CNN
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A Harvard Medical School researcher currently detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement says she should have reviewed customs protocols before attempting to enter the US with “non-hazardous” frog embryo samples but insists what she told immigration agents was misunderstood.

“I never provided false information to any government official,” Kseniia Petrova, a Russian national, said in a statement issued Thursday. “Some of my words were misunderstood and inaccurately reflected in the statement that the officer presented for my signature.”

Petrova is accused of “lying to federal officers” about what she was carrying, according to a Department of Homeland Security statement. The agency also alleges she “broke the law and took deliberate steps to evade it.”

Messages on Petrova’s phone “revealed she planned to smuggle the materials through customs without declaring them,” the statement said.

Petrova said she was never asked if she had any “biological material,” and that she asked for that part of her inspection statement to be corrected, as well as “other inaccuracies.” She said those changes were never made and, because of that, she was detained.

“I should have reviewed U.S. customs paperwork requirements,” she said, adding that she was more concerned with getting the samples to her lab before they degraded.

Petrova, who describes herself as “a nerdy 30-year-old scientist who typically works 10 to 12 hours a day,” said her boss asked her to bring the scientific samples back from Paris for their cancer research. Petrova said she didn’t expect any problems getting the embryos through customs because they were “non-toxic, non-hazardous, and non-infectious.”

Petrova has spent more than 10 weeks in an ICE detention facility in Louisiana. Since she has been in custody, people have sent her science books, supportive notes and letters, and some of her colleagues have come to visit, she said.

“I take full responsibility for not properly declaring the frog embryo samples. What I do not understand is why the American officials say I am being held because I am a danger to the community and a flight risk,” Petrova said. “I only want to be in the lab working on research. That is my life’s purpose. That is what I’m all about.”

Later this month she has a federal court hearing in Vermont challenging her detention. If the court decides the government acted unlawfully, the judge could release her, according to her attorney Greg Romanovsky. If not, she faces deportation to Russia, where, according to her attorney, she would face immediate arrest over her previous outspoken opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

CNN
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his conversation with US President Donald Trump at the Vatican last month was their “best” yet, with the two leaders discussing US sanctions and Kyiv’s air defenses.

The brief meeting on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral in April came at a crucial time for Ukraine, amid concerns that the US could scale back support for Kyiv and abandon peace talks.

Both sides described the talks as positive, which marked their first face-to-face encounter since their disastrous Oval Office meeting in February. Soon after, Trump questioned whether Russia’s President Vladimir Putin wanted peace, the latest sign that the US leader is losing patience with his Russian counterpart.

“I believe that we had the best conversation with President Trump of all those that have taken place before,” Zelensky told journalists on Friday, in remarks released Saturday by Ukraine’s presidential office.

“It may have been the shortest, but it was the most substantive.”

Zelensky said the pair discussed US sanctions, without elaborating, and described Trump’s comments on the matter as “very strong.” He added that he reiterated his desire to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses and told Trump he hoped to have the opportunity to purchase American weapons.

“I told him about the quantity, and he told me that they would work on it, that these things are not free,” Zelensky said.

He added that he and Trump agreed that a 30-day ceasefire “is the right first step” and that “we will move in this direction.”

On Wednesday, Washington and Kyiv signed a crucial minerals deal – an agreement both sides had been trying to hammer out since Trump returned to the White House in January.

In his Friday comments, Zelensky pointed to the Vatican meeting as the turning point in securing a deal, adding that he had managed to dispel Russian claims that Ukraine was unwilling to reach an agreement with the US. “I am confident that after our meeting in the Vatican, President Trump began to look at things a little differently,” he said.

Under the deal, the US and Ukraine will create a joint investment fund, according to Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko. The US may contribute new military aid to this fund, Svyrydenko said.

Zelensky also criticized a three-day ceasefire called by Putin late last month that the Russian leader said would last from midnight May 8 to midnight May 11, saying he was only ready to sign up for a longer truce. In his nightly address on Saturday, Zelensky said, “we are ready as soon as possible, even from today, to move toward a ceasefire if Russia is ready for mirror steps – for complete silence, for prolonged silence of at least 30 days. This is a fair period in which the next steps can be prepared. Russia must stop the war and cease the assaults, cease the shelling.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russia’s proposed three-day ceasefire was a test of Ukraine’s “readiness” to seek peace, calling for “unambiguous and definitive statements” from Kyiv.

The dates of the proposed ceasefire coincide with Russia’s World War II Victory Day commemorations on May 9 and the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Some international leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping and Belarus’s Aleksandr Lukashenko, are expected to gather in Moscow on that date, to mark Russia’s Victory Day commemorating the more than 25 million Soviet soldiers and civilians who died during World War II.

Kyiv won’t be “playing games to create a pleasant atmosphere to allow for Putin’s exit from isolation on 9 May,” Zelensky said.

In a message to dignitaries traveling to Russia for May 9, the Ukrainian leader warned that Kyiv “cannot be responsible for what happens on the territory of the Russian Federation,” due to the ongoing conflict.

In response, Russia’s foreign ministry said his comments amounted to a threat.

Belgrade
AP
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Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic has cut short a visit to the United States and returned to Serbia after feeling sudden chest pain apparently caused by high blood pressure, doctors said on Saturday.

Vucic, 55, suddenly fell ill during a meeting in the US on Friday and decided to return home against the advice of US doctors, said cardiologist Dragan Dincic, from Belgrade’s Military Hospital, where Vucic was treated upon arrival.

Dincic said Vucic took additional therapy after the incident and was now in “stable and satisfactory condition.” Dincic added that Vucic won’t be hospitalized but “cannot be expected to return to his regular activities for several days.”

Vucic was previously in Miami, Florida, where he had met with former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. Vucic had said he also was hoping to meet with US President Donald Trump.

Richard Grenell, US presidential envoy for special missions, expressed hope that Vucic would recover. “Sorry to miss you but hope all is ok,” Grenell wrote on X.

Serbia’s populist leader also has said he would travel to Russia later this month to attend a Victory Day parade in Moscow, despite warnings from European Union officials that this could affect Serbia’s bid to join the bloc.

Vucic has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. He also has been under pressure at home following six months of persistent anti-corruption protests triggered by the collapse of a roof at a train station in the country’s north that killed 16 people.