Image copyright Reuters Image caption Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin had their first face-to-face talks on Friday

Donald Trump has backtracked on a proposal to work with Russia to create an "impenetrable" cybersecurity unit to prevent election hacking.

Hours after promoting the idea on Sunday, the US president said that he did not think it could actually happen.

The idea of a partnership with Russia was ridiculed by senior Republicans.

It comes after Mr Trump's first face-to-face talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Germany on Friday, in which the pair discussed the issue.

Mr Trump described the outcome of the talks as positive and suggested closer co-operation between the two nations.

"Putin and I discussed forming an impenetrable cybersecurity unit so that election hacking, and many other negative things, will be guarded and safe," he said.

The initial proposal immediately prompted derision from Democrats, as well as some Republicans who questioned why the US would work with Russia after the Kremlin's alleged meddling in the 2016 US election.

Mr Trump shifted his position on Sunday night.

"The fact that President Putin and I discussed a cybersecurity unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't," he tweeted.

However, he stressed that another issue discussed in his talks with Mr Putin, a ceasefire in south-western Syria, had come into effect.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin had sought to defend the proposed cyber unit after Mr Trump's initial announcement.

Speaking on ABC's This Week programme, he described it as a "significant accomplishment" for Mr Trump.

"What we want to make sure is that we co-ordinate with Russia," he added.

However, Republican Senator Marco Rubio suggested that such an initiative would be like partnering with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on chemical weapons.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said: "It's not the dumbest idea I've ever heard, but it's pretty close."

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Trump to Putin: "It's an honour to be with you"

A special prosecutor is investigating whether Trump associates colluded with alleged Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US election.

Both Mr Trump and Mr Putin said the allegations had been discussed.

However, the two sides described the content of the meeting differently.

Mr Trump said he "strongly pressed" the issue with Mr Putin, who had "vehemently denied" interfering in the US election.

He also said it was time to work more "constructively" with Russia.

President Putin said he believed President Trump had accepted his assurances that Moscow had not interfered in the vote.

However, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said interference in the 2016 election remained an impediment to better relations with Russia, while the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said the US "can't trust Russia" and "won't ever trust Russia". </s> Trump backtracks on US-Russia cyber unit, says it cannot happen

US President Donald Trump waves as walks on the South Lawn of the White House upon his return to Washington, from the G20 Summit in Hamburg, July 8, 2017. — Reuters picWASHINGTON, July 10 — US President Donald Trump this morning backtracked on his push for a cyber security unit with Russia, tweeting that he did not think it could happen, hours after his proposal was harshly criticised by Republicans who said Moscow could not be trusted.

Trump said on Twitter early yesterday that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed on Friday forming “an impenetrable Cyber Security unit” to address issues like the risk of cyber meddling in elections.

The idea appeared to be a political non-starter. It was immediately scorned by several of Trump’s fellow Republicans, who questioned why the United States would work with Russia after Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 US election.

“It’s not the dumbest idea I have ever heard but it’s pretty close,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told NBC’s Meet the Press programme.

Ash Carter, who was US defense secretary until the end of former Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration in January, told CNN flatly: “This is like the guy who robbed your house proposing a working group on burglary.”

Trump’s advisers, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, had recently sought to explain Trump’s cyber push.

Mnuchin said on Saturday that Trump and Putin had agreed to create “a cyber unit to make sure that there was absolutely no interference whatsoever, that they would work on cyber security together.”

But Trump returned to Twitter this morning to play down the idea, which arose at his talks with Putin at a summit of the Group of 20 nations in Hamburg, Germany.

“The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn’t mean I think it can happen. It can’t,” Trump said on Twitter.

He then noted that an agreement with Russia for a ceasefire in Syria “can & did” happen.

Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona acknowledged Trump’s desire to move forward with Russia, but added: “There has to be a price to pay.”

“There has been no penalty,” McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” program according to a CBS transcript.

“Vladimir Putin ... got away with literally trying to change the outcome ... of our election.”

Trump argued for a rapprochement with Moscow in his campaign but has been unable to deliver because his administration has been dogged by investigations into the allegations of Russian interference in the election and ties with his campaign.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the matter, including whether there may have been any collusion on the part of Trump campaign officials, as are congressional committees including both the House of Representatives and Senate intelligence panels.

