Editor’s Note: This story contains graphic images and descriptions of violence.

Every night after returning home from work, Chen opens his laptop and switches to his secret life as an undercover activist.

From his bedroom in eastern China, he spends hours witnessing scenes too graphic for a horror movie and trying to befriend people who would be his sworn enemies in real life.

Chen – a pseudonym to protect his real identity – is part of a team of internet sleuths whose mission is to shut down a shadowy global network that mutilates and kills cats for profit.

“It’s become a pretty international phenomenon,” said Jenny Edwards, a criminologist and specialist in animal sexual abuse, based in Seattle. “It is happening much more often than people realize.”

Activists say many of the cat torturers are based in China, where there are no laws against animal cruelty. Protected by an apparent culture of impunity, they make videos for consumers around the world – including in the United States, UK, Turkey and Japan.

Undercover with the cat torturers

The chat groups provide a snapshot of an underworld where torture is trivialized and celebrated as if it’s part of a video game.

A culture of competition has also developed among members to suggest the most inventive style of abuse – while creating heroes out of the perpetrators.

Chen was in similar groups. For years, he’s been watching gruesome videos and befriending torturers to gather enough information to track them down.

He’s part of an alliance of activists called Feline Guardians, who hope that drawing attention to the issue will pressure law enforcement globally to take more action – particularly in China.

“China is now experiencing a wave of cat abuse, from elementary school students all the way to the elderly participating in it,” Chen said.

Chen says the number of people involved in Chinese-based networks is “growing larger and larger,” and include foreigners outside the country.

Data gathered by Feline Guardians showed a 500% increase in new torture videos added to the Chinese Telegram groups they monitor between June 2024 and February 2025 – with a new video being uploaded on average around every 2.5 hours. In the first two months of this year, more than 500 new torture videos have been uploaded, with most coming from previously unknown abusers.

‘They are treated like celebrities’

More than 5,000 miles away from Chen in London, Feline Guardians activist Lara has been monitoring the global spread of this content.

“It starts off in China, and then you have people who mimic these videos from elsewhere, (and) we have children who are exposed to this,” said Lara, who asked to only use her first name to avoid online retribution.

When Lara first learned about the trade in cat torture, she said her reaction was “surely this must be embellished.” But very quickly, she had her eyes opened to the extent of this dark subculture.

“They are treated like celebrities,” Lara said. “So, there is a drive with not only being able to get the satisfaction of torturing horrifically cats, but also the feedback and the notoriety that they receive.”

Lara and Chen, along with their fellow activists, keep in constant contact despite most of them having day jobs – often staying up all night across different time zones as they try to track down the torturers.

Their detective work involves combing through every frame of the footage, examining the background for clues on location or identity, and trying to glean information from their bank details if they are selling their content online.

“Through repeatedly watching it, we can roughly determine some details about their life,” Chen said. “(Then) we can conduct some investigations locally.”

When they think they are closing the net, they also conduct interviews with local people and neighbors, in case they witnessed or overheard anything that could be used as evidence.

Chen often poses as a zoosadist, who is trying to buy torture material, to gain the trust of fellow members. But some groups also demand complicity as their entry criteria.

“Most core groups require recording a video that volunteers can’t do – that is, taking a cat from being full of life and torturing it to death,” Chen said.

Still, in the past few years, he has managed to delve so deep within Chinese torture networks that he’s exposed the identities of more than a dozen perpetrators.

Torture to order

Entering the disturbing world of these networks exposes an entire subculture with its own terminology and hierarchical structure.

Once inside dedicated chat rooms, creators were also sometimes called “cat deleters” or “masters” and the consumers who paid for the videos were known as “sponsors.”

Collectively, they appear to view themselves as vigilantes who aim to get rid of all “evil cats” – possibly also to provide a falsified sense of justification for their crimes.

The creators even advertise specific cats for “torture to order” which enables buyers to select the animal, the tools and tactics of their death – all for a price.

