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No. 2 US diplomat Sherman to visit China as tensions soar

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, left, elbow bumps with Japanese Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Takeo Mori, right, prior to their meeting at the Iikura Guesthouse Tuesday, July 20, 2021, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool)

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, left, is escorted by Japanese Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Takeo Mori, right, prior to their meeting at the Iikura Guesthouse Tuesday, July 20, 2021, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool)

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, left, and South Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong Kun, right, walk in the meeting venue with Japanese Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Takeo Mori prior to their trilateral meeting at the Iikura Guesthouse Wednesday, July 21, 2021, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman will travel to China this weekend on a visit that comes as tensions between Washington and Beijing soar on multiple fronts, the State Department said Wednesday.

Sherman will meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and others in the northeastern city of Tianjin on Sunday as part of her current trip to Asia, which also is taking her to Japan, South Korea and Mongolia. She’ll later visit Oman.

China’s Foreign Ministry said that Sherman would “hold talks” with Xie Feng, a vice minister in charge of China-U.S. relations, and “meet” with Wang later.

“China will make clear ... its determination to safeguard its sovereignty, security and development interests and demand that the U.S. stop interfering in China’s internal affairs,” the ministry said on its WeChat social media channel.

Sherman will be the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit China since President Joe Biden took office , though Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan met Wang and veteran Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi in Anchorage, Alaska, in March for what proved to be a contentious first exchange . John Kerry, the Biden administration’s special climate envoy, traveled to Shanghai for meetings with his Chinese counterpart in April, but Sherman now outranks him.

Sherman’s visit to China follows a significant deterioration in already badly strained U.S.-China ties in just the past two weeks, and there had been questions about why the trip was not announced at the same time as the rest of her travel to the region.

Senior U.S. officials would not confirm suggestions that the Chinese had initially offered only lower-level officials for Sherman to meet. But they said the Biden administration would not have agreed to the visit unless they were assured Sherman would be able to see top-ranking officials in person. The officials were not authorized to preview the trip publicly ahead of Wednesday’s formal announcement and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The State Department said the administration was “exploring opportunities” to engage face to face with Chinese officials at senior levels.

“These discussions are part of ongoing U.S. efforts to hold candid exchanges with PRC officials to advance U.S. interests and values and to responsibly manage the relationship,” the department said in a statement, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “The Deputy Secretary will discuss areas where we have serious concerns about PRC actions, as well as areas where our interests align.”

The officials said Sherman’s agenda would be wide-ranging and cover areas of contention as well as a smaller set of areas of convergence, such as a mutual desire to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table for nuclear talks . But they allowed that the differences are vast and stark and likely to occupy most of the discussion.

On Monday, the administration accused China of being behind a massive hack of Microsoft Exchange email server software and indicted four Chinese nationals on charges they tried to steal U.S. trade secrets, technology and disease research. China rejected the hacking accusation and demanded that Washington drop the charges against its citizens.

Last week, the U.S. issued separate stark warnings against transactions with entities that operate in China’s western Xinjiang region, where China is accused of repressing Uyghur Muslims and other minorities. The administration also advised American firms of the deteriorating investment and commercial environment in Hong Kong, where China has been cracking down on democratic freedoms it had pledged to respect in the former British colony.

At the same time, the administration reaffirmed a Trump-era policy shift that rejects nearly all of China’s significant maritime claims in the South China Sea and reminded Beijing that any military move against the Philippines in disputed areas would trigger a response under a U.S.-Philippines mutual defense treaty.

U.S.-China relations have also been aggravated by China’s increasing threats toward Taiwan and its policies in Tibet .

Those issues, all carried over from the Trump administration, came on top of persistent tensions over China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic , which originated in the city of Wuhan , and concerns about predatory Chinese investment in the developing world and its attempts to gain supremacy in the global high-tech telecommunications sector.

Sherman, after meeting with the Chinese officials, will travel on July 27 to Oman, which has been racked with protests over its floundering economy and mass layoffs and has been hit hard by the coronavirus . She’ll meet with Deputy Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalifa Al Harthy to discuss “advancing peace and security in the region and our shared commitment to bolstering the U.S.- Oman bilateral relationship,” the State Department said.

