Germans are voting on Sunday in a rare snap election that has taken on outsize importance as the new Trump administration threatens European countries with tariffs, cuts them out of negotiations over Ukraine and embraces an authoritarian Russia.

The election for Parliament was called after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s unpopular and long-troubled three-party government collapsed in November. Seven months earlier than scheduled, the voting now falls in the midst of Europe’s struggle for strong leadership and as it recalibrates its relationship with the United States.

Despite the effort by politicians and countless volunteers to bring excitement to the race during the short, dark winter campaign, polls never much shifted. Friedrich Merz and his conservative Christian Democratic Union have a comfortable lead.

The hard-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, is expected to place second, riding on voter dissatisfaction with mainstream parties and fears of migration. Polls show it is likely to have its best showing ever.

Mr. Scholz’s Social Democrats, which eked out a victory in 2021, are expected to come in third, just ahead of the Greens. The Social Democratic party, the oldest party in Germany, may be poised for its worst showing since it was banned by the Nazis.

But uncertainties abound. Here are some things to watch for:

Two’s Company, Three’s a Crowd

No party is expected to get enough votes to govern alone and outright. The most important question will then be how many parties are needed to form a government.

Together, Mr. Merz’s center-right Christian Democrats and the far-right AfD are likely to have the broadest majority. But because the AfD is tainted by neo-Nazi associations, Mr. Merz and all mainstream party leaders say they will not form a government with it. Instead they will join together in what’s called the “firewall,” aimed at keeping extremists out of power.

That leaves the Social Democrats, though they are on the center-left, as Mr. Merz’s most likely partner. If the two of them don’t have enough support to form a majority, a third party will be needed.

The experience of the incumbent government showed just how difficult and unstable a three-party group can be. It’s an outcome that many analyst say would leave Germany almost back to when the last three-party government collapsed.

Little Kingmakers

It will be critically important, then, how well smaller parties will do and whether they get at least the 5 percent support needed to enter Parliament.

If polling is correct, the tiny Die Linke party, on the far left, seems likely to make it. Polls show it poised for a turnaround from last year when it appeared to be on its way to extinction after one of its most popular members, Sahra Wagenknecht, broke from it to form her own party.

The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW, as the new party is called, is running for the first time at a national level. Its prospects are uncertain.

Another party hovering near the threshold is the pro-business Free Democratic Party. Its leader, Christian Lindner, is the man who goaded Chancellor Scholz into kicking him out of the government, precipitating Sunday’s election. For him, the vote will be a test of whether that gambit to save his party pays off.

For all these parties, clearing the barrier to entering Parliament is an existential question; without seats in Parliament, they are much less visible and have access to much less funding.

But if they all make it into the Parliament, that is likely to complicate life for the bigger parties, reducing their number of seats and denying them the chance for a two-party coalition.

Will the ‘Firewall’ Hold?

If the AfD has an even stronger than expected showing — somewhere above 20 percent — and provokes an unwieldy effort to work around it, questions of how long the “firewall” by the mainstream can hold are likely to intensify.

Even among nationalist, anti-immigrant parties in Europe, the AfD is considered one of the more extreme. Parts of the AfD are closely monitored by German domestic intelligence agencies, which have labeled them extremist and potential threats to the Constitution. Party members have toyed with reviving Nazi slogans, downplayed the horror wrought by the Holocaust and have been linked to plots to overthrow the government.

Yet the party has been embraced by Trump administration officials. During the Munich Security Conference this month, Vice President JD Vance called on Germans to stop marginalizing far-right parties, saying, “there is no room for firewalls,” and he met with Alice Weidel, the AfD candidate for chancellor.

Elon Musk, the billionaire Trump adviser, interviewed Ms. Weidel on his social media platform X and endorsed her by video link before AfD supporters assembled at a rally, telling them that Germans had “too much of a focus on past guilt.”

The strength of the AfD’s showing, then, could prove a bellwether not only for German politics but also for political trends across Europe since Mr. Trump’s election to a second term.