Promotional posters are shared showing a photo, name and age of the cat, along with their “shelf life,” indicating the date they plan to kill them. The “sponsors” are urged to “contact customer service” to receive a quote.

“There is a sadistic and twisted mindset for these torturers where they try to elongate the torture as long as possible,” said Lara.

“These videos show cats being burnt alive, they have been liquefied in blenders,” Lara said. “There have been cases of cats being dismembered and their guts being pulled out and stretched.”

The suffering of the animals is also turned into searchable terms – including “T-Rex” for cats that have had their front legs cut off and can only stand on their back legs.

A ‘fetish I can’t quit’

A Chinese consumer who regularly pays for this sort of gratuitously violent content admits that it gives him a sexual thrill.

A married man in his mid-twenties, Zhang said he first started watching animal torture videos when he was a teenager, after he saw a report about it on the news.

“It’s just this fetish that I can’t quit,” Zhang said. “This is much harder to quit than cigarettes.”

So far, Zhang has spent thousands of dollars buying cat torture videos through the networks, which can cost from a few dollars to $50 each.

He added that his wife “doesn’t know about this thing,” and would likely divorce him if she did.

Zhang says he can’t afford to order the custom videos that are set at a much higher price, often over $1,300. But he says the other members are usually “rich people,” who he claims include officials, programmers and managers, some of whom share WeChat IDs showing their name, company or government department.

Zhang says in the outside world, he is “quite normal” and would never personally hurt an animal – and even keeps rescued cats and dogs as pets at home.

But he admits that he enjoys watching women torture cats, especially if they crush them with high heels.

Criminologist Jenny Edwards says the “primary driver” of this fetish is sadism – a “sexual deviance” which is “getting sexual arousal from watching these (videos) or feeling the pain of discomfort and humiliation of seeing another being suffering.”

“It’s part of antisocial, psychopathic behavior,” Edwards added.

She says zoosadists often hide their proclivities from their families and friends.

“They are leading a double life, because they have this whole other life that they completely keep separate from everything else that they’re doing,” Edwards said.

Some have threatened physical violence against activists who try to expose their secret lives.

Phaedra, a US-based independent animal rights activist who asked to go only by her first name, said she was doxxed – the process of revealing someone’s real identity – and targeted by anonymous accounts, after highlighting graphic torture content on X to prompt censors to take them down.

Phaedra says she also tried to alert Chinese and US officials.

As revenge, some of the abusers used Phaedra’s photograph from her X account to create deepfake pornography of her – and one even used a photo of her as a child alongside dead cats and a sign that read “I’m coming for you Phaedra.”

“They’ve said that they’ll come and skin my dog, they’re going to kill my pets and family,” Phaedra said.

In December 2024, she also received death and rape threats via X.

At one point, she was terrified – thinking they’d find out where she lived and come through her bedroom window – but added that she’s “not afraid of them anymore.”

Chen, the undercover volunteer, said most people he encounters in the groups are lonely men who feel left behind by society, which suggests they are also searching for connection within these groups – bonded by their unspeakable hobby.

He described them as “incels” – involuntary celibates – who feel rejected by women and therefore get sexual pleasure from hurting an animal that most women love.

Activists say some consumers are also drawn to this content because the screams of a cat sound similar to those of women, or children – prompting fears that the behaviors in this online underworld could develop into the abuse of humans.

“They’re becoming more elaborate with what they’re doing, and far more methodical,” Lara from Feline Guardians said. “This will only get worse.”

For example, Chen said in 2024, a sickening mission emerged to target an app called “Street Cat,” which livestreams stray cats or those in shelters for cat enthusiasts to watch.

In the US, Feline Guardians also found evidence of a crossover between cat torture and neo-Nazi groups, including one private Telegram group called “The Eternal Reich” with more than 600 members, which mixed torture content with videos of abuse against women and posts on far-right ideology.

One member posted a photo of himself holding two dead cats in front of an American flag.

