By TARA COPP, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Atlantic released the entire Signal chat among Trump senior national security officials Wednesday, showing that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth provided the exact timing of warplane launches and when bombs would drop — before the men and women flying those attacks against Yemen’s Houthis this month on behalf of the United States were airborne.

The disclosure follows two intense days during which Trump’s senior most Cabinet members of his intelligence and defense agencies have struggled to explain how details that current and former U.S. officials have said would have been classified wound up on an unclassified Signal chat that included Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg,

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said no classified information was posted to the Signal chat.

Hegseth has refused to say whether he posted classified information onto Signal. He is traveling in the Indo-Pacific and to date has only scoffed at questions, saying he did not reveal “war plans.” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that it was up to Hegseth to determine whether the information he was posting was classified or not.

What was revealed was jaw-dropping in its specificity and includes the type of information that is kept to a very close hold to protect the operational security of a military strike.

In the group chat, Hegseth posted:

“1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)”

“1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)”

“1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)”

“1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)”

“1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.”

“MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)”

“We are currently clean on OPSEC” — that is, operational security.

“Godspeed to our Warriors.”

Goldberg has said he asked the White House if it opposed publication and that the White House responded that it would prefer he did not publish.

Signal is a publicly available app that provides encrypted communications, but it can be hacked. It is not approved for carrying classified information. On March 14, one day before the strikes, the Defense Department cautioned personnel about the vulnerability of Signal, specifically that Russia was attempting to hack the app, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

One known vulnerability is that a malicious actor, with access to a person’s phone, can link his or her device to the user’s Signal and essentially monitor messages remotely in real time.

Leavitt is one of three Trump administration officials who face a lawsuit from The Associated Press on First and Fifth Amendment grounds. The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

By ILLIA NOVIKOV, Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine is ready to proceed with a ceasefire prohibiting attacks on energy infrastructure, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, in line with a deal that was brokered by the United States during three days of negotiations with Ukrainian and Russian officials in the Saudi capital.

Speaking in a video address late Tuesday, Zelenskyy said Ukraine had agreed with U.S. negotiators “that a ceasefire for energy infrastructure can start today.” But, he warned, any strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities by Moscow would draw “strong retaliation.”

A worker of DTEK company walks in front of transformers of a substation destroyed by a Russian drone strike in undisclosed location, Ukraine, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

The comments underscored the tenuous agreements that came out of the three days of separate U.S-Ukrainian and U.S.-Russian talks in Riyadh. Washington said it had agreed with the warring parties to implement a pause on attacks on energy infrastructure as well as taking steps to ensure safe navigation for ships in the Black Sea.

Those talks were part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump’s administration toward a limited, 30-day ceasefire that Moscow and Kyiv agreed to in principle last week, but has thus far failed to materialize as both sides continue to launch drone and rocket attacks against the other.

While Zelenskyy on Tuesday thanked the U.S. for its efforts to strike an agreement, questions remained over some key details, and a comprehensive peace deal to end the three-year war still looked distant.

Russia links the Black Sea deal to sanctions relief

On Tuesday, the White House said in separate statements that the sides had “agreed to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea.”

Details of the prospective deal were not released, but it appeared to mark another attempt to ensure safe Black Sea shipping after a 2022 agreement that was brokered by the U.N. and Turkey but halted by Russia the next year.

After the White House issued its statement Tuesday, the Kremlin warned that a potential Black Sea deal could only be implemented after sanctions against the Russian Agricultural Bank and other financial organizations involved in food and fertilizer trade are lifted and their access to the SWIFT system of international payments is ensured.

Zelenskyy on Tuesday evening reacted to those demands, casting them as an example of Moscow “manipulating, twisting agreements, and lying” about the terms of the agreement.

“There are absolutely clear statements that have been published by the White House, everyone can see what is stated there,” Zelenskyy said. “And there is something that the Kremlin is lying about again: that supposedly the (ceasefire) in the Black Sea depends on the issue of sanctions.”