And it may be judged as a gauge of whether those endorsements from Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk helped legitimize the party and gave it broader appeal, or potentially backfired, given the Trump administration’s newly antagonistic relationship with Germany and Europe.

When Will We Know?

First projections will come in once the polls close at 6 p.m. Sunday in Germany (noon E.S.T. in the United States). Because they are based on extensive exit polling, those numbers tend to be very accurate. During the last election, the exit polls were within 1 percent of the final vote that was posted hours later, once all ballots were counted.

But this year, exit polling could be less predictive. An unusual number of voters have told pollsters they had not yet made up their minds and an increasing number of voters use mail-in ballots and so they do not figure in exit polls.

Most Germans will be glued to their televisions at the close of polling. Expect pictures from various party headquarters, with everyone huddled around lead candidates — champagne flutes or beer steins in hand, depending on the party — waiting for those first results.

Pope Francis spent a restful night at the Rome hospital where he has been in critical condition as he undergoes treatment for pneumonia and a complex infection, the Vatican said Sunday.

Beyond the brief text — “The night passed quietly, the pope rested” — the Vatican did not provide further details, as concerns mounted worldwide about the health of the 88-year-old pontiff.

On Saturday, the Vatican had said that Francis had had a long “asthmatic respiratory crisis” earlier in the day that required “high flows of oxygen.” He also had a blood transfusion, but was alert, according to the Vatican, which is issuing bulletins in consultation with the medical staff at the hospital as well as the pope’s doctor at the Vatican.

Francis was admitted to the Policlinico Agostino Gemelli on Feb. 14 with a complex respiratory tract infection that developed into pneumonia in both lungs. Doctors said the calibration of his treatment was especially complex because of his age, and pre-existing lung disease.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, doctors had for the first time described Francis’s condition as critical, adding that his situation could change day by day. Sergio Alfieri, a surgeon who is on Francis’ medical team, has said that the pope had told him that he was aware of his own fragility and that his health was precarious. “ He told us both doors are open,” he said.

The Vatican said Sunday that Francis was using oxygen, was conscious and apparently experiencing discomfort associated with his trouble breathing.

The pope’s already full schedule had intensified since the beginning in December of the 2025 Jubilee, a year of faith, penance and forgiveness of sins that takes place every quarter century. But the hospital stay has meant the pope has had to cancel all imminent engagements.

At a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for deacons on Sunday, Archbishop Rino Fisichella called for “stronger and more intense” prayers “for the Lord to assist him in his time of trial and illness.”

In a written message instead of the Sunday Angelus prayer he normally delivers in St. Peter’s Square, Francis said he was continuing “confidently” with his “necessary treatment” in the hospital, adding: “and rest is also part of the therapy!” He thanked his doctors and those who have sent him messages of support, and asked people to pray for him.

Many were. At noon — the traditional time of the Angelus prayer — dozens of faithful gathered in the square in front of the Gemelli hospital. Some prayed silently or lit votive candles to place at the foot of a statue of St. John Paul II, another former patient of the hospital, alongside colorful balloons with “get well” wishes for Francis. Others recited the rosary.

Massimo Chiarucci and Sonia Salaro came to Rome from Latina, some 70 kilometers away, to pray that he recover.

“He’s like a grandfather, someone dear to us, that’s part of our lives,” said Ms. Salaro, a housewife. “We brought our prayers because he has to get better, he still has a lot to do, there’s a need for his intercession ” said Mr. Chiarucci, a surveyor.

Silvana Serrani, a resident of Rome who is originally from Buenos Aires, where Francis was once an archbishop, said the pontiff was a man who always put the poor first. “He was always a very simple man,” she said. “Let’s hope he gets better.”

For days now, prayer vigils have also been held around the world. A Mass to pray for Francis’s recovery was scheduled for later Sunday at the Basilica of St. John Lateran that was being presided over by Cardinal Baldassare Reina, vicar general of the Diocese of Rome. At the Gemelli, the preceding vicar general of Rome, Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, said he was one of many praying for Francis, “to ask for help to the Lord in this moment.”