A fantasy through cats

Social media companies have come under pressure for not doing enough to prevent the proliferation of this sort of extreme, and in most places, illegal content.

“The platforms are social media networks, mainly end-to-end encrypted platforms such as Telegram,” Lara said. “Also, these videos are being shared on other social media platforms like X, Instagram and Facebook.”

Often potential consumers are recruited directly by the torture rings via a direct message.

If they have commented on a graphic video on YouTube or Facebook, they might receive an invitation to free-to-join Telegram groups with thousands of members. Those who want more depraved content, or want to order something specific, can join smaller, more extreme Telegram groups.

“It definitely needs to be restricted, and a lot of it can and should be restricted by the social media provider,” Edwards said. “The challenge is we don’t have a cohesive way of attacking it.”

Edwards said in most countries legislation is too weak and inadequate to fit the extent of these crimes, and that law enforcement should be pushing tech companies to do more.

“Content that promotes or glorifies violence is explicitly forbidden,” a Telegram spokesperson said, and “any groups, channels or users found distributing violent content are immediately banned.” Hundreds of moderators using AI tools are removing “millions of pieces of harmful content each day,” the spokesperson said.

In China – which has some of the world’s most tightly-controlled internet restrictions – censors rarely remove any cat torture content, Chen said.

“In most situations there is no supervision of this,” Chen said. “China’s censorship of political content and pornography is very strict, but with animal abuse, basically no threshold has been set.”

Multiple cases of cat abuse in China have been reported by state media in the past few years, but most alleged that the perpetrators did not face any legal consequences.

Other countries with animal cruelty legislation have made multiple arrests of cat torturers in recent years – including the US, Canada and Turkey.

In the UK, two teenagers were recently charged with causing animal suffering, after a pair of kittens were found dead and mutilated in north-west London on May 3. The local police also wrote a letter to schools in the area, warning them of an increase in reports of young people committing acts of cruelty towards animals.

In Turkey – which is known for its abundance of street cats – five members of a cat torture network were arrested in January 2024 for “abusing cats and engaging in organizational propaganda.” More arrests were made in February and September last year, including one for “torture of a kitten.”

“In Turkey, within these groups, there are up to 15,000 members, possibly even more,” Lara said. “So these networks are spreading, and they mimic what the same networks in China have been doing.”

Activists say the role of legislation and enforcement is critical to shutting these networks down. High-profile cases in recent years include a monkey torture ring originating in Indonesia which was exposed and dismantled in 2023. British man Adam Britton was also jailed in August 2024 for torturing and sexually abusing dozens of dogs in Australia and sharing the videos on Telegram.

Peter Li, an associate professor of East Asian politics at the University of Houston-Downtown and a China policy specialist for Humane Society International, says China is the only major industrialized country that does not have comprehensive anti-cruelty laws.

“It’s time that China adopts an anti-cruelty law,” Li said, though he conceded that it was “a politically challenging issue.”

Li said multiple proposals have been submitted over the past two decades to China’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress, but they have never progressed – partly due to fears they could impede the farming industry, and due to a cultural lack of concern for animal welfare among China’s older generation.

But with the growing number of pets in China – totalling more than 120 million in urban areas alone – the pressure to legislate for the protection of animals, especially from younger pet owners, will likely only increase.

Beyond the suffering of animals, Li says there are also “broad social consequences” for allowing this trend to spiral. “You would encourage copycat behaviors,” Li said. “Most of the audience are young people, and (they) would be desensitized.”

In 2024, Chinese state media reported at least four separate cases of university students allegedly torturing cats.

China Daily, the country’s official English-language newspaper, reported in May that “incidents of students being punished for torturing animals have been on the rise.”

The article said the alleged offenders had been punished, but didn’t specify what punishment they’d received, beyond at least two expulsions.

“Simply expelling the students cannot solve the problem,” Wang Wenda, director of students’ psychological health at Xinhua College of Ningxia University, was quoted as saying. “They might not only hurt animals but also people if they do not get proper guidance and help.”

