The U.S. announced a new round of aid to Ukraine and sanctions against Russian entities Friday, marking the one-year point in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked war in Ukraine.
The announcement comes on the heels of President Joe Biden’s trip to Poland and surprise Ukraine visit, where he walked the streets of Kyiv with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Mr. Biden met virtually with G7 members and with Zelenskyy for nearly 90 minutes Friday to discuss their coordinated efforts to back Ukraine.
“We reiterate that Russia’s irresponsible nuclear rhetoric is unacceptable, and any use of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons by Russia would be met with severe consequences,” part of the G7 leaders’ statement said. “…We deeply regret Russia’s decision to suspend the implementation of the new START treaty.”
On Friday, in coordination with G7 partners and allies, the U.S. will implement sanctions against key revenue-generating sectors, including more than 200 people and entities, the White House says. That includes both Russian and third-country actors across the globe who are helping Russia evade sanctions. The sanctions target a dozen Russian financial institutions and actors helping Russia’s defense and technology industry.
The Pentagon also announced an additional security assistance package for Ukraine that includes several new unmanned aerial systems, counter-unmanned aerial systems to strengthen Ukraine’s defenses and electronic warfare detection equipment.
The Defense Department noted that the U.S. is procuring these systems, rather than sending equipment drawn down from existing U.S. military stocks. It means that the equipment will have to be manufactured under the Ukraine Assistance Initiative, and it will likely take months to sign the contracts, manufacture and deliver the weapons.
As the U.S. continues to provide Ukraine with military aid in the form of rockets, guns and ammunition — the Pentagon has been stepping up production of critically needed supplies.
The military package also includes mine-clearing equipment, according to the White House.
The Commerce Department will also take steps to restrict exports to Russia, listing nearly 90 Russian and third-country companies, including some from China, for engaging in sanctions evasion. Mr. Biden will also sign proclamations to raise tariffs on some Russian imports, the White House said.
The moves come as the U.S. is increasingly worried about Beijing’s ties to Moscow, and the possibility that China could give Russia lethal aid. Beijing’s top diplomat met in Moscow Wednesday with Putin, who expects Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit soon.
The president spent about six hours in Kyiv Monday on a surprise trip by train that few knew about ahead of time. In Poland, he delivered a speech rallying allies and the world to Ukraine’s cause.
“One year ago, the world was bracing for the fall of Kyiv. Well, I’ve just come from a visit to Kyiv, and I can report, Kyiv stands strong. Kyiv stands proud. It stands tall. And most important, it stands free,” Mr. Biden said Tuesday to applause from 30,000 onlookers waving Polish, U.S. and Ukrainian flags in front of the Royal Castle in Warsaw.
Washington – Patients may soon be able to obtain addiction treatments and medications through telehealth visits — without having to see a doctor in person.
The Biden administration unveiled new regulations aimed at increasing patient access to certain medications and addiction treatments, and the proposed rules from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), announced Friday, make permanent certain Trump-era allowances for medical providers to prescribe drugs through telehealth that were established at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the administration is re-implementing restrictions on other medicines that are more addictive.
The move would permit medical providers on a permanent basis to prescribe non-narcotic drugs in one 30-day supply after a single telehealth visit. This is likely to go into effect days before Mr. Biden plans to end the public health emergency on May 11. The rules also carve out an exception for buprenorphine, a drug used to treat opioid addiction.
In both of these instances, after first receiving a 30-day supply of the drug remotely, patients must then visit their doctor to receive these medications — Ambien, Valium, Xanax and Lyrica, among others — classified by the DEA as Schedule III, IV, and V controlled substances.
DEA officials told CBS News the new regulations prioritized continuity of care for patients and ongoing substance abuse disorder treatments, making sure those who acclimated to the pandemic-era rules could continue their care with their established medical providers.
The government’s proposed changes will not impact telemedicine consultations by a doctor or medical practitioner that previously examined a patient in-person or virtual prescribing of medications outside of the DEA’s list of controlled substances. These non-controlled substances include acne creams, blood pressure and cholesterol medicine, antibiotics, birth control, and insulin.
The DEA’s new plan does, however, restrict providers from prescribing narcotics, known as Schedule II substances, because they can be highly addictive and lead to long-term health complications.
Since March 2020, after the Health and Human Services secretary declared a public health emergency, DEA-registered medical providers were allowed to issue prescriptions for all Schedule II through V drugs to telehealth patients, or “patients for whom they have not conducted an in-person medical evaluation.”
These permissions included numerous classifications of pharmaceuticals, from more addictive narcotics like oxycodone, to less habit-forming mental health medicines like Fluoxetine and buprenorphine.
Under the new proposed regulations, a patient’s ability to get a narcotic without first physically visiting their doctor — which went unrestricted during the COVID-19 emergency — would be eliminated and return to pre-pandemic policies. DEA officials said such safeguards were put in place to protect the public.
When the COVID-era expansions were first enacted, medical providers were required to ensure the prescribed drugs served a “legitimate medical purpose,” and the consultation with the patient was performed using a video communications system.