“We hope the pope can feel the strong embrace of all those who love him, there are so many,” Cardinal De Donatis said. “And we wish him to continue his service.”

Jason Horowitz contributed reporting.

Israel and Hamas on Sunday accused each other of violating the already fragile Gaza cease-fire deal after Israel delayed the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners who were supposed to be exchanged for hostages.

The office of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the prisoners would not be freed until the release of further hostages “has been assured,” and Hamas committed to letting them go without “humiliating ceremonies.”

The growing tensions come after a week of mutual recriminations and strained nerves on both sides. The delay raised more questions about the future of the cease-fire for Gaza, with a temporary, six-week truce set to expire on March 1.

There is no clarity yet about a possible extension, or even whether serious negotiations have begun. Some members of Israel’s right-wing government are pressing for a resumption of the fighting after the initial phase of the cease-fire, which has provided a brief lull in the devastating war set off by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

On Saturday, Hamas released six Israeli hostages, the last living captives set to be freed in the first phase of the cease-fire. Earlier it had handed over the remains of four hostages, including those of Shiri Bibas and her two young children, who were all taken alive during the 2023 assault.

Israel was supposed to release 620 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in return, the largest group of detainees to be let go since the cease-fire in Gaza began last month, but it delayed the move, citing what Mr. Netanyahu’s office described as Hamas’s “cynical exploitation” of the hostages for propaganda purposes.

Late Saturday, dozens of Palestinian families, their faces somber, left a venue in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank where some prisoners were supposed to appear, after waiting there for hours in the hope of reuniting with their loved ones. Many families said they had received no official communication regarding the delayed release, relying instead on media reports and word of mouth.

Hamas has been releasing hostages in performative ceremonies aimed at showing that it is still in control of Gaza, a practice that many Israeli officials have condemned. On Saturday, five of the six living hostages were paraded on a stage, flanked by masked gunmen, prompting outrage in Israel. One hostage was seen on a stage kissing the heads of masked gunmen, as if in gratitude. His relatives later said he had been instructed to do so by a Hamas cameraman.

Anger was further inflamed when Hamas published a propaganda video footage on Saturday night showing two other Israeli hostages who had been forced to watch three of their fellow captives being released.

Repeatedly putting their shorn heads in their hands, the pair pleaded on camera for their freedom. Rights groups and international law experts say that a hostage video is, by definition, made under duress, and the statements in it are usually coerced. Israeli officials have called past Hamas videos a form of “psychological warfare,” and experts say their production can constitute a war crime.

In a statement Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu’s office accused Hamas of violating its agreement with Israel and said the prisoner releases would be postponed “until the release of the next hostages has been assured, and without the humiliating ceremonies.” On Thursday, Hamas is supposed to hand over the bodies of four more dead Israelis under the terms of the initial phase of the cease-fire.

Izzat Al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said in a subsequent statement on Sunday that Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to delay the prisoner releases “reflects a deliberate attempt to disrupt the agreement.” Mr. Al-Rishq also accused Israel of humiliating Palestinian prisoners and detainees during the release process, mistreating them “until the very last moments” and banning their families from holding celebrations.

Dozens of the prisoners slated to be released are serving life sentences for deadly attacks in Israel, while others had not been formally charged.

The recriminations came after an already turbulent week. On Thursday, Hamas returned four bodies it said were those of hostages who had died in captivity, among them that of Ms. Bibas. But forensic testing by Israel determined that the body was not hers. Late Friday, Hamas transferred another set of remains, which Israeli officials confirmed early Saturday as those of Ms. Bibas. The kidnapping and deaths of Ms. Bibas and her young children have become a symbol of Israeli grief and anguish.

