Another Ukraine-related item from our news desk:
Trump Attacks Sessions, Accuses Ukraine Of 'Sabotage'
U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions, calling his former ally "very weak" in investigating intelligence leaks and for failing to probe former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, the Reuters news agency has reported that Trump has spoken privately to his political allies in recent days about the potential consequences of firing Sessions.
But at a press conference on July 25, when asked about Sessions' future as attorney general, Trump avoided saying whether Sessions would be fired -- saying instead that "time will tell."
Trump’s anger over Sessions' decision to recuse himself from the government's investigation of Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election became public on July 24 when Trump referred to the attorney general in a tweet as "beleaguered."
Last week, Trump said he never would have appointed Sessions to be attorney general -- the chief U.S. prosecutor -- if he had known that Sessions would recuse himself.
"Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails &DNC server) & Intel leakers!" Trump tweeted on July 25.
His remarks came after the Washington Post, citing unnamed sources, reported that Trump and his advisers have discussed replacing Sessions.
Trump also called on Sessions to investigate Clinton's use of a private server to send e-mails when she was secretary of state.
Trump’s tweets, and mounting pressure on Sessions, have fueled speculation in Washington that the attorney general may resign even if Trump doesn’t fire him.
But several people close to Sessions have said he does not plan to quit.
Fiery Response
Meanwhile, Trump's criticism of Sessions has drawn a fiery response from some Republican lawmakers -- suggesting that not all Republicans will support a presidential effort to oust the attorney general.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said on July 25 that "Trump’s tweet today suggesting Attorney General Sessions pursue prosecution of a former political rival is highly inappropriate."
"Prosecutorial decisions should be based on applying facts to the law without hint of political motivation," Graham said. "To do otherwise is to run away from the long-standing American tradition of separating the law from politics regardless of party."
Trump's tweets on July 25 also accused Ukraine of trying to "sabotage" his campaign, without offering any evidence.
Ukraine's embassy in Washington denied Trump's allegations with a tweet of its own saying, "We stand by our words that the government of Ukraine didn't help any candidate" in the U.S. presidential election.
The Ukrainian embassy also said "Ukraine is proud of bipartisan support" in the United States.
Ukraine's permanent representative to the Council of Europe, Dmytro Kuleba, also responded on Twitter to Trump’s allegations.
"Trump writes that we interfered in the elections in the USA, while Putin says that we threaten Russia," Kuleba said. "There was a time when we were peaceful buckwheat sowers who kept themselves to themselves."
With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council:
New Envoy Volker Says U.S. Considering Sending Arms To Ukraine
By Current Time TV
PARIS -- The new U.S. special envoy for efforts to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Kurt Volker, says Washington is considering sending Kyiv weapons to help government forces defend themselves against Russia-backed separatists.
Providing lethal defensive weapons would allow Kyiv to "defend itself if Russia were to take further steps against Ukrainian territory," Volker told Current Time TV in an interview in Paris on July 25.
"Russia says it won't do that and isn't doing that, so then there should be no risk to anybody, if that's the case," said Volker, who was appointed on July 7 and visited towns near the front lines in eastern Ukraine on July 23.
President Donald Trump's administration "is now reviewing where the Obama administration left it, considering whether we should provide defensive arms to Ukraine or not," he said. "So that's the state of play."
Volker said he did not think arming Ukraine with lethal defensive weapons would "provoke Russia to do more than they are already doing, and it also isn't going to change any kind of balance that way."
"I hear these arguments that it's somehow provocative to Russia or that it's going to embolden Ukraine to attack. These are just flat out wrong," Volker told Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with Voice of America.
"First off, Russia is already in Ukraine, they are already heavily armed," he said. "There are more Russian tanks in there than [tanks] in Western Europe combined. It is a large, large military presence."
After a Moscow-friendly president was pushed from power in February 2014 by massive pro-European protests, Russia seized control of Ukraine's Crimea region and fomented separatism in eastern Ukraine.
The ensuing war between Russia-backed forces and the government has killed more than 10,000 people since Aril 2014 and persisted despite a pact known as Minsk II, a February 2015 agreement on a cease-fire and steps to resolve the conflict.
Volker said that ending the fighting will require agreement by all sides on two major principles -- the "territorial integrity of Ukraine, security of all the people" -- and a change in Russia's approach. He suggested the United States is stepping up its efforts.
"What we need to do is bring this to a higher strategic level -- getting more U.S. involvement and engagement, which is partly why I was named; getting Germany and France, the partners in the Normandy process...and, frankly, getting Russia to make a different strategic choice -- that it wants to solve this conflict too."
"If the issue here is the safety and security of all of the people -- Russian speakers, Ukrainian speakers -- this conflict is not providing that; this conflict is killing that," he said. "And so we've got to do a better job of stopping the conflict, getting the forces out, and then providing a basis of governance going forward."
Progress toward implementation of Minsk II has been slow, and fighting has flared up in recent weeks. Ukraine's Defense Ministry said on July 20 that eight Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 10 were wounded amid intense shelling in the previous 24 hours, one of the highest tolls in months.
"We see as many as 1,500 or more cease-fire violations every night," Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, told Current Time in the interview in Paris. "So this is a very hot conflict that's going on and it has a terrible cost."
Sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union have not prompted Russia to abandon its support for the separatists or fulfil its commitments under Minsk II.
Volker said that is "not a reason to reverse course -- it's a reason to think about what else we can do to get to a point where we can actually solve this."
He also said that Washington and its allies needed to increase their information campaign to counter what he described as Russian "propaganda."
"We need to be...making clear that the Ukrainian people are suffering, making clear that people in the Donbas are suffering, they are cut off from services and supplies from the rest of Ukraine, from Kyiv, they are being blocked by the armed groups that are there led by Russia," Volker said.