Those probes are focused almost exclusively on Moscow’s actions, lawmakers and intelligence officials say, and no evidence has surfaced publicly implicating other countries despite Trump’s suggestion that others could have been involved.

Moscow has denied any interference, and Trump says his campaign did not collude with Russia.

Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN’s State of the Union programme that Russia could not be a credible partner in a cyber security unit.

“If that’s our best election defense, we might as well just mail our ballot boxes to Moscow,” Schiff added.

Separately, US government officials said a recent hack into business systems of US nuclear power and other energy companies was carried out by Russian government hackers, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.

Trump said he “strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it.”

He added: “We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!”

In Trump’s first attempt at ending the six-year Syrian civil war, the United States, Russia and Jordan on Friday reached a ceasefire and “de-escalation agreement” for southwestern Syria. The ceasefire was holding hours after it took effect yesterday, a monitor and two rebel officials said.

Any joint US-Russia cyber initiative would have been a different matter. Depending how much it veered into military or espionage operations, it could have faced major legal hurdles.

Language in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act prohibits the Pentagon, which includes the National Security Agency and the US military’s Cyber Command, from using any funds for bilateral military cooperation with Russia.

Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, also noted restrictions on sharing information with Russia that would clearly prohibit offering Moscow a sense of US cyber capabilities. Russia would be similarly adverse to revealing its capabilities to the United States, he noted.

“It just will not happen,” McFaul told Reuters. — Reuters </s> President Donald Trump suggested on Sunday that he will not pursue a joint cybersecurity task force with Russia, throwing cold water on speculation that sprung from comments he made on Twitter earlier in the day.

"The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't-but a ceasefire can,& did!" Trump said in a tweet Sunday evening.

The tweet seemed to be an attempt to quell criticism of Trump's highly publicized meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

After the meeting, conflicting reports emerged over how strongly Trump pressed Putin about Russian interference in the US election and whether Trump accepted Putin's denials of involvement. Trump then raised eyebrows by revealing on Twitter earlier Sunday that they had discussed forming an "impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded and safe."

The admission alarmed some politicians, who said it seemed to show Trump trusted Putin's word over that of senior US intelligence officials. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida quipped that "partnering with Putin on a 'Cyber Security Unit' is akin to partnering with Assad on a 'Chemical Weapons Unit,'" referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

During their meeting, Trump and Putin also brokered an open-ended cease-fire in southern Syria, earning some praise. However, experts have said that the cease-fire is virtually unenforceable and that no cease-fire during the six-year-old Syrian war has lasted longer than six months. </s> President Vladimir Putin on Monday suggested that Washington question the Russians accused of election interference.

In response, President Donald Trump said that an investigation into Moscow’s alleged meddling in his election had been a “disaster” for the United States.

The two leaders spoke after key talks.

“We ran a brilliant campaign and that’s why I’m president,” Trump said, once again firmly denying allegations that Russian hacking and propaganda assisted him in his 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton.

Putin had hailed cooperation between Russian and US security services, saying, “Our security services work very successfully.”

The two leaders spoke at a news conference they addressed together.

“We are in favour of continuing cooperation in the sphere of the fight against terror and ensuring cyber security,” Putin enthused.

He then went on to ‘assure’ Trump that gas deliveries via Ukraine will continue.

The US and Russian leaders opened an historic summit in Helsinki, with Donald Trump promising an “extraordinary relationship” and Vladimir Putin saying it was time they thrashed out disputes around the world. </s> US prosecutors say Russian government hackers exploited some of America's own computer infrastructure to steal politically sensitive information.

US prosecutors say Russian government hackers exploited some of America's own computer infrastructure to steal politically sensitive information.

(AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin). A man walks past the building of the Russian military intelligence service in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, July 14, 2018. U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday scolded the Obama administration for not responding aggressively e...

(AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin). A man walks past the building of the Russian military intelligence service in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, July 14, 2018. U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday scolded the Obama administration for not responding aggressively e...

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite). Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., criticizes President Donald Trump's performance during his side-by-side news conference with Russia's Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, as he speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in...

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite). Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., criticizes President Donald Trump's performance during his side-by-side news conference with Russia's Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, as he speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in...

