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The President's Daily Brief
February 26th, 2025: The Kremlin Pushes Back On President Trump & North Korea’s $1.5 Billion Crypto Heist
00:21:06
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- [00:01]
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- [00:42]
Mike Baker
It's Wednesday, the 26th of February. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, near eyes and ears on the world stage, coming to you from on the road. And it looks like I'm in St. Louis, the great town of St. Louis, where I had the terrific opportunity to speak to the ypo chapter of St. Louis, and they have a terrific bunch of people, all extremely well representing the great town of St. Louis. So there you have it. There's the latest. You've been briefed. Oh, wait. No, you haven't. Let's get briefed. We'll start things off today with the Kremlin contradicting President Trump. Moscow says it has not dropped its opposition to peacekeeping forces in Ukraine, despite Trump's claim to the contrary. Seems that there's still a ways to go before the White House and the Kremlin are on the same page. But to be fair, well, the White House and the Kremlin have never been on the same page. Later in the show, the US Is turning up the heat on Iran. The State and Treasury Departments have reinstated what are referred to as maximum pressure sanctions on Tehran's shadowy oil trade. Look at what this means for the regime. Plus, North Korean hackers have reportedly pulled off the biggest crypto heist in history, stealing 1.5 billion. That's with a B from one of the world's largest exchanges. And experts warn that the stolen funds could fuel Pyongyang's weapons programs. We'll take a look at how Kim Jong Un's minions pulled off the caper. And in today's Back of the brief, not to be alarming, but a mysterious illness in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The DRC has killed more than 50 people. Health officials are scrambling for answers. And reports say some of the victims fell ill after eating a bat. Okay, so there's one health advisory. Quit eating bats. But first, today's PDB spotlight. President Trump is facing some pushback from Moscow over his claims that Vladimir Putin is ready to accept the deployment of a European peacekeeping coalition. To Ukraine, suggesting that a deal to secure an end to the war may still be far off. As a brief refresher, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer have recently been championing a plan to send a contingent of European peacekeeping troops to Ukraine in the event that a ceasefire deal is reached in order to enforce its terms and deter future Russian aggression. Just last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated flatly that the Kremlin would not support the deployment of any NATO troops, regardless of what flag they're operating under, calling the scenario unacceptable. Well, that seems fairly clear. But on Monday, during a press conference in the Oval Office alongside Macron, Trump confidently asserted that Putin was on board with the concept, telling reporters, yeah, he'll accept that. I specifically asked him that question. He has no problem with it, end quote. Well, not so fast, said the Kremlin. Their spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, firmly stated on Tuesday that Moscow had not dropped their opposition to the proposal and had no intention of shifting their position. He referred reporters back to Lavrov's comments that a peacekeeping force would be perceived as a direct threat to Russia and said the Kremlin had nothing further to add regarding the issue. Now it seems like someone needs to talk to Putin and explain that nobody is looking to take over Russia. Everything in the fellow's mind is a direct threat to Russia. That's what happens when you grow up in the Cold War and never evolve from that mentality. He's never, ever gotten over the collapse of the Soviet Union. The icy rebuke followed comments by Putin in an interview on Monday evening that appeared to pour cold water on Trump's hopes for a quick settlement to the war. During his meeting with Macron on Monday, Trump had suggested that the war could end within a matter of weeks, but Putin didn't appear to get the memo. While Putin praised Trump's approach to the Russia conflict, saying he was one of the few world leaders that was acting rationally, Putin said Russia and US Officials have yet to discuss specifics on how to bring the war to a resolution. The Russian strongman described last week's talks in Riyadh between US And Russian delegations as a diplomatic starting point focused on establishing trust between Moscow and Washington, which he said was key to getting more substantive negotiations off the ground. Putin said, we only agreed that we would move toward this, but added that the war was not discussed in detail. He said the next few rounds of talks would still be devoted to rebuilding that trust, and only then would the discussion turn to finding ways to settle the conflict. A spokesman for Putin later drove the point home, saying, in order to say that we trust the Americans, we have to go a long way. We need to take many, many small steps. Well, if it's any consolation, fella, the Americans feel the same way about your government. I mean, it's almost like they've forgotten that Russia is the invading country. As we've been tracking on the pdb, the exclusion of Kyiv and NATO allies from the Riyadh talks has caused widespread panic in Europe, with concerns that the Trump administration could cut a deal with Russia behind their backs that favors Putin's interests. But Putin dismissed