Links between cruelty to animals and to humans – documented by multiple global studies – could ultimately drive law enforcement in China – and elsewhere – to take the issue more seriously.

“It starts off with cat torture,” said Lara. “There have been multiple cases of people who go off to commit other crimes, such as serial killers, but also those that we don’t hear of – abuse within the home (and) maybe children.”

“There is a crossover here, and so they’re just acting out a fantasy through cats.”

For campaigners, there’s no choice but to keep going, despite the huge impact on their own mental health.

“It’s definitely changed the way that I view the world,” said Lara. “I believe that I have taken on something which I am committed to for the rest of my life, until this changes.”

On May 18, Lara helped to organize global protests calling for an end to cat torture, held in more than 20 major cities around the world.

Chen said he had sought medical support for his mental health, but he’ll keep logging on every night because each sickening video takes him closer to a potential arrest.

He said he’ll watching in the hope of ending the depravity, because “someone has to do it, right?”

Madalena Araújo, Isil Sariyuce contributed reporting

Story Editors: Hilary Whiteman, Jerome Taylor

Video: Vina Salazar, Alex Dicker, Dan Hodge, Martin Bourke, Kevin Broad

Data and Graphics Editor: Lou Robinson

Illustration and Motion Designer: Alberto Mier

Visual Editor: Mark Oliver

Unveiling their latest seizure in front of news cameras last month, two Chinese customs agents revealed not drugs or weapons – but suitcases full of plush toys.

The stash on display included dozens of Pop Mart Labubus – the toothy, fluffy figurines that have sparked buying frenzies around the world, and in some cases, brawls among fans outside shops selling them.

“It’s almost impossible to get a Labubu via the official channels,” she said.

Fans are instead turning to unusual sources – including buying from smugglers.

Details and footage of one seizure were posted by China’s Customs Administration on social media, which stated that that the toys were intended “for profit by resale” and seized in accordance with law.

The post did not say whether any of the Labubu smugglers faced other legal consequences.

Labubu is the brainchild of Hong Kong-born illustrator Kasing Lung, and it has quietly built a loyal following since its 2015 debut.

But in recent months, the bunny-bodied, elf-faced creature — equal parts grotesque and adorable — has soared in popularity. Stars including Rihanna, Dua Lipa, and Lisa from K-pop group Blackpink have worn Labubus like lucky charms, and the toys were even spotted at Paris Fashion Week this year.

According to Chinese state-owned media outlet Cover News, a blind box from the latest Labubu 3.0 series, originally priced at 584 yuan ($81), has been selling for between 1,000 ($139) and 2,000 yuan ($278) on the second-hand market.

Pop Mart’s annual results show that the company’s global gross profit surged by over 125% last year, while its revenue in mainland China reached more than $1.09 billion, 34% higher than 2023.

“Because they are not available on official platforms, if you’re in a rush to get a gift for a friend, you just can’t manage to get the popular ones in time,” said Yang.

“You can only pay extra to buy from resale platforms.”

Even before Israel’s war in Gaza started, the territory was one of the most densely populated places on the planet, described by United Nations officials as an “open-air prison.” Now, Israeli forces are expanding their operations, cramming the population into an ever-shrinking patch of land.

Israel’s latest military offensive, named “Gideon’s Chariots,” aims to finally “conquer” the territory, as one government minister put it. Almost 80% of the enclave has come under evacuation orders or been designated as a militarized zone since March 18 when Israel broke its ceasefire with Hamas, according to the UN. Since then, Israel has a declared policy – backed by the US – to encourage resettlement of Gaza’s residents.

As part of the “intensified operation,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the whole population of Gaza – around 2 million people – will be displaced to the south of the 140 square-mile territory.

The Israeli military claims the operation is aimed at destroying Hamas and freeing hostages. Meanwhile, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the operation could lead to a complete takeover of the territory.

“We are finally going to conquer the Gaza Strip,” he said after Israel’s security cabinet approved the expanded campaign.