Adding to the uproar, the Israeli authorities rejected Hamas’s assertions that Ms. Bibas’s young sons, Ariel, who was 4 when he was abducted, and Kfir, who was not even 9 months old, were killed in Israeli airstrikes, saying that an autopsy had shown that their captors had killed them “with their bare hands” then tried to make it look like they had died in a bombardment.

Dr. Chen Kugel, Israel’s chief pathologist, said on Saturday night that there was no evidence that Ms. Bibas, who was 32, had been killed in a bombing. He did not elaborate or present evidence for the assertion.

Hamas on Saturday accused Israel of lying regarding the fate of the Bibas family, without explaining the discrepancies. Israel’s military has said Ms. Bibas and her sons were held captive by a smaller armed group in Gaza, the Mujahideen Brigades.

About 60 hostages remain in Gaza, about half of them already assumed to be dead, according to the Israeli government.

The Hamas propaganda video of the two captives begging for their release unleashed a maelstrom of emotions in Israel, including a glimmer of hope for their families.

“I saw my son for the first time in 16 months,” Ilan Gilboa-Dalal, the father of Guy Gilboa-Dalal, one of the two hostages in the video, told Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster. “I heard his voice for the first time. For me, that gives me a bit of air, knowing that he’s okay,” he said.

On the other hand, he added, there was “nothing more cruel” than forcing his son and his friend, Evyatar David, the second hostage in the car, to watch the release ceremony.

Galia David, the mother of Evyatar, told Army Radio: “The consolation in that is that Evyatar and Guy are alive. But I could see through his eyes into his soul, and he is agonized.”

The two hostages in the car and the three on the stage were all abducted from a music festival, the Tribe of Nova, near the border with Gaza during the October 2023 attack.

Fatima AbdulKarim contributed reporting from Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Gabby Sobelman from Rehovot, Israel.

When the leaders of France and Britain meet President Trump at the White House this week, they can draw on a well-worn playbook for dealing with their mercurial host. But it is not clear that the old tricks will be enough to meet the new challenge.

After a week in which Mr. Trump branded President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine as a dictator, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain are no longer merely navigating a norm-busting president with a distaste for multilateral institutions and decorous diplomacy.

They are also trying to salvage a trans-Atlantic alliance that has fallen into existential crisis.

Mr. Trump’s hostile statements, coupled with his overture to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to go over Europe’s head to strike a peace settlement in Ukraine, have left some Europeans wondering whether the alliance that protected the continent for more than seven decades is already defunct.

So inviting Mr. Trump to a French military parade, as Mr. Macron did on Bastille Day 2017, or to a lavish banquet at Buckingham Palace, as Queen Elizabeth II of Britain did in June 2019, might not be sufficient to get things back on track.

“This is the moment of truth,” former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of Australia said in an interview. “They simply have to have the steel to stand up to Trump and tell him what they think, namely, that siding with Putin against Ukraine is a devastating blow to America’s prestige and standing in the world.”

Mr. Turnbull, who had his own clashes with Mr. Trump over refugees early in the president’s first term, said that efforts to charm or cajole him on an issue this fundamental would likely go nowhere. “If the price of getting along with Trump is abandoning your allies, that is too high a price to pay,” Mr. Turnbull said.

A critical problem, said diplomats who dealt with Mr. Trump in his first term, is that he is not the same leader he was then.

“When Trump arrived in 2017, he knew nothing and nobody,” said Gérard Araud, who was France’s ambassador to Washington and accompanied Mr. Macron to multiple meetings with Mr. Trump. “Now he thinks he knows everything, he’s more radical on the substance, and he is surrounded by yes-men.”

That will make it harder for the European leaders to move Mr. Trump off his erroneous claim that the United States, in giving billions of dollars of military support to Ukraine, was essentially the victim of a con job by an unpopular, undemocratic Ukrainian leader. Nor will it be easy, diplomats say, to warn Mr. Trump of the dangers of giving too much away to Mr. Putin in a negotiation.

That doesn’t mean the leaders won’t try.