Standing alongside Putin, Trump steered clear of any confrontation with the Russian, going so far as to question American intelligence and last week's federal indictments that accused 12 Russians of hacking into Democratic email accounts to hurt Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Standing alongside Putin, Trump steered clear of any confrontation with the Russian, going so far as to question American intelligence and last week's federal indictments that accused 12 Russians of hacking into Democratic email accounts to hurt Hillary Clinton in 2016.

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais). U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a press conference after their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, Monday, July 16, 2018.

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais). U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a press conference after their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, Monday, July 16, 2018.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States is open to holding direct talks with the Taliban to encourage negotiations between the militant group and the Afghan government to end 17 years of war, U.S. officials said.

That marks a tactical shift by the Trump administration, which has previously only appeared willing to participate in discussions with the Taliban if those talks also involve the Afghan government. The U.S. officials said Monday that Afghan-to-Afghan negotiation remains the goal of any engagement with the militants.

The officials were not authorized to speak to media and requested anonymity.

The Taliban have long refused direct talks with the Afghan government, demanding instead to negotiate with Washington. The militants have persisted in that stance despite Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's unilateral extension of a holiday cease-fire last month in hopes of encouraging the militants to come to the bargaining table. With the Taliban continuing to mount deadly attacks, Ghani ordered government forces to resume military operations this month.

The unprecedented, three-day cease-fire by both sides had offered a rare glimpse of peace for Afghans during which militants fraternized with security force members.

A Taliban official in the small Gulf Arab nation of Qatar told The Associated Press on Monday that no American official or intermediary has been in touch with them to start direct talks, and it had only heard of it in the media. The administration's willingness to hold direct talks with the Taliban was first reported by The New York Times on Sunday.

The Taliban official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was authorized to speak to journalists, said, "We wait for them to officially inform us." But he added that if the U.S. is interested in talks, it should take steps to get Taliban leaders off a sanctions blacklist and support the formal opening of the Taliban office in Qatar where its political representatives reside. The official reiterated the Taliban's call for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.

Asked if the U.S. was willing to hold direct talks with the Taliban, the State Department said Monday, the United States "is exploring all avenues to advance a peace process in close consultation with the Afghan government."

The department added that "any negotiations over the political future of Afghanistan will be between the Taliban and Afghan government."

Last August, President Donald Trump launched an Afghanistan strategy that centered on boosting the capabilities of Afghan security forces and aiming - with help from Pakistan and other interested nations - to compel the militants to negotiate. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Afghanistan last week to reinforce its support for talks.

"The United States will support, facilitate, and participate in these peace discussions, but peace must be decided by the Afghans and settled among them. We expect that these peace talks will include a discussion of the role of international actors and forces," Pompeo said after meeting Ghani in Kabul on July 9.

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, and ousted the Taliban government that had hosted al-Qaida. It has about 15,000 troops in Afghanistan, mostly for training government forces.

The conflict appears stalemated, with insurgents controlling or contesting more than 40 percent of the country. The U.N. mission in Afghanistan said Sunday that 1,692 civilians were killed in violence in the first six months of this year, the highest six-month death toll since the systematic documentation of civilian casualties started in 2009.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> The United States Cyber Command has started an operation that involves contacting Russians to prevent them from meddling in the upcoming midterm election.

The targeted Russians are being told that they have been identified and the US military have been tracking their activities to prevent them from disrupting the American electoral process.

The defense officials, who provided information about the current operation, however, did not provide details about how the Cyber Command contacts the Russians. They did not also disclose the number of individuals the operation has targeted.

This is the first operation under a new presidential order that relaxes restrictions on offensive cyberspace actions against foreign networks. The campaign, first reported by the New York Times, is also the first known overseas cyber operation aimed at protecting the US elections from Russian interference.

“The US government leadership has made it clear that it will not accept any foreign interference or attempts to undermine or manipulate our elections in any way,” Cybercom spokesman Joseph Holstead said, according to CNBC. “This includes the whole-of-government effort to protect election infrastructure and prevent malign, covert election influence operations.”

The operation seeks to deter disinformation efforts but it is not yet clear if it is also aimed at more overt forms of cybercrimes such as hacking.

During the 2016 presidential election, the Russians were accused of employing several tactics, which include using fake accounts to post provocative posts on social media and hacking into the servers of the Democratic National Committee.