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U.S. State Department's No. 2 official to travel to Japan next week

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman will travel to Tokyo next week for a trilateral meeting with her Japanese and South Korean counterparts, the U.S. State Department said Wednesday, as North Korea continues its missile tests at an unprecedented rate.

In Tokyo, Sherman will meet with Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and national security adviser Takeo Akiba, among other officials.

On Oct. 26, she will take part in a meeting with Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Takeo Mori and South Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry. She will also hold bilateral meetings with the two officials.

The United States, Japan and South Korea have been expressing serious concerns over Pyongyang's provocative behavior, with North Korea carrying out 27 rounds of missile tests, including cruise missiles, since the start of this year.

They have also denounced Pyongyang's firing of a ballistic missile earlier this month over the Japanese archipelago for the first time in five years , while emphasizing the importance of their trilateral coordination in holding North Korea "accountable," according to the State Department.

North Korean ballistic missile launches in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions have come amid growing speculation that the country could conduct a seventh nuclear test in the near future.

While in Tokyo, Sherman will also discuss women's empowerment with a group of Japanese and South Korean university students. She will also participate in a discussion on marriage equality with Japanese LGBTQ community leaders, according to the U.S. State Department.

In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.

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Low-key US-China meeting will address high tensions in relationship

Visit by deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman on Sunday follows reported standoff over diplomatic protocol

Amid escalating diplomatic tensions, the US deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman, will travel to China this Sunday to meet with senior Chinese diplomats in the highest-level visit since the US climate envoy John Kerry’s trip to Shanghai in April.

Sherman’s upcoming trip will not have the trappings of a fully fledged official visit. She will – according to a Chinese statement – “hold talks” with Xie Feng, a vice-minister in charge of the bilateral relations, and “meet” with Wang Yi, China’s state councilor and foreign minister.

According to the US state department , Sherman will “discuss areas where we have serious concerns about PRC actions, as well as areas where our interests align”. It said: “These discussions are part of ongoing US efforts to hold candid exchanges with PRC officials to advance US interests and values and to responsibly manage the relationship.”

But a Chinese-language statement published by China’s foreign ministry around the same time said that Beijing will “make clear to the US side about its principle and position of the development of the Sino-US relations, as well as its resolute attitude towards protecting the security of its sovereignty and development interests”.

Tensions have been running high between the world’s two largest economies. Last week, the Biden administration warned American businesses of the risks of operating in Hong Kong. And on Monday, the US led its allies – including the UK – to accuse China of “malicious” cyber-attacks . They alleged that China’s state-backed actors were also involved in a hack of the Microsoft Exchange email server software earlier this year. Beijing called these accusations “a smear campaign”.

The forthcoming meeting, which was finally confirmed reportedly after a standoff over diplomatic protocols, comes six months after Biden was sworn in and four months after a previous meeting in the US city of Anchorage, where top diplomats from both sides exchanged a barrage of strongly worded statements.

Analysts say that although Sherman’s trip is a good sign that both administrations are continuing the dialogue, the tense exchange in the March meeting – along with recent tit-for-tat sanctions over the Chinese territories of Xinjiang and Hong Kong – mean that the negotiations will be tough.

“The likely discussion points are very long, but full of grievances from both sides, [from] issues on blacklisting Chinese companies [to] cyber-attack, [to] sanctioning officials related to Xinjiang,” said Yu Jie, senior China fellow at the London-based thinktank Chatham House. “It is difficult to see much room for improvement in their bilateral ties.”

Sherman will arrive in China after concluding visits to Japan, South Korea and Mongolia. Washington hopes to demonstrate “what responsible and healthy competition can look like” through the visit of one of Biden’s most-trusted senior diplomats, said a state department spokesperson, Ned Price. He said that the administration was also keen to “ensure there were ‘guardrails’ in the relationship and that competition did not spill over into conflict”.

In China, rhetoric is already heating up. “Such ‘guardrails’ would be a unilateral guardrail for the US but a prison circled by a wire fence for China,” the nationalist Global Times wrote in its editorial on Thursday , warning that “if Sherman had come to China with such a purpose, the Deputy Secretary’s trip would probably have achieved little more than a taste of Tianjin’s delicious steamed stuffed bun”.

But despite the fiery words out in the open, one outcome for Sherman’s trip could be to lay the groundwork for the two countries’ top diplomats to meet, and that could pave the way for a meeting between Biden and Xi during the G20 summit this October in Italy, said Bonny Lin, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.

