Russian President Vladimir Putin ratcheted up tensions with Europe on Tuesday, warning that if the bloc sparked a war with Russia, Moscow was prepared to meet it.

Putin also blasted European leaders, accusing them of sabotaging U.S.-led efforts to end the nearly four-year-old war in Ukraine.

‘But if Europe suddenly wants to wage a war with us and starts it, we are ready right away. There can be no doubt about that,’ Putin said, according to The Associated Press.

Putin was responding to a question about Russian media reports that Hungary’s foreign minister warned Europe was preparing for war with Russia. Putin insisted, as he has for years, that Moscow does not seek a war with European nations.

The Russian president made the remarks after speaking at an investment forum and before meeting in the Kremlin with a U.S. delegation led by envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

It’s not the first time Putin has warned Europe about meddling in the war.

In October, Putin warned that Europe would face a ‘significant response’ if it continued supplying military aid to Ukraine, and he made similar threats in May.

In February 2024, Putin warned that Western military intervention against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could result in nuclear escalation — a statement widely interpreted as a warning to Europe and Western allies.

Putin claimed on Tuesday that European leaders introduced ‘demands that are absolutely unacceptable to Russia’ that effectively ‘blocked the entire peace process.’ He accused them of doing so cynically in order to blame Moscow for rejecting peace.

European leaders have maintained that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a stepping stone to a wider war with the 27-nation European Union, which has poured billions of dollars into supporting Kyiv.

Putin said European powers had locked themselves out of peace talks on Ukraine because they cut off contacts with Moscow.

‘They are on the side of war,’ Putin said.

He also suggested the conflict in Ukraine was not a full-blown war, describing Russia’s actions as ‘surgical’ — a restraint, he said, that would not apply in a direct confrontation with European powers, according to Reuters. 

Putin’s comments come as Witkoff and Kushner press for peace between Ukraine and Russia.

On Sunday, Witkoff — a central figure in negotiating the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas — joined Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Kushner in Florida to meet with Ukrainian negotiators. Rubio described the meeting as ‘very productive.’ In a statement, Rubio said the goal is ‘not just the end of the war.’

Last week, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that Moscow could reject the White House’s peace framework if it does not uphold the ‘spirit and letter’ of what Trump and Putin agreed to at the Alaska summit in August. He said that if the ‘key understandings’ were watered down, the situation would become ‘fundamentally different.’

Despite Lavrov’s comments, Putin showed interest in Trump’s effort to end the war, calling the drafted plan a starting point. 

‘We need to sit down and discuss this seriously,’ Putin told reporters, according to the AP.

He characterized Trump’s plan as ‘a set of issues put forward for discussion,’ rather than a draft agreement.

Fox News’ Andrea Margolis, Sarah Tobianski, Kyle Schmidbauer and Ashley Carnahan as well as The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

House appropriators and foreign affairs leaders convened a rare joint briefing Tuesday as part of a broader congressional investigation into what lawmakers and experts describe as escalating and targeted violence against Christians in Nigeria.

The session — led by House Appropriations Vice Chair and National Security Subcommittee Chairman Mario Díaz-Balart, R-Fla. — is feeding into a comprehensive report ordered by President Trump on recent massacres of Nigerian Christians and potential policy steps the U.S. could take to pressure Abuja to respond.

Trump directed Congress, led by Reps. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., and Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., to probe Christian persecution in Nigeria and produce a report for the White House to review. He has floated the idea of taking direct military action against Islamists who kill. 

Vicky Hartzler, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, told lawmakers that ‘religious freedom [is] under siege,’ citing the abduction of more than 300 children and attacks in which ‘radical Muslims kill entire Christian villages [and] burn churches.’ She said violations are ‘rampant,’ ‘violent,’ and disproportionately affect Christians, who she argued are targeted ‘at a 2.2 to 1 rate’ compared with Muslims.

Hartzler said Nigeria has taken some initial corrective steps — including reassigning about 100,000 police officers from VIP protection details — but warned the country is entering a ‘coordinated and deeply troubling period of escalated violence.’ She recommended targeted sanctions on Nigerian officials ‘who have demonstrated complicity,’ visa restrictions, blocking U.S.-based assets, and conditioning foreign and humanitarian aid on measurable accountability.

She also urged Congress to direct the Government Accountability Office to conduct a review of past U.S. assistance and said Abuja should retake villages seized from Christian farming communities so widows and children can return home.

