Russia has initiated its largest military draft in 14 years as reports indicate Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing a spring assault on Ukraine despite ongoing peace negotiations to end the three-year war. 

Putin has called up 160,000 men as part of the country’s bi-annual conscription drive as Russia seeks to beef up its military ranks.

According to the legislation, citizens aged 18 to 30 will be called up for mandatory military service through June 15. The spring draft marks the largest conscription campaign since spring 2011, when 200,000 men were called up for service. Last year, 150,000 men were called, following 134,500 in 2022.

The Kremlin and Defense Ministry insist the latest conscripts are not being sent into combat and that the draft is unrelated to the war in Ukraine. Russian authorities say troops deployed to Ukraine only include volunteers who signed contracts with the military.

Some draftees, however, fought and were taken prisoners when the Ukrainian military launched an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August.

Putin said late last year that Russia should increase the overall size of its military to almost 2.39 million and its number of active servicemen to 1.5 million.

It comes as a report suggests the Kremlin is preparing a six- to nine-month offensive across the Ukrainian front, potentially stretching over 1,000 kilometers, according to The New Voice of Ukraine. Potential targets include Sumy, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhya oblasts, as well as the Kursk Oblast, where they’ve seen recent success.

The offensive is also aimed at maximizing pressure on Ukraine and strengthening the Kremlin’s negotiating position in ceasefire talks, Ukrainian government and military analysts said.

Meanwhile, U.S.-led talks attempting to broker a ceasefire deal appear to have stalled. The U.S. has struggled in its efforts to secure an immediate 30-day ceasefire, despite Moscow saying it agreed with a truce ‘in principle.’ 

Rebekah Koffler, a former DIA intelligence officer who specializes in Russia’s war-fighting strategy and Putin’s thinking, told Fox News Digital that Putin’s goal with his conscription drive is to prolong the fighting.

‘There’s no ceasefire and no peace plan between Russia and Ukraine to be had,’ said Koffler, the author of a best-selling book ‘Putin’s Playbook.’ ‘What President Trump seeks is regretfully, unachievable. Putin’s goal is to keep fighting, in order to compel Ukraine to capitulate.’

Trump is trying to secure a peace and rare earth minerals deal, while on Sunday the president said he did not think Putin was going to go back on his word for a partial ceasefire.

Koffler, meanwhile, said the latest conscription numbers are intended to ensure that the correlation of forces on the battlefield and in reserves, continues to favor Russia. 

‘Now that Germany and France are considering to deploy reassurance forces into Ukraine, Putin is factoring in those numbers, so he is increasing his force’s posture, to deter such a deployment or failing to prevent it by force.’

‘Putin has prepared Russia for a long, protracted conflict, in which he wants the Russian forces to be ready to fight till the last Ukrainian and the last missile in the NATO arsenal,’ Koffler said.

She said Putin is also considering the possibility of having a direct kinetic war with NATO, in the event that NATO decides to deploy forces into the theater in Ukraine. 

‘So, he intends for these mobilization numbers as a deterrence value and battlefield utility, if it comes to that.’

Fox News’ Rachel Wolf and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

A well-known economist who was believed to be trying to influence the Trump administration’s economic policies in the lead-up to the inauguration is facing criticism for his opposition to President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts in line with the resistance from some of his group’s top donors. 

‘Elon Musk is not actually a popular person, and the frame of politics that the DOGE crew is pushing is not an effective brand of politics,’ American Compass founder and chief economist Oren Cass told Politico in February. 

Also in February, Cass wrote a piece for UnHerd, titled ‘Why DOGE will fail: There isn’t an easy button for everything,’ where he argued that ‘DOGE is haphazardly cutting expenditures without even knowing what they are.’

Cass has a long history of criticizing Musk, including last year when he took shots at Musk’s personal character and said in a post on X that Musk’s values are not aligned with the interests of the American people after the tech billionaire opened a factory in China. 