See what Israel’s expanding operation means on the ground, in five maps.

Around 80% of Gaza is covered by evacuation orders and Israeli-militarized zones

Some Gazans in the north say they have fled to the nearby coastline in a last-ditch effort to escape the renewed bombardment, exhausted by Israel’s 19-month assault. Others are sleeping in tents surrounded by the rubble of their former homes, fearful to leave in case they are forced out of Gaza.

Since Israel broke the ceasefire in mid-March, at least 2-3 kilometers (1.2-1.9 miles) into Gaza’s land border is a no-go zone, which includes a 1 kilometer-wide (around 0.6 miles) buffer area next to Israeli territory where homes, factories and farmland have been systematically levelled.

Access to the Mediterranean Sea to fish is all but banned. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), most fishing boats have been destroyed and Palestinians fishing meters from the shore have been targeted.

Another militarized corridor was established in early April — the Israeli-demarcated “Morag Corridor” in Rafah — with the stated intention of “dividing the strip.” This is one of at least four routes established to control Gaza by the Israeli military who demolish and clear all buildings and cropland to make way for them.

At least 31 evacuation orders have been issued by Israeli forces since March 18 this year covering large areas of the strip, sometimes at the rate of two a day. As a result, an estimated 600,000 people in Gaza have been displaced in that time (this figure includes people who may have been displaced multiple times), according to the United Nations-led Site Management Cluster.

In northern Gaza, these orders have recently been accompanied by instructions to move south, despite ongoing attacks there too. This week, the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for most of southern Gaza with directives to head toward the Al-Mawasi area, ahead of what its spokesperson said would be an “unprecedented attack.”

Aid groups have criticized the use of these directives, branding them as confusing, often inaccurate and overly reliant on an internet connection which most people in Gaza only have intermittent access to. The delivery mechanism is varied, with some receiving text messages or phone calls ahead of an attack, while for others the first sign is incoming Israeli fire. On the ground, Gaza no longer looks familiar to residents, with most landmarks destroyed or damaged, including shops, trees and roads, making it much more difficult to navigate. In order to move around, people need to pass through heavily militarized checkpoints, usually on foot.

“I’ve been on the street with my children for three days, and I can’t find a place to settle,” she said. “I wish for death at any moment. I don’t know what to do with my children or where this life will take us. There is no solution.”

Since Israel launched its war in Gaza following Hamas’ deadly October 2023 attacks, Gazans have been displaced an average of six times – some up to 19 times – according to the Danish Refugee Council.

For many, repeated displacement means reliving the trauma of generations uprooted by what Palestinians call al-Nakba, or “the catastrophe,” when roughly 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes in historic Palestine, during the creation of Israel in 1948.

Outside of the no-go zones, most of what’s left is rubble

Most of the remaining areas that are not under evacuation orders or militarized are heavily damaged. A assessment by the CUNY Graduate Center found 60% of buildings are destroyed while the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said 92% of homes have either been damaged or destroyed. According to the UN Satellite Centre, 68% of roads are also damaged, which adds to the complications of transporting aid around the strip.

Of the agricultural land, a report published in the Journal of Science of Remote Sensing found around 80% of tree crops — such as olives and fruit trees — are likely damaged, as well as 65% of greenhouses used to grow food such as tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and strawberries. The FAO has also reported that all cropland in Rafah, and nearly all cropland in the northern governorates are not accessible.

Al-Mawasi, where many people have been instructed to go by the Israeli military, is a narrow coastal strip in southern Gaza. Once rural farmland, by February it was the most populated area in Gaza with an estimated 116,000 people, almost 6% of the enclave’s population, displaced there, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“I don’t know what to answer when colleagues ask me where they can go with their children in the middle of the night. We are running out of options to stay alive,” he said.

Further south, aid workers say they are overstretched, burnt out and fearful that they won’t be able to provide adequate care for a potential influx of more uprooted people.

