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MOSCOW: Russia said on Wednesday attempts to resolve security issues relating to Ukraine without Moscow’s participation were a “road to nowhere,” sounding a warning to the West as it scrambles to work out guarantees for Kyiv’s future protection.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov particularly criticized the role of European leaders who met US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Monday to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine that could help end the three-and-a-half-year-old war.

“We cannot agree with the fact that now it is proposed to resolve questions of security, collective security, without the Russian Federation. This will not work,” Lavrov told a joint press conference after meeting Jordan’s foreign minister.

US and European military planners have begun exploring post-conflict security guarantees for Ukraine, US officials and sources told Reuters on Tuesday. Lavrov said such discussions without Russia were pointless.
“I am sure that in the West and above all in the United States they understand perfectly well that seriously discussing security issues without the Russian Federation is a utopia, it’s a road to nowhere.”

NATO military leaders holding a video conference on Wednesday had a “great, candid discussion” on the results of recent talks on Ukraine, the chair of the alliance’s military committee said.
“Priority continues to be a just, credible and durable peace,” Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone wrote in a post on X.
A Western official told Reuters that a small group of military leaders continued discussions in Washington on security guarantees shortly after the bigger virtual meeting. After Polish officials said that an object that crashed in a cornfield in eastern Poland overnight was likely a Russian drone, Poland accused Russia of provoking NATO countries just as efforts to find an end to the war were intensifying.
“Once again, we are dealing with a provocation by the Russian Federation, with a Russian drone. We are dealing in a crucial moment, when discussions about peace (in Ukraine) are under way,” Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said.
Lavrov’s comments highlighted Moscow’s demand for Western governments to directly engage with it on questions of security concerning Ukraine and Europe, something it says they have so far refused to do.
Moscow this week also restated its rejection of “any scenarios involving the deployment of NATO troops in Ukraine.”

‘Clumsy’ Europeans
Lavrov accused the European leaders who met Trump and Zelensky of carrying out “a fairly aggressive escalation of the situation, rather clumsy and, in general, unethical attempts to change the position of the Trump administration and the president of the United States personally ... We did not hear any constructive ideas from the Europeans there.”
Trump said on Monday the United States would help guarantee Ukraine’s security in any deal to end Russia’s war there. He subsequently said he had ruled out putting US troops in Ukraine, but the US might provide air support as part of a deal to end the hostilities.
Zelensky’s chief of staff, speaking after a meeting of national security advisers from Western countries and NATO, said work was proceeding on the military component of the guarantees.
“Our teams, above all the military, have already begun active work on the military component of security guarantees,” chief of staff Andriy Yermak wrote on social media.
Yermak said Ukraine was also working on a plan with its allies on how to proceed “in case the Russian side continues to prolong the war and disrupt agreements on bilateral and trilateral formats of leaders’ meetings.”
Lavrov said Russia was in favor of “truly reliable” guarantees for Ukraine and suggested these could be modelled on a draft accord that was discussed between the warring parties in Istanbul in 2022, in the early weeks of the war.
Under the draft discussed then, Ukraine would have received security guarantees from a group of countries including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — China, Russia, the United States, Britain, and France.
At the time, Kyiv rejected that proposal on the grounds that Moscow would have held effective veto power over any military response to come to its aid. 

MANILA: Divers have spent more than a month searching a lake south of Manila for the bodies of men with links to the Philippines’ bloody national obsession: cockfighting.

They were murdered by rogue police, a government witness said, allegedly for rigging matches at the height of the country’s pandemic-era craze for betting on live-streamed cockfights, or “e-sabong.”

The disappearances led then President Rodrigo Duterte to announce a total ban, but three years later, the e-sabong industry is still thriving.

On a recent Saturday in the Manila suburb Bulacan, cockfighters, or “sabungeros,” cracked grim jokes about their missing compatriots.

Inside the “tarian,” a crowded room where blades are attached to each bird’s leg, sabungero Marcelo Parang insisted the murders had nothing to do with the legal cockfighting world.

“We don’t know if (the men killed) did something bad,” said the 60-year-old.

“We’re not scared ... In here, we’re peaceful. In here, the matches are held fairly,” he said of the deadly contests.

Outside, the crowd in the 800-seat arena roared as another bout ended with the losing rooster unceremoniously dumped in an empty paint bucket.

Cockpits like the one in Bulacan were once a second home for Ray Gibraltar, who grew up in a family of cockfight enthusiasts. One uncle was a breeder.

When the fights moved online during the COVID-19 pandemic, the former director-turned-painter began wagering on them as well.

But the easy access, anonymity of the online world, and sheer volume of betting sites can lead to e-sabong addiction, and within a year, Gibraltar was winning and losing upwards of $15,000 a day.

“I wasn’t eating. I was just drinking coffee and smoking ... I had no sleep,” he said of a three-day session.

“In terms of money that I lost on e-sabong ... I could have bought a house and car,” he said, adding he “borrowed money from everyone.”

Before checking into rehab, he wagered the last 300 pesos in his e-wallet.

The story is a familiar one for Reagan Praferosa, founder of Recovering Gamblers of the Philippines, who said few clients show up before hitting rock bottom.

“They won’t call us if they still have money,” he said.

His first e-sabong addicts began arriving in 2020. Since then, about 30 percent of his caseload has revolved around the livestreamed fights.

“(At arenas) you had to go somewhere to cash out. Now ... it’s connected to an e-wallet,” he said, adding other forms of gambling were now taking their cues from e-sabong.

“Most of the sites have replicated their platforms.”

Jay, a graphic artist, still logs onto an illegal website every time he gets his paycheck.

The 24-year-old, who asked to use a pseudonym as he fears his family’s judgment, showed how wagers for as little as 10 pesos (about 18 US cents) could be placed on two roosters shown on his phone.

Authorities estimate gamblers like Jay are fueling an industry that generates millions of dollars in revenue each week.

“It’s not the money I’m after, it’s the thrill,” he said of an addiction he said he is trying to control.

“It’s easier to chase that in (e-sabong) because it’s available on my cellphone.”

While gambling for relatively low stakes, Jay has found himself forced to make excuses after losing the money meant for his younger brother’s school supplies.

Since the e-sabong ban was initiated, the country’s telecoms commission has blocked more than 6,800 e-sabong websites, police Brig. Gen. Bernard Yang told AFP.

But the use of VPNs makes pinpointing the streams’ true origins nearly impossible.

Asked for examples of IP traces that had led to raids, he pointed to a successful operation in the central Philippines’ Cebu province — though it had taken place years earlier.

While conceding that current penalties — with fines as low as 1,000 pesos ($17) — provide little deterrent, Yang insisted the problem was simply “not so grave anymore.”

But Senator Erwin Tulfo on Friday told Congress e-sabong remained a menace as he pushed the country’s central bank for action against a range of online gambling sites.

Hours later, the monetary authority issued a directive that e-wallet firms remove their links to illegal websites within 48 hours.

Congressman Rolando Valeriano, who told AFP the situation remains “very alarming,” has authored an anti-online cockfighting and gambling bill that would dramatically increase fines and jail terms.

“In every community, you can see children who know how to (bet on) e-sabong. That’s what was worrying me,” he said.

“This might be a lonely battle, but we will keep on fighting.”

The fight could be lonely indeed.

A day after the new session of Congress began, a photograph began circulating in local media.

The image was of a congressman staring at his smartphone during the vote for House speaker.

He was watching a cockfight.