She added: “It is in the interests of both governments to be able to showcase some ‘wins’, including specific efforts that the two sides have made some progress on and agreed to push forward together. In that respect, I think there is a lot to look forward to from this meeting.”

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US Department of State confirms visit of Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman

The US Department of State has officially announced that Deputy Secretary Wendy R. Sherman will be visiting the country as part of a trip that is also taking her to Argentina.

The US Department of State says that the visits to the Dominican Republic and Argentina are to underscore the United States’ “strong bilateral relationships with key partners while furthering our shared interest in advancing democracy, prosperity and security in our hemisphere.”

The visit to the Dominican Republic and Argentina comes after Republican Representative Salazar inquired with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken about major Chinese infrastructure in Argentina and about a travel alert issued for the Dominican Republic.

The US State Department announced: “In the Dominican Republic, Deputy Secretary Sherman will meet with President Luis Abinader, Foreign Minister Roberto Álvarez, and other senior officials. Their discussions will reinforce our strong and enduring bilateral ties across a broad range of issues, including the urgent situation in Haiti. The Deputy Secretary will also engage the Dominican Republic’s diverse civil society, including alumni of US government fellowship and leadership programs. Her visit follows that of Special Presidential Advisor for the Americas Chris Dodd, who participated in the 25 March Ibero-American Summit as a guest of President Abinader.”

The Abinader administration has asked for international actions to contain the violence of gangs in Haiti and bring peace to the neighbor country. Meanwhile, the Dominican Republic is burdened with the high social costs of the Haitian population that finds ways to cross the border to receive free social services and work. The position of the US government has traditionally been to insist on the Dominican government taking actions to take on new costs to support the human rights of the Haitian population in the Dominican Republic given the failed state in Haiti.

One of the main issues affecting the Dominican Republic is that the Haitian government for decades has failed to identify its population creating a major limbo when these travel to the Dominican Republic for work and social services. So far, the Dominican Republic has carried the burden of the multidimensional crisis in Haiti in providing social services and work to the displaced Haitian population.

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11 April 2023

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Wendy Sherman, U.S. Diplomat Known for ‘Hard Conversations in Hard Places,’ to Retire

She began her first diplomatic job 30 years ago, led talks on the Iran nuclear deal and grapples with China and Russia. She is also the first woman to be deputy secretary of state.

By Edward Wong

Reporting from Washington

After Russia had amassed 100,000 troops by Ukraine’s borders in what appeared to be preparations for an invasion , the Biden administration sent one of its top diplomats to talk with her Russian counterpart to try to dissuade Moscow from a full-scale war .

Wendy R. Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, met with Sergei A. Ryabkov in the U.S. mission in Geneva in January 2022. Mr. Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, left at lunch and returned demanding that the United States respond in writing to draft treaties on security issues that his country had presented earlier.

The documents had been nonstarters for President Biden, and Ms. Sherman realized then that Mr. Ryabkov’s demands were cover for an inevitable war.

“We knew that we were going to be off to the races,” she said in an interview on Thursday night.

In an email to State Department employees on Friday morning, Ms. Sherman announced her retirement, 30 years after she set foot in the agency’s headquarters for her first diplomatic job and as the United States is embroiled in the most consequential military campaign in Europe since World War II. She plans to leave her job on June 30.

Ms. Sherman, 73, has been a fixture in foreign policy circles in Washington and capitals worldwide as the go-to diplomat for tough negotiations with U.S. rivals and adversaries: Iran, North Korea, Russia and, mostly recently, China.

Along the way, Ms. Sherman became a role model for women in foreign policy institutions. She was the first woman to serve as deputy secretary of state and, under the Obama administration, as under secretary for political affairs, the third-ranking post in the State Department. She has worked in three Democratic administrations and under five secretaries of state. In her job as deputy secretary alone, she has visited 39 countries.

“For many of us, particularly as a senior woman in national security — there are very few more effective or consequential leaders in foreign policy in recent memory, and then add on top of it even fewer women,” said Suzy George, the chief of staff at the State Department and an associate of Ms. Sherman’s since 1995.