Do people have access to the basics – food, medical care and water – in the south of the strip?

Food is scarce

Beginning on March 2, an 11-week blockade stopped all humanitarian aid from entering the strip. In the past week, some aid has entered through the southern Kerem Shalom crossing, but humanitarian agencies say food has yet to reach the over half a million people currently facing starvation across Gaza. “It remains far from enough to meet the soaring humanitarian needs,” UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said.

Medical services are overwhelmed

“If military operations continue, the existing health facilities will simply not be able to cope with the numbers of displaced people,” Al Jamal said.

They are also facing an “overwhelming number of cases that require urgent, specialized medical care. Care that we can no longer provide,” Al Jamal added, while recalling how a 10-year-old boy who recently suffered head trauma in an airstrike that killed his family could not be treated as the medication he needed is no longer available in Gaza.

“If the situation remains unchanged, we do not expect to receive any medical supplies in the near future,” she said.

Water supply is facing shutdown

As well as medical aid, experts say Israel’s displacement plans will necessitate the significant restructuring of Gaza’s water supply system, much of which has already been destroyed or damaged since the war began.

In southern Gaza, the 140,000 litres of fuel needed weekly to maintain water supply operations was not received last week, leading to warnings from local officials of an imminent full-scale shutdown, the UN reported on May 21.

“The situation is especially dire in Al-Mawasi, which is not connected to the water network,” the UN said, adding that the area depends entirely on water being delivered via trucks.

International backlash

Israel’s displacement plans have received international backlash in recent weeks, with the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, and Canada threatening to take “concrete actions,” including sanctions, if Israel does not stop its latest military operations and continues to block aid from entering Gaza.

Netanyahu has vowed to push forward with the fresh offensive: “At the end of the operation all areas of the strip will be under Israeli security control,” he said last Wednesday.

Meanwhile, despite everything, some Gazans plan to resist Israel’s latest directives.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Saturday delivered a dire warning to the Asia-Pacific region and the world: China’s designs on Taiwan pose a threat to global peace and stability that requires “our allies and partners do their part on defense.”

“There is no reason to sugarcoat it. The threat China poses is real. And it could be imminent,” Hegseth said in a speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defense forum, in Singapore.

“Beijing is credibly preparing potentially to use military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific,” with People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces training daily to take military action against Taiwan, Hegseth said.

He noted that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has ordered his military to be prepared by 2027 to invade Taiwan, the democratic island of 23 million people that the Chinese Communist Party claims as its sovereign territory despite having never ruled it.

“The PLA is building the military needed to do it, training for it every day and rehearsing for the real deal,” Hegseth said, delivering some of his strongest comments against China since he took office in January.

He said US President Donald Trump has pledged not to let Taiwan fall to China on his watch, and he called on US allies and partners in the region to band together to stand up to Beijing, both on the Taiwan issue and other regional disputes where China aggressively pursues its agenda, such as in the South China Sea.

“China’s behavior towards its neighbors and the world is a wake-up call. And an urgent one,” the US defense chief said.

But he said the US cannot deter the Chinese threat alone, calling on other nations to be “force multipliers” against Beijing.

“We ask – and indeed, we insist – that our allies and partners do their part on defense,” he said.

Hegseth urged Asian countries to increase their defense spending, pointing to NATO allies who have boosted it to 5% of gross domestic product.

“So it doesn’t make sense for countries in Europe to do that while key allies in Asia spend less on defense in the face of an even more formidable threat, not to mention North Korea,” he said.

While Hegseth made clear that Washington does not seek conflict with China, he stressed the Trump administration would not let aggression from Beijing stand.

“We will not be pushed out of this critical region, and we will not let our allies be subordinated and intimidated,” he said.

Hegseth’s speech adds to heated tensions between Washington and Beijing.

China has railed against America’s efforts in recent years to tighten its alliances and stiffen its defense posture in Asia, while economic frictions rose to historic levels earlier this year after Trump imposed tariffs on China, sparking a tit-for-tat between the two countries that saw duties rise to more than 100% on each other’s goods.

The annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore has in the past been a place where defense leaders from the US and China can meet on the sidelines and foster at least a minimal dialogue between the two foes.

No such meeting is expected to take place this year. China announced on Thursday that it would send only a low-level delegation from its National Defense University to Shangri-La, rather than its defense minister, who has spoken at the past five forums.

When the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which sponsors the event, belatedly released a speakers list for the forum on Friday afternoon, the usual 8:30 a.m. time slot for a Chinese representative to speak was scrubbed from the agenda.

At a Chinese Defense Ministry press conference on Thursday, a spokesperson ducked a question on why Beijing was not sending its defense minister to the forum.

China was “open to communication at all levels between the two sides,” a ministry spokesperson said, when asked about a potential sidelines meeting with the US delegation.

Hegseth’s call for allied cooperation in deterring China is a carryover from the Biden administration, but the Trump administration seems more strident than its predecessor.

Ahead of the Singapore conference, there was broad consensus among analysts that unlike the turmoil Trump has caused in Europe – with threats to pull back from NATO and abandon Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion – the US role in Asia has largely been consistent, centered on a policy to counter Chinese influence and back Taiwan.

Analysts noted that US-led military exercises, especially those involving key allies Japan, Australia, the Philippines and South Korea, have continued or even been bolstered in 2025.

A bipartisan pair of US senators met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Friday and urged stronger sanctions against Russia, while uncertainty swirls over whether the next round of peace talks will move ahead in the coming days.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut met with Zelensky and other top Ukrainian officials in the capital. Their visit came just days after Russia launched its biggest aerial assault against Ukraine since the start of the war, and as the US ramps up pressure on Moscow to end the three-year conflict.

Among the topics discussed were the ongoing peace talks and proposed legislation to strengthen US sanctions against Russia, according to a statement from the Ukrainian presidential office.

Graham and Blumenthal are co-sponsoring a bipartisan bill to impose more sanctions on Russia – a notion that has gained support among a number of Republican lawmakers in recent weeks as Moscow steps up its deadly aerial assaults.

Graham said lawmakers would move forward next week with a vote on the bill, the Reuters news agency reported. The bill is supported by 82 senators from both sides of the aisle and would impose a 500% tariff on goods imported from countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and other products. It must pass both chambers of Congress and be approved by President Donald Trump to become law.

Trump has so far held off on imposing more sanctions as he tries to negotiate a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv. However, he has threatened in the past to impose the measures if Russia doesn’t agree to a truce.

Asked by reporters on Friday if he would support the bill, Trump responded: “I don’t know, I’ll have to see it. I’ll take a look at it.”

Graham said Friday he had talked with Trump before his trip and the US president expects “concrete action” from Moscow, according to Reuters.

The visit comes as Ukrainian officials raised questions about planned peace talks in Istanbul on Monday – as they say Russia has yet to send its negotiating proposals, a key demand of Kyiv’s.

“For a meeting to be meaningful, its agenda must be clear, and the negotiations must be properly prepared,” Zelensky wrote on X on Friday after hosting Turkey’s foreign minister for talks in Kyiv.

Zelensky also said he spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, writing on Telegram: “We share the view that this meeting cannot and should not be empty.”

“Neither we in Ukraine nor Turkey as the host side have any information about Russia’s so-called memorandum,” he said in his evening address, accusing Russia of “hiding” its memorandum from both countries.

Ukraine has already provided its own version of a peace memorandum, officials say.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow would present its memorandum during the next round of talks.

Zelensky said he and his Turkish counterpart also spoke about the possibility of organizing a four-way meeting with the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and the United States to further facilitate peace negotiations.

In recent weeks, the US president has become visibly frustrated with Russia over its deadly attacks on Ukraine and the lack of progress on peace talks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed holding “direct talks” in Turkey earlier this month – but never showed up, despite Zelensky agreeing to meet. In the end, the two nations sent low-level delegations to negotiate instead.