Mr. Macron, who arrives at the White House on Monday, said during a live broadcast on social media last week, “I’m going to say to him, basically: ‘You can’t be weak against President Putin. It’s not you, it’s not your trademark, it’s not in your interest.’”

Mr. Starmer, who will be in Washington on Thursday, has not publicly shared his strategy for dealing with Mr. Trump. But British diplomats said they expected him to emphasize Britain’s willingness to do more to provide for Europe’s defense by contributing troops to a Ukraine peacekeeping force. Mr. Starmer made the troop commitment last week, but said it would work only if the United States acted as a “backstop.”

“Trump doesn’t do gratitude,” said Kim Darroch, who served as Britain’s ambassador to Washington during much of Mr. Trump’s first term. “But you will at least get some recognition that you are the most forward-leaning of the European countries about buying into his idea of a peace deal.”

British officials said Mr. Starmer would tell Mr. Trump that Britain was considering additional military aid to Ukraine and planned to increase spending on its own defense. Mr. Darroch said Mr. Starmer should pledge to boost Britain’s military spending to 2.5 percent of economic output by a specific date. (Mr. Starmer has promised to reach that threshold but has not set a deadline.)

The prime minister, Mr. Darroch said, should also press Mr. Trump to describe the peace deal he is seeking with Russia and what pressure he plans to put on Mr. Putin to achieve it. While Britain is expected to announce additional sanctions against Russia before Mr. Starmer goes to Washington, Mr. Trump has signaled a willingness to end Russia’s economic and diplomatic isolation.

Mr. Starmer showed some daylight between him and Mr. Trump after the president’s condemnation of Mr. Zelensky, telling the Ukrainian prime minister by phone that he was a “democratically elected leader” within his rights to “suspend elections during wartime as the U.K. did during World War II.”

On Saturday, Mr. Starmer and Mr. Zelensky spoke again, with Mr. Starmer discussing his upcoming meeting with Mr. Trump and reiterating that “Ukraine must be at the heart of any negotiations to end the war,” according to a readout of the call issued by 10 Downing Street.

Having made his point, Mr. Darroch said, Mr. Starmer should avoid getting drawn into a debate with Mr. Trump over Mr. Zelensky. Instead, he said, the prime minister should play to Mr. Trump’s vision of himself as peacemaker.

Mr. Araud agreed, saying: “It would be a mistake for the Europeans to argue with Trump about who started the war, or whether Zelensky is a dictator. That is a non-starter for a Trumpian approach.”

Mr. Araud said he expected Mr. Macron to press Mr. Trump for security assurances in return for Europe’s assembling a deterrent force. France and Britain are trying to persuade Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and the Baltic countries to join such a force.

Other French officials said they worried that Mr. Trump would insist on putting a cease-fire in place in Ukraine within weeks, with a goal of celebrating it with Mr. Putin in Red Square in Moscow on Victory Day, which commemorates the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, on May 9. He would be the first president to visit Russia in more than a decade — striking evidence of Mr. Putin’s diplomatic rehabilitation.

With little time to prevent that, French officials said they were scrambling to limit the damage. Among their deepest fears is that Mr. Trump will try to force an election in Ukraine, which would open the door to Russia-backed candidates, online smear campaigns and other forms of election interference.

Some experts argue that the leaders should appeal to Mr. Trump’s other priorities, notably America’s competition with China. Conceding too much to Mr. Putin, they said, could embolden China in its designs against Taiwan. It would also give China an incentive to draw closer to Russia in a coalition against the United States.

“If you make peace or impose peace in Europe and on Ukraine, on terms favorable to Russia, that actually makes it harder for you to deal with China,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, a former British ambassador to Belarus who is a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategy, a research organization in London.

But Mr. Gould-Davies and other analysts said that drawing Mr. Trump into a discussion of grand strategy had its limits. “For Trump, even more than most leaders, the personal is the political,” he said.

On Friday, Mr. Trump described Mr. Macron as a friend, but complained that neither he nor Mr. Starmer had “done anything” to end the war.