Warren M. Christopher, the first secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, tapped Ms. Sherman, who was working at a media consulting company at the time, for her first job in the State Department, as assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs. Later, under Madeleine Albright, the first female secretary of state, Ms. Sherman worked on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and North Korea talks. She accompanied Ms. Albright to Pyongyang on the first visit to North Korea by a U.S. secretary of state.

Her toughest diplomatic assignment was arguably leading U.S. negotiators in talks with Iran over a nuclear deal during the Obama administration. In 2015, Secretary of State John Kerry announced a final agreement , which placed limits on Iran’s nuclear program but came under attack from Republican politicians for what they said was a failure to address certain military activities. President Donald J. Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018, which Iran had been abiding by.

In Ms. Sherman’s current post, she has been the point person in the State Department on China policy. She has had to balance competing priorities: working with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to maintain channels of communication while also countering China’s policies around the globe. She flew to Tianjin in 2021 to meet with Wang Yi, then the foreign minister, and men in white hazmat suits escorted Ms. Sherman and her colleagues to a hotel.

When the Pentagon detected a Chinese spy balloon drifting over the United States this year, Ms. Sherman called in a Chinese diplomat to deliver a démarche.

“She is kind of the iron lady of U.S. diplomacy,” said Cho Hyun-dong, the South Korean ambassador in Washington, adding that Ms. Sherman had played a “very constructive role” in helping improve relations between his country and Japan.

Jonathan Finer, the principal deputy national security adviser, said Ms. Sherman was the Biden administration’s default diplomat to send for “hard conversations in hard places.”

Mr. Finer and Ms. Sherman visited Kyiv in January, but it was not her first time in Ukraine: In a photograph across from her desk in Washington, she is laying flowers at Maidan Square in Kyiv in 2014, where security forces under a pro-Russia president shot dead dozens of peaceful protesters.

In August, Ms. Sherman visited the Solomon Islands with Caroline Kennedy, the ambassador to Australia. One goal was to signal U.S. commitment to a region where China is making inroads. But Ms. Sherman was also on a personal mission: The occasion was the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal, a signature fight of World War II in which her father, a Marine, was wounded. She carried his green military cap on the trip and brought it with her to a podium when she made a speech.

“It was a very, very powerful time,” Ms. Sherman said. “I landed at the very airstrip from which the Marines fought in World War II, and I landed in a plane marked United States of America.”

Edward Wong is a diplomatic correspondent who has reported for The Times for more than 24 years from New York, Baghdad, Beijing and Washington. He was on a team of Pulitzer Prize finalists for Iraq War coverage. More about Edward Wong

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April 10, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

By Jessie Yeung , Helen Regan , Aditi Sangal , Jack Guy, Mike Hayes and Maureen Chowdhury , CNN

Our live coverage for the day has ended. Follow the latest Ukraine news  here  or read through the updates below.

US State Department designates journalist Evan Gershkovich as "wrongfully detained by Russia"

From CNN's Jennifer Hansler

Evan Gershkovich , the Wall Street Journal reporter who is being held in Russia, has been designated as wrongfully detained by the US State Department.  

“Today, Secretary Blinken made a determination that Evan Gershkovich is wrongfully detained by Russia,” State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a statement Monday.

The designation underscores the United States government’s statements that the espionage charges against the reporter are baseless, and it will empower the US government to explore every avenue to try to secure his release. 

Gershkovich’s case will now be handled at the State Department through the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs.  

Both of the Americans who have been recently brought home from Russia — Trevor Reed and Brittney Griner — had been designated as wrongfully detained, and were freed in prisoner swaps. 

Paul Whelan , who remains imprisoned in Russia, also has been declared wrongfully detained. 

In his statement, Patel said the “U.S. government will provide all appropriate support to Mr. Gershkovich and his family.”

“We call for the Russian Federation to immediately release Mr. Gershkovich,” he said. “We also call on Russia to release wrongfully detained U.S. citizen Paul Whelan.”

Businessman Richard Branson meets with Zelensky as he becomes new ambassador of Ukraine's fundraising platform

From Svitlana Vlasova and Jennifer Hauser

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv Monday. Branson became a new ambassador for UNITED24, Ukraine's official fundraising platform.

Zelensky thanked Branson for his support of the country during the war, saying "it is very important that famous and influential personalities keep joining this platform. One of our key tasks is to keep the world's focus on Russia's war against Ukraine, which has been going on for over a year."