criticism of Trump's approach, saying such fears were based in emotion and not logic. He claimed that once conversations between Washington and Moscow turned to reaching a settlement with Ukraine, European countries would be welcomed to the table. While it looks like that process is still a long ways off, Trump is holding his own talks with European leaders. As I noted, French President Macron visited Trump on Monday in an attempt to get on the same page regarding a strategy for Ukraine. And British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will meet with Trump on Thursday. While the meeting between Trump and Macron was friendly, Macron did press Trump to take a more deliberate approach towards ending the war, arguing that he should reach a consensus with leaders in Kyiv before rushing into talks with the Putin regime. On that score, it appears that Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky have finally found some common ground, despite their recent diplomatic spat. Spat. That's an interesting word. Trump announced Tuesday that Zelenskyy would be visiting the White House on Friday to sign a deal to grant the US Access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals, critical minerals, after two weeks of tense negotiations. While details to the agreement were not immediately clear, US Officials have argued that the arrangement will give the US a powerful strategic incentive to provide long term security guarantees to Kyiv to deter future Russian aggression. Now, as with everything involving this conflict, the reality of any mineral steel is a bit more complicated than we've been hearing, because in reality, the majority of key Ukrainian minerals of interest are actually located in the 20% of territory currently held by Russia. Hmm, that's what we'd call a complication. Alright, coming up next, the US Reinstates maximum pressure sanctions on Iran's oil trade, while North Korean hackers pull off a record breaking $1.5 billion crypto heist. I'll have those details when we come back.
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- [08:43]
Mike Baker
Welcome back to the PDB the US State and Treasury Departments are ratcheting up sanctions aimed at Iran's shadowy oil trade by reviving the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign from the president's first term as tensions between Tehran and Washington remain frigid. That's putting it mildly. On Monday, the State Department announced sanctions against 16 entities and vessels involved in what it terms a network of illicit shipping facilitators that have helped Iran circumvent previous restrictions through opaque transactions and deceptive routing to buyers in Asia. In coordination, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed additional sanctions on 22 individuals and designated 13 vessels as blocked property due to their roles in the Iranian regime's oil industry. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce underscored the scale of the operation, stating that these sanctioned parties facilitated the shipment of, quote, tens of millions of barrels of crude oil worth hundreds of millions of dollars. She emphasized that this action is part of a robust strategy to cut off the regime's economic lifeline and undermine its capacity to finance regional proxies and terrorism. According to ofac, the sanctions cast a wide net, ensnaring oil brokers in the UAE and Hong Kong, tanker operators in India and China, and the Iranian Oil Terminals Company. That's a pivotal entity in the regime's revenue stream. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to cracking down on those facilitating Iran's clandestine oil supply chain, warning that anyone involved in such oil transactions faces significant sanctions risks. He emphasized that the regime relies on covert networks to sustain its operations, which the US Is determined to dismantle. For years, Iran has operated a so called shadow fleet of tankers utilizing deceptive practices such as ship to ship transfers, falsified documentation and disabling tracking systems, all to circumvent Western sanctions and clandestinely export crude. Now this is similar, of course, to what Russia has been doing for some years to evade energy sanctions. Unsurprisingly, Iran dismissed the latest crackdown as futile. Following President Trump's executive order reactivating the sanctions campaign, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi asserted, maximum pressure is a failed experiment and trying it again will only lead to another failure. The Iranian regime has also rejected accusations that its shadowy oil trade funds terrorism. They're denying that and insists it will resist any attempts to curb its nuclear program or economic expansion. The U.S. however, remains undeterred. The latest sanctions package is part of a broader initiative to reduce Iran's oil exports down to zero, with a particular focus on shipments to China, the world's second largest oil consumer behind the US And Iran's most significant remaining customer. In the order. Trump explicitly referred to Iran's exports to China, saying those should also come to a complete halt. Alright, shifting now to North Korea, it looks like the regime executed the largest cryptocurrency heist on record, siphoning a staggering $1.5 billion from the Bybit crypto exchange in a single lightning fast operation. The scale of the theft, executed in mere minutes last Friday eclipses Pyongyang's previous cyber heists and represents a significant chunk of the country's estimated annual gdp, according to crypto tracing firm TRM Labs. The single hack nearly doubled what North Korea's formidable