A large-scale prisoner exchange, the biggest since the start of the war, was the only significant outcome, with both sides agreeing to release 1,000 prisoners on each side – but it was overshadowed by ongoing Russian attacks at the same time.

Trump voiced frustration with Putin at the time, saying: “We’re in the middle of talking, and he’s shooting rockets into Kyiv and other cities.”

The Nigerian journalist has been accepted into Columbia Journalism School for a master’s degree and was on the cusp of applying for her US visa. “I don’t have any backup plan,” the 31-year-old said. “I put all my eggs in one basket – in Columbia… which is quite a risk.” She is due to start her degree in New York in August having already paid a hefty enrolment fee.

Akintade is among thousands of people across the globe who were thrown into limbo on Tuesday when the US State Department instructed its embassies and consulates to pause the scheduling of new student visa interviews as it plans to expand social media vetting for applicants.

It’s the latest in a series of moves by the Trump White House targeting higher education, starting with an ongoing fight with Harvard University and then dramatically expanding in scope.

‘A scary time to study in the US’

“It feels like a really scary and unsettling time for international students studying in the US,” said one Canadian student who has also been accepted by Columbia. “A lot of us chose to study in the US for its freedoms but now knowing that innocent social media posts could cost an education feels like censorship.”

“We were looking at a post from us at Pride, and my caption was simply a rainbow flag and then a trans flag. And I was on the phone with her ‘and I was like, do I have to take this down?’ Eventually we decided no, I could leave it up, but I changed the caption, I removed the trans flag. I don’t know how to feel about that,” the student said.

“I do think it’s real proof that it is a fear campaign that is incredibly successful,” she said, adding that she has deferred her place for this year after getting a job offer. “I changed the caption with the anticipation that it could get worse. Today it is one (issue) and tomorrow it will be another one.”

The State Department has required visa applicants to provide social media identifiers on immigrant and nonimmigrant visa application forms since 2019, a spokesperson said. In addition, it had already called for extra social media vetting of some applicants, largely related to alleged antisemitism. But it’s unclear what kind of post might pose a problem for an application from now on, or how these posts will be scrutinized.

British student Conrad Kunadu said he’d been grappling with an “internal conflict” over his offer to pursue a PhD in Environmental Health at Johns Hopkins University after monitoring the crackdown on US colleges “religiously” for the past few months.

After wondering whether he could manage his anxiety that “something (he) wrote in 2016” could get him deported, Kunadu decided to stay in Britain and study at Oxford University instead. Despite being grateful to have another option, he described his situation as a “lose-lose.”

“I wanted to study in the US not just because, for my interests in health security, it’s where all the talent and resources are, but because it’s the best way to make an impact on these issues at a global scale,” Kunadu said. Like many others, he can’t help but mourn the possible academic research and advances that now may never come to fruition.

Kunadu and another student who requested anonymity both mentioned being anxious about exploring topics in their studies that could be interpreted as dissent and ruffle official feathers.

Kagan described the visa halt as “one of many attacks on higher education and immigrants… two of the Trump administration’s favorite targets,” which in this case overlap. And while the directive is consistent with what the White House was already doing, he sees this as “an unprecedented attack in a non-emergency time.”

When asked whether those who had accepted college offers and were waiting for a visa appointment had any legal avenues available to them, Kagan was not encouraging. “If someone is trying to enter and not yet getting a visa, (that person) usually has nearly no recourse,” he said.

A sense of rejection

In the 2023-34 academic year, more than 1.1 million international students studied at US higher education institutions, according to a report from the the Institute of International Education.

For Nigerian journalist Akintade, who has always dreamed of studying at an Ivy League school, the feeling of rejection by the US is weighing heavily. “This is the message I’m getting: we don’t want you,” she said, with a deep sigh.

Lisa Klaassen, Nimi Princewill and Quinta Thomson contributed to this report