In an apparent reference to Moscow’s demands, the White House said Tuesday the U.S. “will help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports, lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions.”

When asked about when Washington might help Moscow achieve those ambitions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that contacts between Russia and the U.S. “continue quite intensively,” and that authorities are “satisfied with how pragmatic, constructive and productive our dialogue is.”

Peskov said the 2022 Black Sea Grain initiative could be revived if Russia’s demands regarding agricultural and fertilizer exports are met. He said that those are the same demands that Russia initially put forward in the grain deal and that weren’t being fulfilled.

Moscow claims compliance with pause on energy strikes

Peskov said that Putin’s order to pause strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for 30 days, given on March 18 per an agreement with Trump, still stands, and that Russian forces are complying with it. He accused Kyiv of continuing to target Russia’s energy infrastructure but added that “we still believe that this moratorium (on strikes) should be observed.”

Ukrainian officials have reported multiple strikes against their energy sites since March 18. In a post on X on Tuesday, Zelenskyy’s communications adviser Dmytro Lytvyn said Moscow was “lying” about observing a ceasefire on energy infrastructure.

“They’ve been hitting our energy sites with bombs, attack drones, and FPV drones. We’re not going into all the details, but there have already been 8 confirmed hits on energy facilities,” Lytvyn wrote. “Every night our air defense forces shoot down nearly a hundred attack drones – and many of those drones were likely targeting other energy facilities.”

Russia launches drone attack on Zelenskyy’s hometown

Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskyy’s hometown, came under the “most massive kamikaze drone attack since the beginning of the war” on Tuesday night, the city administration head, Oleksandr Vilkul, wrote on Telegram.

Although no people were killed or injured, civilian infrastructure was widely targeted, Vikul said, including an administration building, warehouses, an industrial enterprise and a fire station. Multiple fires were sparked across the city, he said.

“Everyone is alive, thank God. It’s truly a miracle. The destruction is significant,” Vilkul said.

Civilian infrastructure also came under strike in the Sumy, Cherkasy, and Kirovohrad regions, local authorities said. There were no immediate reports on any injuries.

Overall, Russian forces launched 117 Shahed and decoy drones overnight, Ukraine’s air force said Wednesday morning, adding that 56 drones were destroyed and 48 more jammed by the defense forces.

Associated Press writer Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.

By VANESSA GERA and LORNE COOK, Associated Press

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte warned Russia on Wednesday that the alliance would always stand by Poland or any other member and that its reaction to an attack would be “devastating.”

Rutte spoke during a visit to Warsaw, the Polish capital, in brief comments made alongside Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Tusk said it was important to be prepared for any outcome of talks between Russia and the United States aimed at ending the 3-year-old war in Ukraine.

NATO members along the eastern flank of the 32-member alliance, particularly Poland and the Baltic states, are extremely worried that the talks could end with a settlement that is favorable to Russia. They fear such an outcome would allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to rebuild his country’s forces and threaten other countries in the region in the coming years.

Rutte said that neither Putin nor anyone else should assume they could get away with something like that.

“If anyone were to miscalculate and think they can get away with an attack on Poland or on any other ally, they will be met with the full force of this fierce alliance. Our reaction will be devastating. This has to be very clear to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and anyone else who wants to attack us,” Rutte said.

Rutte’s warning comes as President Donald Trump’s return to power has shaken the security assumptions of the past decades, and has pushed Europe to try to wean itself off its security dependence on the U.S., with European countries planning ambitious new investments in weapons.

Trump said during a recent meeting with Rutte at the White House that he does not believe that a peace settlement for Ukraine would lead to Russia attacking other countries.

Rutte has in the past warned that Russia could be capable of launching an attack again on European soil by the end of the decade.

“Let’s not forget that Russia is and is remaining the most significant and dark threat to our alliance. Let’s not forget that Russia is moving into a wartime economy, and that will have a huge impact on their capacity and capability to build their armed forces,” Rutte said Wednesday.