The US government has launched a campaign to protect the midterm elections which has so far led to last week’s indictment of Russian national Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova.

As the Inquisitr earlier reported, Khusyaynova served as chief accountant for a disruption campaign funded by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s close associate businessman Yevgeniy Viktorovich. Khusyaynova became the first person to be charged by the United States for conspiring to interfere in the midterm elections.

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton said that he told Moscow officials that he considered Russian meddling in the American election process as “intolerable.”

“It’s a major obstacle to achieving agreement on issues where our national interest may converge,” Bolton said, according to The Guardian. “So I said, just from a very cold-blooded cost benefit ratio, that you shouldn’t meddle in our elections because you’re not advancing Russian interest, and I hope that was persuasive to them.” </s> "We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities," a U.S. government statement said on Friday about hacking of political groups.

"These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process," the statement said.

U.S. intelligence officials concluded weeks ago that the Russian government was conducting or orchestrating cyber attacks against the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, possibly to disrupt or discredit the election, in which Democrat Hillary Clinton faces Republican Donald Trump.

A Kremlin spokesman called the U.S. allegations "nonsense," the Interfax news agency reported.

The Obama administration's decision to blame Russia for the attacks is the latest downward turn in Washington's relations with Moscow, which are under strain over Russia's actions in Syria and Ukraine and in cyberspace.

Also on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Russian and Syrian actions in the Syrian civil war, including bombings of hospitals, "beg for" a war crimes investigation.

In addition, a U.S. intelligence official said Friday that Russia is moving short-range nuclear-capable missiles into Kaliningrad, a tiny Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania, confirming Estonian news reports.

Still, until Friday, the administration had avoided publicly naming Russia in connection with the mounting civilian deaths in Syria or the cyber attacks.

The statement by the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not blame the Russian government for hacking attempts against state election systems, but said "scanning and probing" of those systems originated in most cases from servers operated by a Russian company.

However, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman told Reuters that U.S. officials have concluded that the hacking attacks or probes of state voter registration systems are "consistent with Russian motivations."

Concern has grown about the reliability of the U.S. voting system as a result of the breach, and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has called the system "rigged," but without providing specific evidence.

U.S. intelligence officials have said there is no evidence that voting recording systems have been manipulated.

Naming Russia as the actor behind the cyber attacks on political organizations falls short of more punitive measures the United States has taken against other countries for cyber intrusions.

Republican Senator Cory Gardner, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific and International Cybersecurity, said he planned to introduce sanctions legislation.

Earlier this year, a U.S. grand jury indicted seven Iranians employed by two Iran-based computer companies on hacking charges into U.S. financial sector. In 2015, Obama announced sanctions against North Korea for hacking into Sony Pictures. In 2014, the United States charged five Chinese military hackers for economic espionage aimed at U.S. nuclear, metals and solar industries.

A senior U.S. official said the administration is considering other retaliatory steps against Russia, but he declined to identify them. Those steps may remain covert, the official said.

The Democratic National Committee publicly disclosed intrusions into its systems in June, blaming Russia for the attacks. Leaks of the committees' emails from pro-transparency group WikiLeaks soon followed, demonstrating what appeared to be favoritism for Clinton over another Democrat, Bernie Sanders, by committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Wasserman Schultz, a Florida congresswoman, stepped down.

In Friday's statement, the government said disclosures of emails by WikiLeaks and hacking entities known as DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 "are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts."

WikiLeaks has not identified the source of its leaks and criticized those who have claimed it was Russia. Guccifer 2.0 has identified itself as a Romanian hacker, but U.S. intelligence officials have concluded it and DCLeaks are both a front for Russian spy units. </s> In a sweeping response to election hacking, U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday sanctioned Russian intelligence services and their top officials, kicked out 35 Russian officials and shuttered two Russian-owned compounds in the U.S. It was the strongest action the Obama administration has taken to date to retaliate for a cyberattack.

"All Americans should be alarmed by Russia's actions," Obama said in a statement released while he was vacationing in Hawaii. He added: "Such activities have consequences."

