Foreign Ministry spokeswoman says deployment of a post-conflict security force would be ‘fundamentally unacceptable’.

Russia has flatly rejected the prospect of any talks that consider the deployment of foreign troops in Ukraine.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that Moscow would not entertain discussion of an international post-conflict security force “in any format”.

“Russia is not going to discuss the fundamentally unacceptable and security-undermining foreign intervention in Ukraine in any form, in any format,” Zakharova told reporters on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.

Zakharova said that European leaders, who are working on plans for a multinational force in the event of an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, should take note that the “next time they aim to discuss this topic, they should have a pointer in the form of Russia’s position”.

“Judging by Ukraine’s losses, the European Commission has simply outdone itself,” she said.

Zakharova made her comments after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told The Financial Times earlier this week that the European Union had “pretty precise plans” for deploying a multinational force to Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders are set to meet in Paris on Thursday to firm up details of post-conflict security guarantees for Kyiv.

On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron said the details of the security guarantees for Ukraine had been worked out but remained “extremely confidential”.

“We are ready, we the Europeans, to offer the security guarantees to Ukraine and Ukrainians the day that a peace [accord] is signed,” Macron said.

Despite United States President Donald Trump’s pledge to bring a swift end to the conflict, Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on the terms of any potential peace agreement.

Russia has said that any deal with Ukraine would need to include land in four regions it has annexed since 2022, while Kyiv has ruled out ceding any territory.

Trump is scheduled to speak with Zelenskyy by phone on Thursday, and has said he intends to speak to Putin in the coming days.

The Trump administration purposefully chose a notorious Louisiana prison to hold immigration detainees as a way to encourage people in the US illegally to self-deport, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary Kristi Noem said Wednesday.

A complex inside the Louisiana state penitentiary, an immense rural prison better known as Angola, will be used to detain those whom Noem described as the “worst of the worst” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detainees. Noem was speaking to reporters as she stood on the grounds of the facility near a new sign reading, “Louisiana Lockup.”

“This facility will hold the most dangerous of criminals,” Noem said, adding it had “absolutely” been chosen for its reputation.

Officials said 51 detainees were already being housed at Angola. But Louisiana governor Jeff Landry said he expects the building to be filled to capacity, expecting over 400 people to come in ensuing months, as president Donald Trump continues his large-scale attempt to remove millions of people suspected of entering the country illegally.

The dirt road to the new Ice facility meanders past lofty oak trees, green fields and other buildings – including a white church and a structure with a sign that says, “Angola Shake Down Team”.

The facility is surrounded by a fence with five rows of stacked barbed wire. Overlooking the outdoor area is a tower, where a guard paced back and forth.

At the prison entrance a sign reads: “You are entering the land of new beginnings.”

The Associated Press joined officials for a brief tour of the facility, viewing some of the cells where detainees would be held. The cells, built of three cinder block walls and steel bars on the front, were single occupancy – one bed, toilet and sink in each.

Outside were confined enclosures of chain-link fencing, tall enough for multiple people to stand in.

“If you don’t think that they belong in somewhere like this,” Landry said of the detainees during Wednesday’s news conference, “you’ve got a problem.”

The building holding Ice detainees is not new, but rather refurbished after sitting vacant for years. The rest of Angola, which is made up of many buildings, has remained active. Many of Angola’s 6,300 inmates still work the fields, picking long rows of vegetables by hand as armed guards patrol on horseback.

In addition, the prison is home to more than 50 death row inmates. The most recent execution was in March, using nitrogen gas to deprive the inmate of oxygen, causing death. The state’s electric chair, nicknamed “Gruesome Gertie”, is still on display in the prison’s museum.

The notoriety of the 18,000-acre (7,300-hectare) prison stretches back well over a century. Described in the 1960s and 1970s as “the bloodiest prison in America,” it has seen violence, mass riots, escapes, brutality, inhumane conditions and executions.

The Trump administration has crafted its immigration messaging to reinforce a tough-on-crime image and create a sense of fear among people in the US illegally, most pointedly with the detention center dubbed Alligator Alcatraz that it built in the Florida Everglades.

The Everglades facility may soon be completely empty after a judge upheld her decision ordering operations there to wind down indefinitely.

Racing to expand the infrastructure necessary for increasing deportations, the federal government and state allies have announced a series of new immigration detention facilities, including the “Speedway Slammer” in Indiana and the “Cornhusker Clink” in Nebraska.

The approximate 400 people the Angola immigration facility will be able to hold is just a tiny percentage of the more than 100,000 people that Ice seeks to detain under a $45bn expansion for immigration detention centers that Trump signed into law in July.

The prison traces its history back to a series of wealthy slave traders and cotton planters who built an operation known as Angola Plantation. An 1850s news report said it had 700 slaves, who historians say were forced to work from dawn to dark in Louisiana’s brutal summer heat.

The plantation became the state prison after the Civil War, with a former Confederate officer awarded a lease that gave him control over the property and its convicts.

“The majority of black inmates were subleased to land owners to replace slaves while others continued levee, railroad, and road construction,” the museum’s website says. White inmates at the time worked as clerks or craftsmen.

Inmate leasing ended in the late 1800s amid a public outcry, and the state took direct control of the prison in 1901.

DETROIT – The Powerball drawing on Wednesday night is worth more than $1.4 billion.

The cash option for the jackpot is $634.3 million.

If someone wins the jackpot, it would be the fourth-largest Powerball jackpot ever and the sixth-largest jackpot in U.S. lottery history.

Michigan last saw a Powerball jackpot winner on Jan. 1, 2024. A Mid-Michigan lottery club won an $842.4 million prize with a ticket purchased in Grand Blanc. That remains the largest Powerball prize ever won in Michigan.

Winning Powerball numbers for Sept. 3, 2025

Powerball numbers: 61-29-69-16-03

Powerball: 22

Powerplay multiplier: 2x

How do you play Powerball?

Powerball tickets cost $2 per play. In Idaho and Montana, the game is bundled with Power Play, making the minimum cost $3 per play. They can be purchased at stores across Michigan or online at MichiganLottery.com.

Players select five numbers between 1 and 69 for the white balls, then one number between 1 and 26 for the red Powerball. Numbers can be chosen manually on a play slip or randomly by the lottery terminal.

The jackpot is won by matching all five white balls in any order and the red Powerball.

Drawings take place every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. Eastern time at the Florida Lottery draw studio in Tallahassee.

Jackpot winners can choose to receive their prize as an annuity, paid in 30 graduated payments over 29 years, or as a lump sum. Both prize options are before federal and jurisdictional taxes.