In March 2024, Cass posted that Musk has ‘already committed to upholding core socialist values’ to placate the Chinese Communist Party for financial gain. 

Fox News Digital previously reported on Cass positioning himself as an ally of the Trump administration and that a significant chunk of American Compass’ funding comes from a handful of foundations tied to liberal causes, including almost $2 million from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Omidyar Network, which is led by a founder described as ‘notable for funding liberal-in-conservative clothing groups that target former president Donald Trump and his supporters.’

The Hewlett Foundation gave nearly $2 million, 44.1% of total funding, to American Compass from 2020-2023, including a startup grant, while Pierre Omidyar, of the Omidyar Network, gave $550,000, 11.3% of total funding, from 2020-2023.

Both the Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network have resisted the Trump administration. 

Hewlett Foundation Director Of Economic And Society Initiative Jennifer Harris has been critical of Musk and DOGE’s efforts on X, including riposting a criticism doubting that DOGE cuts would result in actual savings and sharing a post that said, ‘The Air Crashes Of The Past Two Days Show Us The Obvious: The Man In Charge Of @DOGE Runs Companies That No One Would Miss If They Disappeared Tomorrow. If Good Government Disappears, People Die.’ 

The Atlantic posted a piece in February with the headline, ‘DOGE Is Failing on Its Own Terms.’ The bottom of that article stated, ‘Support for this project was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.’

The Omidyar Network has been active behind the scenes pushing resistance against Musk and the Trump administration, the Washington Examiner reported in November, and has opposed Musk in various forms and previously backed corporate boycotts against Musk, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

Along with his criticism of DOGE, Cass has been a vocal opponent of another one of the Trump administration’s top priorities, tax cuts.

Despite Cass offering some praise of Trump, he has been a longtime critic of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, calling them an ‘expensive failure’ and saying Trumpism is facing an ‘inevitable expiration’ and adding in September 2020 that Trump is ‘building no intellectual foundation, no institutional infrastructure and no policy agenda.’

‘Oren Cass is a former Romney staffer upset that Trump is cutting taxes and cutting government spending, DOGE shouldn’t care about the political assessment of a man who just lost a local school board election,’ Mike Palicz, director of Americans for Tax Reform, told Fox News Digital.

David McIntosh, Club for Growth president, told Fox News Digital in a statement, ‘So American Compass opposes the Trump tax cuts, and now Elon Musk’s work to cut federal government waste, it’s almost like he’s just a paid-puppet of the left – oh wait, he is.’

After Trump’s 2024 election victory, Cass continued to signal opposition to Trump’s tax policy. 

‘Well, I think we have today a politics where both candidates go around talking about how they`re just going to cut everybody`s taxes,’ Cass told PBS on Nov. 10. ‘And, of course, everybody likes a tax cut. But I don`t think those are the things that are going to turn our economy in a much better direction.’

During another interview earlier this year, Cass said one of the things he thought was ‘most encouraging’ was that there are no ‘mini Trumps’ and that he is ‘extremely encouraged’ by the post-Trump-era Republican leaders he is seeing.

‘American Compass advocates for limited government and a commitment to paying for the government that we have rather than leaving the bill to our children,’ Cass told Fox News Digital in November. ‘Anti-tax zealots can lobby for larger deficits if they want, but conservatives are under no obligation to follow them into the fiscal ditch.’ 

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a Hewlett Foundation spokesperson said, ‘The Hewlett Foundation funds grantees across the ideological spectrum, including American Compass—specifically for its efforts to prioritize American prosperity and American workers.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the Omidyar Network and American Compass for comment.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., is forcing a vote on legislation to enable new parents serving in Congress to vote remotely in the weeks surrounding the birth of their child.

Luna introduced the measure as a ‘privileged resolution’ on Tuesday, which gives House leaders two legislative days to take up the measure.

It’s the latest in an increasingly high-stakes fight between Luna and House GOP leaders, who have teamed up with some of Luna’s now-former House Freedom Caucus colleagues to ensure she cannot force a vote on the legislation.

