on Sunday detailed the destruction Ian wreaked in Florida as Rubio said there’s no “comparison” between the deadly hurricane and past storms.
“I don’t think it has a comparison, not in Florida,” Rubio, R-Fla., told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. “Fort Myers Beach no longer exists. It’ll have to be rebuilt. It’ll be something different. It was a slice of old Florida that you can’t recapture.”
“There is a lot of devastation. Significant damage in the point of impact on the west coast of Florida,” Criswell added.
Ian made landfall last week in West Florida before sweeping across the middle and upper regions of the state, leaving leveled homes and significant flooding in its wake. Search-and-rescue operations are ongoing, but the death toll in Florida stood at 72 as of Sunday morning, according to local officials.
There have also been four deaths in North Carolina, where Ian hit after passing through Florida, and several deaths in Cuba, which was hit before Florida.
Both Rubio and Criswell emphasized on “This Week” that federal officials have been working hand-in-glove with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“I spent the whole day with Gov. DeSantis on Friday and wanted to really hear what his concerns were and what resources he might need to help support this,” Criswell told Karl. “I committed to him that we would continue to bring in resources to meet the needs, not just for this response and the stabilization but as they go into the recovery efforts.”
Asked by Karl if the forecast models were off in projecting Ian’s path or if local officials should have called for evacuations sooner, Criswell said the hurricane had been “fairly unpredictable in the days leading up to landfall,” when Ian quickly became the deadliest hurricane in the state in 60 years.
“This is going to be a long road to recovery,” Criswell acknowledged. She added: “We are accounting for everybody that was in the storm’s path and that we go through every home to make sure that we don’t leave anybody behind.”
Criswell, a former emergency management chief of New York City, was confirmed as FEMA administrator last year. She took over an agency that disburses billions in relief across the country but which has also faced scrutiny and criticism over its work.
“FEMA has — they’ve all been great,” Rubio said on Sunday. “The federal response from day one is very positive … and we’re grateful for that.”
Karl pressed Rubio multiple times on a 2013 vote he cast against recovery funds for Hurricane Sandy, with Rubio arguing the Sandy relief included unrelated spending.
Karl asked if Rubio would also insist disaster money for his state be voted on without any non-emergency additions — and, if so, if he was then prepared to vote against such funding if it was part of a larger package.
“What we’re going to ask for Florida is what we supported for every other state in the country that’s been affected by natural disasters, and that’s emergency relief designed to be sent immediately to help the people affected now,” Rubio said.
Karl asked Criswell about FEMA’s work in Puerto Rico, which was hit by Hurricane Fiona last month. Criswell noted that 90% of people on the island have power again since the storm. “We have not stopped our response efforts and our recovery efforts,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — Russian President Vladimir Putin now faces an “irreversible” quagmire amid the country’s land grab in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, retired Army general and former CIA chief David Petraeus said Sunday.
Putin “is losing” despite “significant” but “desperate” moves in the war that began in late February, Petraeus told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
“President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy and Ukraine have mobilized vastly better than has Russia,” Petraeus said. “Ukraine has recruited, trained, equipped, organized and employed force incomparably better than Russia has.”
Regardless of Putin’s bravado, Petraeus said, “No amount of annexation, no amount of even veiled nuclear threats can get him out of this situation.”
Asked by Karl if Russia could win in its conflict with Ukraine, Petraeus said he did not see how: “They cannot. There is nothing he [Putin] can do at this point.”
On Friday, Putin said he was “forever” annexing four regions of Ukraine — a move denounced by Ukraine, the U.S. and other countries — and, in late September, the Russian leader said he was calling up some 300,000 reservists to bolster the war effort, triggering protests across his country.
In a rare acknowledgment Thursday, Putin admitted “mistakes” in how the mobilization was carried out. But he argued again in a speech Friday that the invasion was crucial to preserving Russia against what he described as “the enemy” in the West.
Meanwhile Ukrainian forces, buttressed by billions in weapons and funding from the U.S. and European allies, have made steady territorial gains since a counteroffensive that started last month.
“He’s going to continue to lose on the battlefield,” Petraeus said of Putin, pointing to Russia’s recent retreat from a supply hub city in one of the annexed regions. Mounting sanctions are another complication, Petraeus said.
Putin’s Friday speech, in which he announced the annexation of parts of Ukraine, was designed to undercut Europe’s commitment to challenging Russia, which is a major energy supplier on the continent, Petraeus said.
“Europe’s going to have a tough winter,” Petraeus said. “There’s going to be very reduced flow of natural gas, but they’ll get through it and I don’t think they’ll crack on the issue of support for Ukraine.”
“Negotiations, as President Zelenskyy has said, will be the ultimate end,” Petraeus said — though an imminent diplomatic outcome might be unlikely, as Zelenskyy signaled on Friday that Ukraine would only agree to talks “with another president of Russia.”
“It can still get worse for Putin and for Russia. And even the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield won’t change this at all,” Petraeus said.
Still, he said the nuclear threat must be taken “seriously.”
Karl asked him if the use of such weapons would require the U.S. to directly intervene in the conflict with NATO.
Petraeus said a response might see the U.S. and its NATO allies “take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield” in Ukraine, the contested region of Crimea that Russia annexed in 2014 and ships in the Black Sea.
“It cannot go unanswered. But it doesn’t expand — it’s not nuclear for nuclear. You don’t want to get into a nuclear escalation here,” Petraeus said. “But you have to show that this cannot be accepted in any way.”