Mr. Starmer and Mr. Macron have both worked to cultivate Mr. Trump. Mr. Starmer did not get to know him until a dinner at Trump Tower in New York last September, but the two seemed to get along. “I like him a lot,” Mr. Trump said recently. “He’s liberal, which is a bit different from me, but I think he’s a very good person.”

Mr. Macron’s relationship with Mr. Trump goes further back and has weathered more bumps. After a honeymoon period marked by Mr. Trump’s attendance at the French military parade, the two leaders clashed over Mr. Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal.

Mr. Macron continues to reach out. In December, he invited Mr. Trump to attend the reopening of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris. He also scrambled to get on the president’s calendar in Washington before Mr. Starmer, whose Washington trip has been in the works for a few weeks.

None of that guarantees that his diplomatic efforts will work this time. During a state visit to Washington in 2018, Mr. Araud recalled, Mr. Macron mistakenly believed he had talked Mr. Trump into not withdrawing from the Iran deal.

“There is this element of unpredictability and unreliability,” Mr. Araud said. “Whatever he says on Day 1 doesn’t mean anything on Day 2.”

Catherine Porter contributed reporting from Paris.

The Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group fighting Sudan’s military in the country’s calamitous civil war, signed a political charter with its allies late Saturday that aimed to establish a parallel Sudanese government in areas under their control.

The paramilitaries said the agreement, which was signed in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, would pave the way for peace after nearly two years of a war that has killed thousands of people and set off a devastating famine. Critics called it an audacious gambit by a group that the United States has accused of genocide, and warned that the charter could further splinter Sudan.

The charter’s signatories included the deputy leader of the S.P.L.M.-N., a secular-minded rebel group that stayed out of the war until last week. Now it is firmly aligned with the Rapid Support Forces, more often referred to as the R.S.F.

The most immediate effect, though, was diplomatic. Triumphant appearances by R.S.F. leaders — many of them accused of war crimes and under American sanctions — in Kenya’s capital this past week set off a bitter public row between the two countries. Sudan’s military-led government accused Kenya of “disgraceful” behavior that it said was “tantamount to an act of hostility” and withdrew its ambassador from Nairobi in protest.

Kenya’s Foreign Ministry said it sought only to provide “a platform for key stakeholders” from Sudan, and to halt “the tragic slide of Sudan into anarchy.” Still, many in Kenya condemned the talks as a political blunder by President William Ruto, and called on him to reverse course.

The Kenyan chapter of the International Commission of Jurists said Mr. Ruto was “complicit in mass atrocities against the Sudanese people.” One Kenyan newspaper denounced the R.S.F.’s leader, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, as “The Butcher” on its front page.

After holding a lavish political event in Kenya’s main convention center on Tuesday, the signing ceremony on Saturday occurred behind closed doors. A video supplied by an R.S.F. official showed the group’s deputy leader, Abdul Rahim Dagalo, holding aloft a copy of the charter in a hall filled with mostly turbaned delegates, some of whom pumped their fists in the air.

An Arabic-language version of the charter, a 16-page document, seen by The New York Times, called for a “secular, democratic and decentralized state” in Sudan that would respect the religious and ethnic identity of all citizens.

But many Sudanese question the R.S.F.’s ability, or even desire, to govern in such a manner. R.S.F. fighters have a reputation for brutality and abuses, rather than sound administration, in areas they control. The group has not announced a timeline for the formation of its breakaway government.

Sudan’s de facto leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has also promised to form a new and more inclusive administration based in the wartime capital, Port Sudan.

Some critics accused Mr. Ruto of bowing to pressure from the United Arab Emirates, the R.S.F.’s main foreign backer and an increasingly influential force across Africa. In Kenya, Mr. Ruto has assiduously courted the Emirates as funding from China and Western investors has dried up.

A $1.5 billion loan from the Emirates, which Kenya hopes will alleviate its crushing debt, has been under negotiation for over four months. The loan is expected to be finalized later this week, Bloomberg reported on Friday.