Luna’s initial plan to fast-track her bill despite opposition from House GOP leaders involved a discharge petition, a mechanism for getting a bill onto the House floor if it gets a majority of lawmakers’ signatures – which Luna’s resolution did.

But Republican leaders had language inserted into an unrelated package of bills in the House Rules Committee on Tuesday morning that would have neutered Luna’s effort in a move that rankled GOP supporters of proxy voting.

Even some Republicans on the House Rules Committee, which did ultimately advance the measure, were frustrated by what they saw as a last-minute play by leadership that was done without briefing those GOP lawmakers, Fox News Digital was told.

House GOP leaders will likely opt for a procedural vote to ‘table’ the resolution or to refer it to the relevant committee for consideration via the traditional route – both moves that would all but kill the bill. If that fails, however, the legislation could very well pass with support from all Democrats and just a few House Republicans, given the GOP’s slim majority.

Luna accused conservatives of holding Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., ‘hostage’ on the matter in a letter to fellow House Republicans on Monday night. She also announced she was leaving the House Freedom Caucus, citing a small group of conservatives who have pressed leaders to kill her measure.

Luna’s bill, which is co-led by Rep. Brittney Pettersen, D-Colo., would give new moms and dads serving in Congress the ability to vote by proxy for up to 12 weeks surrounding the birth of their child.

In her letter she shared praise for House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., whose conduct she called ‘gentlemanly,’ but added, ‘With a heavy heart, I am resigning from the Freedom Caucus.’

‘I cannot remain part of a caucus where a select few operate outside its guidelines, misuse its name, broker backroom deals that undermine its core values and where the lines of compromise and transaction are blurred, disparage me to the press, and encourage misrepresentation of me to the American people,’ Luna wrote.

Johnson said he believed proxy voting was ‘unconstitutional’ in remarks after House Republicans’ regular closed-door meeting last week, and spoke out on the issue again this week.

‘We addressed this in conference this morning. A couple of our, a handful of our colleagues, have gotten behind the effort, and, look, I’m a father. I’m pro-family,’ the speaker said last week. ‘Here’s the problem. If you create a proxy vote opportunity just for young parents, mothers and, the fathers in those situations, then where is the limiting principle?’

U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer announced on Monday that her department will return over $1 billion in unused COVID-era funding back to the taxpayer amid the Trump administration’s push for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to slash waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.

In a press release, the Labor Department said $1.4 billion of unspent COVID funding will be ‘returned to taxpayers through the U.S. Department of Treasury’s General Fund’ and added that ‘action’ is ‘being taken to recover the remaining $2.9 billion.’

 ‘The roughly $4.3 billion was intended for states to use for temporary unemployment insurance during the pandemic,’ the press release states. ‘Instead, several states continued spending millions of dollars despite no longer meeting necessary requirements, which was uncovered in a 2023 audit conducted by the department’s Office of Inspector General.’

The department explained in the press release that the funding originated from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act in March 2020 and that the program was meant to provide expanded unemployment insurance for Americans who were not able to work during the pandemic.

The program was closed in 2021, the department said, but the 2023 audit ‘found four states were allowed to access the funding ‘despite not meeting program requirements,’ totaling over $100 million in spending.’

‘There’s no reason leftover COVID unemployment funds should still be collecting dust,’ DeRemer told Fox News Digital in a statement. ‘I promised to look out for Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars, and we are delivering at the Department of Labor.’

‘Any money still sitting around for pandemic-era unemployment funds is a clear misuse of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars,’ Chavez-DeRemer said in the press release, adding that she is ‘rooting out waste to ensure American Workers always come First.’

Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling said in a statement, ‘It’s unacceptable that billions of dollars went unchecked in a program that ended several years ago.

‘In a huge win for the American taxpayer, we’ve clawed back these unused funds and will keep working to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse.’

The announcement comes after DeRemer said in her first memo to the department after taking over last month that she plans to comply with Trump’s executive orders and work with DOGE to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.