Branson told Zelensky that on the way to Kyiv, he stopped in Lviv and met some soldiers, including one "who lost both arms and a leg and he was still smiling and positive and wanted to get back to the frontline."

Earlier Branson was in Bucha, outside Kyiv, with American philanthropist Howard Buffett, supporting the building of a kitchen that will help feed children in educational facilities. The kitchen will help communities in Bucha, Nemishaevo and Borodianka.

Branson attended an event for the kitchen with Bucha Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk, Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska, and Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Oleksiy Kuleba.

"More than 10,000 hot meals will be cooked here every day for our children. Another similar factory will be built in the Kharkiv region with Mr. Howard's support as well," Mayor Fedoruk said on Telegram Monday.

This isn't the first time Branson went to Ukraine. He also met with Zelensky in June.

Biden is staying briefed on leaked documents, White House says

From CNN's Nikki Carvajal and Jasmine Wright

US President Joe Biden is staying briefed on the  highly classified Pentagon documents leaked  in recent weeks, the White House said Monday.  

“The president has been briefed, he was first briefed late last week when we all got word that there were some documents out there,” National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told reporters at a White House press briefing Monday afternoon. “He has stayed briefed and in contact with national security officials throughout the weekend.”

Kirby said the Department of Defense had referred the case to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation and directed questions to them when asked if the government has any sense of who leaked the documents,

“I'm not aware that they've come to any conclusions at this point about where they're coming from,” Kirby said. 

Asked if the administration believed the leak is contained or if there’s an ongoing threat, Kirby responded: “We don't know. We truly don't.”

CNN previously reported that the documents provided a rare window into how the US spies on allies and foes alike , deeply rattling US officials, who fear the revelations could jeopardize sensitive sources and compromise important foreign relationships.

In response to questions about whether Biden has contacted foreign allies in response, Kirby said US officials “have been in touch with relevant allies and partners over the last couple of days at very high levels.” 

Kirby said “we know that some of them have been doctored,” but that he didn’t want to “speak to the validity of all the documents.” 

“We're still working through the validity of all the documents that we know are out there,” Kirby said.

Pressed on if the US believes that some of the documents are valid, Kirby said the administration “cannot speak to the veracity and the validity of any of those documents at this point.” 

Kirby added that there is, “no excuse for these kinds of documents to be in the public domain" and he said the bigger concern was that the documents had become public at all. 

US State Department deputy head tapped to lead diplomatic response to classified documents leak, official says

From CNN's Kylie Atwood and Jennifer Hansler

US State Department Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman has been tapped to lead the diplomatic response to the leak of highly classified Pentagon documents, according to a US official familiar with the matter.

US government officials “are engaging with allies and partners at high levels over this including to reassure them of our commitment to safeguarding intelligence and the fidelity of securing our partnerships” following the mass leak of highly classified documents, State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said Monday.

Patel would not go into details about which countries they had engaged, saying “that work is ongoing.”

Asked by CNN if the State Department is taking the lead on those conversation, Patel said that “as the main diplomatic branch and agency of this administration, of course the Department of State would have a role in communicating with our allies and partners, but these conversations are happening across the administration.”

“US officials are engaging with allies and partners at the highest level over this,” he said. 

Patel would not say if any steps had been taken to restrict access to classified information at the State Department as a result of the leak, saying he did not want to discuss policy decisions. 

CNN has reported that some of the leaked documents included intelligence related to the war in Ukraine.

International response : Patel would not speak on specific comments from South Korean and Israeli officials reacting to leaked documents. South Korea’s presidential office said it will hold “necessary discussions with the US” regarding the document leak, which comes as the relationship between Seoul and Washington is already strained due to South Korean anger over the Inflation Reduction Act harming South Korea’s electronic vehicle industry and concerns related to the US CHIPS Act.

“There is a lot of frustration towards the Yoon administration for being too committed to the US alliance so every aspect of the US-South Korea relationship is under the microscope,” said a former US Ambassador to South Korea.  

The South Korean president is scheduled to visit the White House later this month, making the timing around this incident particularly unfortunate the former diplomat said.  

“Does Yoon have to raise this during the State Visit? We don’t know yet,” the diplomat said

More broadly, one diplomat from a NATO country told CNN that they do not believe Moscow was overly surprised by the most of the intel that was revealed in the leaked documents, noting Russia has robust intelligence gathering operations. 