Obama ordered sanctions against two Russian intelligence services, the GRU and the FSB, plus companies the U.S. says support the GRU. The cybersecurity firm hired by the Democratic National Committee to investigate theft of its emails determined earlier this year the hacking came from the Fancy Bear group, believed to be affiliated with the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency.
• Obama urges Trump to take Russian hacking seriously

The president also sanctioned Lt- Gen. Korobov, the head of GRU, and three of his deputies. Other individuals sanctioned include Alexei Belan and Yevgeny Bogachev, two Russian nationals who have been wanted by the FBI for cyber crimes for years.

Obama said the hacking "could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government," a contention the U.S. has used to suggest Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally involved.

72 hours to get out

Although the White House announced at the same time it was kicking out Russian officials and closing facilities, it said those were responses to other troubling Russian behaviour: harassment of U.S. diplomats by Russian personnel and police.

The 35 Russian diplomats being kicked out are intelligence operatives, Obama said. The State Department said they were being declared "persona non grata," and they were given 72 hours to leave the country.

The two compounds being closed down are recreational facilities owned by Russia's government, one in Maryland and one in New York, the U.S. said. The White House said Russia had been notified that Russia would be denied access to the sites starting noon on Friday.

Russian officials have denied the Obama administration's accusation that the Russian government was involved at the highest levels in trying to influence the U.S. presidential election.

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia's goal was to help Donald Trump win — an assessment Trump has dismissed as ridiculous.

The move puts the president-elect in the position of having to decide whether to roll back the measures once in office. </s> MOSCOW
• The Russian authorities have charged two officers in the Federal Security Service, or FSB, and an employee of cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab with committing treason in the interests of the United States, a lawyer representing one of the three said.

Mr Ivan Pavlov identified the three as Ruslan Stoyanov, head of Kaspersky's computer incidents investigation team, and two officers working for the FSB's Information Security Centre, Sergei Mikhailov and Dmitry Dokuchayev.

"My client, along with others, has been charged with state treason and cooperating with US intelligence services," Mr Pavlov told Reuters.

The arrests were made at a time of heightened tensions between Washington and Moscow after US intelligence officials accused Russian hackers of sabotaging last year's US election in favour of President Donald Trump.

Russian newspaper Kommersant first reported the arrests last week, which it said took place in December.

The Kaspersky team, headed by Stoyanov, has been cooperating with the FSB since 2013 in analysing cybercrime cases and offering expertise in criminal cases concerning cyber security, Kommersant reported.

Kaspersky Lab confirmed Stoyanov's arrest but said the charges related to a period before he joined the company in 2012.

Mr Pavlov declined to say which of the three he was representing, stating only that Stoyanov was not his client.

Interfax news agency, quoting a source familiar with the probe, also reported that Mikhailov and Dokuchayev were accused of betraying their oath and working with the US Central Intelligence Agency.

A Kremlin spokesman said Russian President Vladimir Putin was aware of media reports about the arrests but the Kremlin could not confirm anything about them.

The details made public so far are incomplete. Russian media reports link the charges to the disclosure of the Russian role in attacking state election boards, including the scanning of voter rolls in Arizona and Illinois, and do not mention the parallel attacks on the Democratic Party and the e-mail of Mrs Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman.

But one current and one former US official, speaking about the classified recruitments on condition of anonymity, confirmed that human sources in Russia did play a crucial role in proving who was responsible for the hacking.

Russian media says the FSB investigation into Mikhailov and Dokuchayev began after ThreatConnect, a US cyber security company, alleged that hackers used King Servers, an Internet hosting company, to attack US state election rolls.

The business partner of the owner of King Servers has long accused Mikhailov of working for the Federal Bureau of Invesitgation, the Financial Times reported yesterday. This is believed to have prompted the investigation into Mikhailov and Dokuchayev, a former hacker known as "Forb" who joined the secret services to avoid prison, according to Interfax.

Russian media often publishes news sourced from anonymous members of the secret services.

The stories often appear to push the Kremlin's line, reflect internal dissent among officials, be a deliberate attempt to mislead the public or a combination of all three, the Financial Times said.

The speed and detail in which elements of the case have been made public is, however, highly unusual.

Life, a tabloid whose owner boasts about bribing security officers for stories, reported on Tuesday that police found US$12 million (S$17 million) in cash stashed away in Mikhailov's home and dacha.
U.S. President Donald Trump says he and Russian President Vladimir Putin "discussed forming an impenetrable cyber security unit so that election hacking, and many other negative things, will be guarded and safe." Trump later says he does not think this will happen.