‘Under the leadership of President Trump, our focus remains on promoting job creation, enhancing workforce development, and ensuring safe working conditions, wages, and pensions so that every American has the opportunity to succeed,’ DeRemer said to employees in the memo. ‘I challenge each of you to actively engage with your teams to identify innovative solutions that can help us achieve our goals.’ 

Chavez-DeRemer said that the Labor Department must align with the priorities of the Trump administration and ‘must focus on practicing fiscal responsibility, reducing unnecessary spending, and optimizing our resources to ensure that taxpayer dollars are utilized effectively.’ 

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich condemned the wave of federal judges blocking President Donald Trump’s agenda as a ‘judicial coup d’etat’ on Tuesday.

Gingrich made the comments while testifying at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing focused on ‘judicial overreach’ by U.S. district court judges across the country. The former lawmaker highlighted that the vast majority of judges filing injunctions or restraining orders against Trump’s executive actions have been appointed by Democrats.

‘Mr. Gingrich, I’m told that 92% of the judges who have issued blanket injunctions against the administration have been appointed by Democrats. That at least suggests a partisan tilt to all of this… doesn’t that undermine public confidence in our courts?’ Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., asked at the hearing.

‘If you look at the recent reports from various polling firms, clearly a majority of Americans believe that no single district judge should be able to issue a nationwide injunction,’ Gingrich responded.

‘Look, my judgment is as a historian. This is clearly a judicial coup d’etat. You don’t have this many different judges issue this many different nationwide injunctions – all of them coming from the same ideological and political background – and just assume it’s all random efforts of justice,’ he continued.

‘This is a clear effort to stop the scale of change that President Trump represents,’ he added.

Gingrich went on to argue that it is unacceptable for ‘random’ judges to micromanage the president of the United States.

‘They put both Americans and the nation at risk when they intervene to become basically alternative presidents. You now have potentially 677 alternative presidents, none of whom won an election,’ he said.

The best solution for the wave of injunctions is for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to intervene, Gingrich said. Roberts could ensure that any such rulings from lower federal courts could move straight up to the Supreme Court.

At the center of the court controversy is District Judge James Boasberg, who attempted to block the Trump administration from deporting members of the Tren de Aragua gang to El Salvador. Other judges have placed injunctions on Trump’s efforts to trim down the federal government.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., met privately with Republican judiciary committee members last week for what sources called a ‘brainstorming’ session on how to respond to judges like Boasberg.

Ideas raised by lawmakers included a fast-tracked appeals process, wielding Congress’ spending power over the judiciary, and limiting the ability to ‘judge shop.’

And some conservatives are eager to target specific judges they believe are abusing their power via the impeachment process, but House Republican leaders are wary of that route and believe it to be less effective than other legislative avenues.

Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.

A U.S. appeals court on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s request to pause a lower court ruling that temporarily blocked its ban on transgender military service members – a near-term blow as the administration signals it may take the case to the Supreme Court.

The three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the administration’s request for an administrative stay, which would have allowed it to enforce the ban while a lower court weighs the case.

Instead, the appellate court decision leaves in place, for now, a preliminary injunction handed down late last month by U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle. That decision blocked the Trump administration from identifying and removing transgender service members for the near-term while the case proceeds in lower court.

‘The Department of Justice has vigorously defended President Trump’s executive actions, including the Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness Executive Order, and will continue to do so,’ a spokesperson for the Justice Department told Fox News Digital. 

The Trump administration filed its appeal to the 9th Circuit last week, seeking to overturn Judge Settle’s preliminary injunction. 

In court filings, the government argued that the transgender military policy ‘furthers the government’s important interests in military readiness, unit cohesion, good order and discipline, and avoiding disproportionate costs.’

However, the policy has already faced a wave of early legal challenges.