hacking core stole in digital currency last year. Bybit, which touts itself as the world's second largest cryptocurrency exchange with more than 40 million users, confirmed the breach but insisted that it remain solvent despite the staggering loss. Bybit's CEO stated that the company is working closely with regulators and law enforcement. But the incident does underscore a troubling reality. North Korea's cyber units continue to expose vulnerabilities in the global cryptocurrency sector, turning it into a lucrative funding stream for the regime's illicit operations. Cybersecurity analysts warn that the sheer scale and sophistication of the attack emphasize Pyongyang's deepening reliance on cybercrime to circumvent international sanctions and bankroll its nuclear and missile programs. Former FBI intelligence analyst Nick Carlson, now with TRM Labs, emphasized the gravity of the situation, saying, the ability of these illicit financial networks to absorb such huge amounts of money so quickly is deeply concerning, end quote, and the laundering process is already underway. In the days following the attack, the North Korean operatives began washing approximately $160 million of the stolen funds, dispersing assets through a web of digital wallets to obscure their origins. This follows a well worn playbook. Once a heist is completed, Pyongyang's cyber units typically convert stolen cryptocurrency into US dollars or Chinese yuan through shadowy brokers, making it difficult for authorities to seize the funds before they disappear into underground financial networks. Investigators in the US And South Korea are scrambling to track and recover portions of the stolen assets. So far, a group of crypto security specialists claims to have clawed back $43 million, while blockchain tracing firm Elliptic reports an additional $243,000 in seized funds. But these efforts are, well, little more than a drop in the ocean as the vast majority of the money remains unaccounted for. The latest heist presents an immediate test to the Trump administration, which now faces the challenge of responding to North Korea's increasingly aggressive cyber warfare tactics. A White house official in 2023 estimated that as much as half of Pyongyang's missile program is funded through cybercrime, making the disruption of its hacking networks a national security priority for Washington and its allies. The challenge now is how to disrupt North Korea's cyber operations more effectively and prevent the regime from further exploiting digital financial systems in an effort to evade sanctions. All right, coming up in the Back of the brief, a deadly mystery unfolding in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where dozens of people have died from an unknown illness and some of the victims reportedly fell ill after eating a bat. I'll be right back.
- [15:24]
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- [15:51]
Mike Baker
Welcome back. In today's Back of the Brief, a mysterious illness is tearing through parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the drc, setting off alarm bells with health authorities who are warning of a significant public health threat. The unknown illness, first discovered in three children who ate the carcass of a bat, has already killed more than 50 people in northwestern Congo over the past five weeks. And so far, well, it shows no signs of slowing down. Disturbingly, the time between the onset of symptoms and death has been just 48 hours in most fatal cases. That's according to a report from CBS News, the World Health Organization. The who, which is scrambling to identify the contagion, has logged at least 431 cases of the mystery disease since January, with victims appearing to suffer from hemorrhagic fever symptoms. The symptoms have included severe fever, vomiting blood and an internal bleeding, though some victims have reported milder symptoms like muscle aches or headaches and fatigue. Officials underscored the serious nature of the outbreak, noting that the illness appears to have a fatality rate of roughly 12.3%. So far, the WHO has tested samples from 13 cases at the National Institute for Biomedical Research in Congo's capital. While all the samples have tested negative for Ebola or common hemorrhagic fever diseases like Marburg, some have tested positive for malaria. Now, before folks get ready to break out the masks and stockpile supplies, and by the way, don't forget the toilet paper. We should stress that there is no indication that the current outbreak risks spreading globally. It's worth keeping in mind that the Congo has suffered from many disease outbreaks in recent years, including typhoid, malaria and mpox. Just last year, a mystery flu like illness killed more than 143 people before being contained. It was later determined to be an aggressive strain of malaria. Still, officials with the WHO were warned that the remote location of the affected areas, along with the Congo's weak healthcare infrastructure, increase the risk of further spread in the country and require immediate high level intervention to contain the outbreak. End quote. Here at the PDB we'll keep an eye on this and bring you further details as they develop. And that, my friends is the President's Daily Brief for Wednesday 26th February. As you may have heard me mention in the past, to listen to the show ad free, well just become a premium member of the President's Daily brief by visiting pdbpremium.com it really is just that simple. I'm Mike Baker and I'll be back later today with the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.
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