U.S. ambassador to Russia will return home briefly: State Department
20 April 2021
The State Department said Monday that the U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, will now be returning to the United States this week before returning to Moscow "in the coming weeks."
Why this matters: The statement, from a State Department spokesperson, comes just hours after Axios reported that Sullivan had indicated he intended to stand his ground and stay in Russia after the Kremlin “advised” him to return home to talk with his team.
- The Russians did not forcibly expel Sullivan as they did with 10 other U.S. diplomats in retaliation for President Biden's sanctions last week.
- “Ambassador Sullivan will be returning to the US this week to visit his family and meet with members of the new administration with whom he has not had a chance to consult since he agreed to continue serving in his post indefinitely,” a State Department spokesperson told Axios Monday night.
- “He will return to Moscow in the coming weeks.”
Between the lines: There’s a lot we don’t know, yet, about the circumstances surrounding this decision.
- Biden is handling a complicated and increasingly dangerous situation with Putin, who is amassing troops around Ukraine.
- Biden announced Russia sanctions but also dropped U.S. plans to send Navy ships to the Black Sea to deter Putin’s aggression against Ukraine.
- And Putin has accepted Biden’s invitation to address a virtual climate change summit on Thursday. Biden’s team is also exploring the possibility of a summit between the two leaders later this year.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.