Dr. Ebenezer Obadare of the Council on Foreign Relations offered the sharpest challenge to the Nigerian government’s claim that the violence is not religiously motivated. He said the idea Boko Haram and other militant groups target Christians and Muslims equally is a ‘myth,’ arguing the groups ‘act for one reason and one reason only: religion.’ Any higher Muslim casualty count, he said, reflects geography, not equal targeting.

Obadare described Boko Haram as fundamentally opposed to democracy and said the Nigerian military is ‘too corrupt and incompetent’ to dismantle jihadist networks without strong external pressure. He urged the U.S. to press the Nigerian government to disband armed groups enforcing Islamic law, confront corruption inside the security forces, and demonstrate genuine intent to curb religious violence. He added that Washington should insist Nigerian officials respond immediately to early warnings of impending attacks.

Sean Nelson of Alliance Defending Freedom International added that Nigeria is ‘the deadliest country in the world for Christians,’ claiming more Christians are killed there than in all other countries combined and at a rate ‘five times’ higher than Muslims when adjusted for population. He said extremists also target Muslims who refuse to embrace their extreme ideology, which he argued further undercuts Abuja’s narrative that the crisis is driven mainly by criminality or local disputes.

With a population of more than 230 million, Nigeria’s vibrant and often turbulent cities and villages are home to people of strikingly diverse backgrounds. The nation’s roughly 120 million-strong Muslim population dominates the north, while some 90 million Christians are centered in the southern half of the country.

Nelson urged tighter U.S. oversight of assistance to Nigeria, including routing some aid through faith-based organizations to avoid corruption. He called for greater transparency in how Abuja handles mass kidnappings and ransom payments and said sustained U.S. and international pressure is essential because ‘without transparency and outside pressure, nothing changes.’

Díaz-Balart criticized the Biden administration for reversing the Trump administration’s designation of Nigeria as a ‘country of particular concern’ in 2021, arguing the change has had ‘clearly deadly consequences.’ Lawmakers on the Appropriations, Foreign Affairs and Financial Services committees signaled additional oversight actions in the months ahead as they prepare the Trump-directed report to Congress.

Hartzler noted that Nigeria has recently begun taking several steps that could signal a shift toward confronting the crisis more directly. She pointed to President Bola Tinubu’s decision to pull about 100,000 police officers from VIP bodyguard assignments and redistribute them across the country, calling it ‘a promising start after years of neglect.’ She said the move reflects growing recognition inside Nigeria’s political leadership that the violence has reached an intolerable level.

She also highlighted comments last week from Nigeria’s speaker of the House, who acknowledged the country is facing a ‘coordinated and deeply troubling period of escalated violence.’ Hartzler said that acknowledgment — coupled with a push from the Nigerian House majority leader for more intensive legislative oversight — suggests the government may finally be admitting the scale and severity of the attacks.

Even with these developments, Hartzler warned the measures are far from sufficient. She emphasized that the Nigerian government must show clear intent to ‘quell injustice,’ act quickly when early warning signs of attacks appear, and commit to transparency and accountability if the recent steps are going to amount to meaningful progress.

The Nigerian Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he still likes ‘Elon a lot,’ despite their high-profile split earlier this year over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

At the end of the administration’s monthly Cabinet meeting, FOX Business’ Edward Lawrence asked Trump whether Musk was ‘back in [his] circle of friends’ after their falling-out.

Trump responded: ‘Well, I really don’t know. I mean, I like Elon a lot.’ He praised Musk’s endorsement during the 2024 campaign before noting their disagreement over electric-vehicle policy.

Musk was a fixture in the White House in the early days of the second Trump administration as he took on the role as the Department of Government Efficiency’s de facto leader. He served as a special government employee with the Trump administration to help lead DOGE, frequently attending Cabinet meetings and joining Trump during public events. Musk’s tenure with DOGE wrapped up at the end of May. 

Musk had also championed Trump during the 2024 election cycle, criss-crossing battleground states that ultimately all voted for the Republican candidate over former Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Trump repeatedly celebrated Musk for his efforts at DOGE to remove potential federal overspending, fraud and mismanagement – an effort assailed by government employees and Democrats who protested both the Trump administration and Musk repeatedly earlier this year. 

The cozy friendship fell to pieces in June, however, when Musk began publicly ridiculing the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill,’ which was a massive piece of legislation Trump signed into law in July that advances his agenda on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt. 

Musk railed against the legislation, which Trump had been rallying Republican lawmakers to pass since the beginning of his second term, posting on X that it would be the ‘BIGGEST DEBT ceiling increase in HISTORY’ and also claimed in a personal attack on Trump that ‘@RealDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files.’ 