They also said that they were not frustrated that there was US intelligence that was not widely shared with allies. This diplomat said most nations do not share everything with their allies nor is there an expectation that they do so. 

“That’s not the way it works,” the diplomat said.

Imprisoned Putin critic tells Moscow court he is "proud" of his political views in final hearing

From Darya Tarasova in London

Russian opposition politician, Vladimir Kara-Murza, told a Moscow court that he was “proud” of his political views during his final hearing on Monday.

Kara-Murza was arrested in April 2022 after returning to Moscow to campaign against Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Russian prosecutors have requested a 25-year sentence in prison for criminal offenses that include treason, spreading fakes about the Russian army, and facilitating activities of an undesirable organization, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Kara-Murza delivered closing remarks before the court.

“I’m in jail for my political views; for speaking out against the war in Ukraine, for many years of struggle against Putin’s dictatorship, for facilitating the adoption of personal international sanctions under the Magnitsky Act against human rights violators. Not only do I not repent of any of this, I am proud of it,” Kara-Murza said 

The opposition politician said he blamed himself for not being able to convince enough of his “compatriots” and politicians of democratic countries of the danger that the current regime in the Kremlin poses for Russia and the world. 

Kara-Murza said he hoped “that the day will come when the darkness over our country will dissipate,” adding, “even today, even in the darkness surrounding us, even sitting in this cage, I love my country and believe in our people. I believe that we can walk this path.”

Kara-Murza confirmed on  Twitter  that the verdict for his case would be announced on April 17.

Last month, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on a number of Russian individuals connected to the arbitrary detention of Kara-Murza.

Pentagon says it's still working to determine scale of intel leak, which included information on Ukraine 

From CNN's Haley Britzky

The Pentagon is still working to determine the scale of a leak of classified information that has occurred in recent weeks, Chris Meagher, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, said Monday. 

“The Department of Defense is working around the clock to look at the scope and scale of the distribution, the assessed impact, and our mitigation measures,” Meagher said. “We're still investigating how this happened, as well as the scope of the issue. There have been steps to take a closer look at how this type of information is distributed and to whom. We’re also still trying to assess what might be out there.” 

Meagher said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was first briefed on the leak on April 6 and began “convening senior leaders on a daily basis” the next day. 

Over the weekend, US officials engaged with allies and partners — some of whom were also implicated in the document leak, Meagher said.

The Pentagon team is also working to determine if the leak of classified material includes the Defense Department’s legislative affairs, public affairs, policy, general counsel, intelligence and security, and joint staff offices, Meagher said. 

Meagher said the team is a “coordinated effort amongst several different components of DOD” who were all working to “get our arms around everything that has to do with” the leak.

Meagher declined to say who specifically was in charge of that team and overseeing those efforts.

A border guard from Azovstal who lost her husband to war is among the prisoners returning to Ukraine

From CNN's Svitlana Vlasova 

Valeria Karpylenko, a border guard from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Ukraine, is among the military personnel released during Monday's prisoner swap.

She is visible in videos released by the Ukrainian government showing prisoners of war returning home.

Karpylenko fought alongside her husband in the besieged Azovstal steel plant . On May 5, 2022, she and her husband were married in an Azovstal bunker — but just three days later, he was killed, according to a Facebook post by Karpylenko at the time. She had promised that she would survive the siege and live for them both.

Some background: CNN reported earlier that Russia and Ukraine exchanged more than 200 prisoners of war in their latest swap.

Ukraine's presidential office head, Andriy Yermak confirmed that 100 Ukrainians were returned home. They included "military, sailors, border guards, and National Guard servicemen."

Ukraine is repelling Russian attacks in the eastern region, general staff says

Ukraine's General Staff of the Armed Forces said Monday evening that its main focus is repelling Russian forces in Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivak and Marinka in the east.

It said over twenty attacks were repelled in the last 24 hours in those areas.

Russia launched 21 airstrikes and five missile strikes across Ukraine, including four in Kramatorsk from S-300 air defense systems.

Russia is also increasing the number of checkpoints and patrols in several occupied areas, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Over the last day, Ukrainian Defense Forces say they shot down a Russian Mi-24 helicopter and six UAVs.

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