Settle, who is based in Tacoma, Washington, is not the only federal judge to block the Trump administration’s transgender military ban this year. Last month, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes also temporarily blocked Trump’s ban, citing what she described as a lack of evidence to support the administration’s stated rationale for the policy.

Reyes vehemently contested the government’s assertion that being transgender is ‘not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.’ 

Reyes noted in a scathing, 79-page ruling that transgender service members have provided a combined total of ‘over 130 years of military service,’ have been deployed around the globe, including currently in an active combat zone, and together have earned more than 80 commendations and medals for their service. 

The three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit broke with Reyes’s order, however – agreeing to grant the Trump administration an administrative stay.

Still, the judges stressed that the stay ‘should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits’ of the case. The panel also said they reserve the right to reconsider the administrative stay if the military is found to have taken adverse action against passenger service members. 

President Donald Trump ordered the ban in question shortly after taking office in a January executive order. The order states that the ‘adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life’ – which plaintiffs have vigorously contested. 

The case is one of many that will likely be kicked up to the Supreme Court.

Lt. Gen. Daniel ‘Razin’ Caine, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. top military officer, side-stepped questions from Senate Democrats about his view on the recent Signal leak controversy roiling the Trump administration, but he did say the ‘element of surprise’ should be safeguarded as a result of the incident. 

Democrats, including Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, repeatedly asked Caine about how he would respond to hypothetical scenarios regarding the leak, during a Thursday confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Caine, careful with his responses, repeatedly stressed the importance of ‘preserv[ing] the element of surprise,’ adding that he has ‘always’ communicated sensitive information using the proper channels. 

Blumenthal charged that the ‘element of surprise was very likely lost’ as a result of the leak. 

While the Trump administration and its supporters have denied that anything discussed in the Signal chat amounted to war plans, critics have disagreed, citing the fact the chats included a detailed timeline about a U.S. attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen.

‘Because of your extraordinary service, general, I can’t imagine anyone better qualified to answer this question,’ Blumenthal said to Caine. ‘Knowing what you do, about the substance of that conversation, how would you feel?’

‘Well, Senator, I stand by what I said before. I think we all can agree that we need to always protect the element of surprise,’ Caine said.

‘And that element of surprise was very likely lost, if there had been any intercept by one of our enemies or adversaries that could be conveyed to the Houthis. Correct?’ Blumenthal asked. 

‘That’s a little bit of a hypothetical question, but, I am thankful, as always, that we we protect our servicemen and women who are going into combat operation,’ Caine replied.

Hirono questioned Caine with a similar hypothetical but went a step further and asked if he would ‘just let this matter drop,’ as she claimed the Trump administration is doing.

‘It’s really not a hypothetical. It is what is confronting this administration,’ Hirono said.

‘Given the fact that the chairman and ranking member have asked for an investigation, I don’t want to comment on the particulars,’ Caine relented as Hirono hounded for an answer. ‘I do want to stay at the strategic altitude and say that we should always preserve the element of surprise.’

Reed proceeded to ask Ciane if he ‘were on that conversation’ would he have ‘objected to the fact that it was being conducted on Signal?’

‘Well, Senator, you know, I was not in that chat,’ Caine responded.

‘I know that that’s why I asked if you were,’ Reed said.

Caine asserted that he has ‘always communicated proper information in the proper channels.’

Caine was tapped by Trump to replace Biden-appointed Gen. Charles Q. ‘C.Q.’ Brown Jr. after he was fired in February.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is a group of senior military officials who advise the president, the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Council on military matters. The JCS consists of the highest-ranking officers from the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and National Guard, with the chairman serving as the highest principal military advisor.

The chairman is typically required to have served as a four-star general in charge of a military service branch or as a combatant commander, qualifications Caine does not possess. However, the president has the authority to waive these requirements if deemed necessary for national interests. 

Caine’s extensive Air Force military background includes serving as a decorated F-16 combat pilot and playing critical roles in special intelligence operations. Given the slim Republican majority, his full Senate confirmation would require near-unanimous support from Republican senators.