As COVID-19 hit the U.S., public health professionals were already battling another epidemic – the drug crisis. The emergency provisions proved revolutionary for those battling substance-abuse disorders.
Those temporary and emergent regulations — aimed at allowing patients to get the medicines they need without risking exposure to the coronavirus at the doctor’s office — were celebrated by patient care advocates who have since come to worry about how the end of the nationwide health emergency might disrupt patients’ medical treatment.
The pandemic-born surge in remote prescribing and at-home use of drugs has sparked a debate among the public health community, with government regulators balancing the availability of substances with patient safety.
Yet, Friday’s regulatory changes will be a boon to those managing substance abuse disorder, making treatment both accessible and affordable, particularly for Americans in remote or rural areas of the U.S. with limited access to in-person physician visits.
In recent months, congressional pressure mounted to develop a plan for continuity of care, ensuring patients who had the ability to obtain and refill prescription drugs via telehealth would go undisturbed. Justice Department officials said late last year they were working within the administration to finalize a strategy.
“DEA is committed to ensuring that all Americans can access needed medications,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram in a statement. “The permanent expansion of telemedicine flexibilities would continue greater access to care for patients across the country, while ensuring the safety of patients.”
Friday night’s announcement amounts to a middle ground for first-time patients and their providers, affording them the freedom to start a month of treatment via telehealth.
It comes just days after Food and Drug Administration head, Dr. Robert Califf, criticized what he characterized as the “completely crazy” over-prescription of certain drugs like Adderall — a Schedule II drug.
“So as long as that’s happening, it’s very hard to say we’re not — we’re just going to open the floodgates on this,” Califf said during a meeting of the National Institutes of Health’s HEAL Initiative. “So you all need to be doing research on…what are the appropriate ways to do this? I personally had to defend telehealth in our program in Dayton before I came to FDA, when the state medical board tried to shut down the opportunity to give it. So I’m all for it, but we got to define the parameters better.”
The public now has 30 days to comment on the new flexibilities before the rules are finalized. According to DEA officials, the proposed regulations will take effect after a six-month grace period following the end of the public health emergency — which is slated for May 11 — for patients to ensure their care is maintained.
Officials said they are soliciting comments from the public on various safeguard and flexibilities.
Russia must be held accountable for the destruction it has wrought in its ongoing yearlong war in Ukraine, says Stephen Rapp, a former U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes.
“The use of force or the threat of the use of force is illegal, except in self-defense,” Rapp told CBS News in an interview Friday. “And here that clearly occurred.”
“This is a scale that we have not seen in conflict since World War II.” Rapp said. He noted Ukraine has suffered an estimated $127 billion in damage — homes, schools, public buildings, companies, infrastructure — not to mention “just the horror that’s been visited directly on civilians or civilians targeted for torture and rape and detention.” He suggested that if there isn’t “some kind of accountability,” the international community would be giving Russia a kind of “off-ramp” to carry out more aggression.
This week, Rapp was part of a panel of three international legal experts, a kind of “people’s court,” at The Hague who reviewed evidence and heard testimony from survivors and members of the military against Russian President Vladimir Putin for the crime of aggression in Ukraine.
Citing evidence from the extensive destruction of civilian and government targets, Rapp said the panel – which does not have any legal authority — confirmed an indictment against Putin for aggression.
“In this situation, the character is brutal, totally violative of the laws of war. The scale is massive — over a frontier of 2,000 kilometers, 1,200 miles,” Rapp said. “And the gravity includes the loss of thousands of civilian lives, tens of thousands of soldiers, the destruction of tens of billions — more than $100 billion, I think, close to $200 billion in infrastructure.”
Rapp, who successfully led the prosecution against former Liberian President Charles Taylor for war crimes in Sierra Leone, conceded that prosecuting Putin would be challenging. He said the most likely venue would be the International Criminal Court, or possibly an international tribunal created specifically to handle the crimes in Ukraine.
“We would need to establish a special court,” Rapp told CBS News. “The establishment of international tribunal that would include judges around the world that could prosecute him and others. And it could include the Belarusian leaders because they’ve allowed their territory to be used in this invasion.”
As part of a CBS News investigation last year, Rapp noted that Putin had written his Ukraine playbook years ago, in Syria, when his longtime ally, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, cracked down on the pro-democracy movement. More than 250,000 civilians have died in the decade-long conflict that followed the Arab Spring movement in 2011.
Rapp said that Putin has faced no meaningful accountability for Russia’s actions in Syria, and the lesson Putin took away was that no one would stop him.
“You could kill your way out of it,” Rapp, the former ambassador, said. “And that’s the lesson that Russia has taken to heart, too, as it commits these crimes in Ukraine.”
With the Ukraine war now entering its second year, Rapp predicts Putin may taken even more aggressive action this year.
“I don’t expect the Russians to improve their tactics. I expect them to be every bit as brutal, if not more so,” Rapp said.
As for China’s 12-point proposal for peace in Ukraine, Rapp said that given Beijing’s human rights records, “I don’t think it can be taken at face value. And knowing the Chinese and when they’ve been involved in various situations, their idea is to put [aside] accountability or justice.”