Trump previously told the media that his relationship with Musk changed when he began discussing plans to eliminate the electic vehicle mandate, which would affect Musk’s signature electric company, Tesla. Trump signed a trio of congressional resolutions in June ending California’s restrictive rules for diesel engines and mandates on electric vehicle sales, with Trump celebrating that his signature ‘will kill the California mandates forever.’

The pair abruptly parted ways in June, with Musk weeks later offering some support to Trump’s presidential actions on social media, such as praising a ceasefire deal between Israel and Gaza in July.

Musk was seen physically back in Trump’s orbit in September during the memorial service for Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA’s founder who was assassinated on Sept. 10. The pair was seen sitting next to each other and chatting during the ceremony. 

Musk most recently attended a Trump event on Nov. 18 at the White House for a dinner with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, as well as dozens of high-profile business leaders. 

Trump’s latest remarks on Musk unfolded during his Cabinet meeting, which marked his ninth such meeting since the start of his second administration and matched the total number of full Cabinet meetings former President Joe Biden held across his four-year tenure. 

Senate Republicans are divided on their view of the deadly Sept. 2 strikes in the Caribbean as congressional inquiries into the matter mount, with some arguing that subduing suspected drug boats is the right move while others question the legality of the so-called double-tap attacks.

The Senate and House Armed Services committees are gearing up for hearings into the strikes after reports that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, later confirmed by the White House, authorized a second strike to eliminate survivors on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean.

But there is a growing tension among Republicans over what to do. Some support the desire of Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker, R-Miss., for stringent oversight of the incident, while others see the strikes as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on drugs flowing into the country.

Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, told Fox News Digital he was ‘very, very, very supportive of killing drug dealers. I think the more narco-terrorists that we kill, that we save American lives.’

‘I’m not concerned about killing people whose intent was to kill Americans at all,’ Moreno said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Hegseth gave the green light for the second strike, but noted that it was Adm. Frank Bradley, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, who ordered and directed it.

That confirmation came after a report from The Washington Post claimed Hegseth had ordered to ‘kill them all,’ which some on the Hill have disputed.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said he read the article and charged that there ‘wasn’t an exact quote from Secretary Hegseth. There was an anonymous source paraphrased what the secretary allegedly said.’

‘So, here we’ve got a story in The Washington Post, which is known to hate Trump and Republicans, by a reporter who is citing an anonymous source that supposedly is saying that Hegseth said it before the strike even happened, but they don’t know exactly what he said,’ Kennedy said. ‘That is a waste of your time and mine.’

When pressed about Leavitt’s confirmation of the authorization, Kennedy said, ‘I don’t care what the White House press secretary said.’

Still, some Republicans want answers to what exactly happened.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., reiterated that he believed that the Senate and House Armed Services committees’ impending probes into the matter was a ‘natural place’ to look at what happened with the strikes, but he stopped short of weighing in on whether a second strike was right or wrong. 

‘Well, I don’t know the particulars yet, and that’s why we’re gonna have the — we’ll look,’ Thune said. 

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said that since the report came out, ‘We want to get to the facts.’

‘Obviously, if there was a direction to take a second shot and kill people, that’s a violation of an ethical, moral or legal code,’ Tillis said. ‘We need to get to the bottom of it. But right now, it could be, I think, was it Oxford that the word of the year is ‘rage bait’? Could be rage bait too. So we want to get to the facts.’

Senate Democrats are demanding a fulsome dive into the incident, and toeing the line of whether what transpired was a war crime.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he expected to have a briefing with Bradley this week.

When asked what questions he wanted to be answered, Reed said the top priority was to find out whether the strikes comported with ‘the law of war and [Uniform Code of Military Justice] and international law.’

‘I think one of the easiest ways to begin to dispel the question is to make public the video of the strikes,’ Reed said.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., has, time and again this Congress, remained a staunch critic of action taken in Iran and in the Caribbean and moved to curtail the administration’s actions through resolutions that would stymie President Donald Trump’s war powers.

He said lawmakers needed to get to the bottom of ‘whether a war crime has been committed.’

Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., was cautious not to fully paint the incident as a war crime before getting more facts, adding that he hoped the reports of the strikes were ‘not accurate.’

‘I will say, though you know as somebody who has sunk two ships myself, that folks in the military need to understand, you know, the law of the sea, the Geneva Conventions, what the law says,’ Kelly said. ‘And I’m concerned that if there were, in fact, as reported, you know, survivors clinging to a damaged vessel, that could be, you know, over a line. I hope it’s not the case.’