The Trump administration has not yet commented on the R.S.F.-led political initiative in Kenya. The State Department did not mention Sudan in a statement that followed a call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Mr. Ruto on Friday.

Mr. Rubio, though, criticized Emirati support for what he termed the R.S.F. “genocide” during his confirmation hearing in January. In recent days, senior Republicans expressed disquiet at the sight of accused war criminals parading through the capital of a major American ally.

Kenya “is helping the RSF legitimize their genocidal rule in #Sudan under the guise of peacemaking,” Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote on social media.

The triumphant scene in the R.S.F. video contrasted with the group’s fortunes on the battlefield, where it has suffered a series of recent defeats. The military has recaptured swaths of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, in recent months, and pushed the paramilitaries out of a key breadbasket region in central Sudan.

Still, the R.S.F. retains control over a significant portion Sudan, Africa’s third largest country. Its troops are pressing in hard on the besieged, famine-stricken city of El Fasher, an urban area in the western region Darfur.

The undiminished support of the United Arab Emirates remains a potent source of military strength for the paramilitaries, American officials say. They also appear to have at least tacit support from several of Sudan’s neighbors including Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia — and now, perhaps, Kenya.

She first entered a church on a visit to Turkey. She remembers feeling a sense of calm so overpowering that she purchased a small Bible. She wrapped it in her clothes and smuggled it back to her hometown, Isfahan, in central Iran.

Artemis Ghasemzadeh’s conversion from Islam to Christianity evolved over a few years starting in 2019, through an Iranian network of underground churches and secret online classes. Three years ago, she was baptized and, in her words, “reborn.”

Converting was colossally risky. While Christians born into the faith are free to practice, Iran’s Shariah laws state that abandoning Islam for another religion is considered blasphemy, punishable by death. Some members of her Bible-study group were arrested.

So in December, Ms. Ghasemzadeh set out for the United States.

“I wanted to live freely, to live without fear, to live without someone wanting to kill me,” Ms. Ghasemzadeh, 27, said in a series of phone interviews.

Her journey has landed her in a migrant detention camp on the outskirts of the Darién jungle in Panama. She and nine other Iranian Christian converts, three of them children, are among dozens detained at the Saint Vincente camp. Their fate remains uncertain.

People fleeing violent religious persecution are normally eligible for asylum. But they have been caught in the Trump administration’s deportation push as the president tries to fulfill a campaign pledge to close the southern border.

“We don’t deserve this. We are in a place where we feel helpless” Ms. Ghasemzadeh said. “I am waiting for our voices to be heard, for someone to help us.”

Panama, which is separately under pressure from the Trump administration over control of the Panama Canal, has become a landing place for migrants who otherwise would have languished in detention in the United States — or potentially been released.

Panamanian officials have said that U.N. agencies are helping the migrants return to their countries or seek asylum in other nations, including Panama.

A Dangerous Conversion

Ms. Ghasemzadeh grew up in an upper-middle class family in Isfahan. Her businessman father was religiously conservative and strict with her and her three siblings. She did not tell him about her conversion.

Christianity appealed to her, she said, because its message sounded more peaceful and its rules less stringent than the version of Islam she had experienced in Iran.

The church applied extreme precautions to its underground gatherings, Ms. Ghasemzadeh said. Parishioners received one-time passwords to log into virtual meetings. In-person sermons and classes were hosted at different locations. Ms. Ghasemzadeh said she cherished her Christian community. Her older brother, Shahin, 32, also converted.

In 2022, a women-led uprising swept across Iran, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in custody of the morality police on allegations of violating the hijab rule. Ms. Ghasemzadeh said she protested nearly every day, chanting “Women, Life, Freedom.”

Like many women in Iran who have stopped wearing the hijab in an act of defiance, she let her long, dark hair flow in public. The government sent her text messages, summoning her before a judge, she said. She did not show up. If convicted of violating the hijab law, women can be fined.

Journey to America

In late December, Ms. Ghasemzadeh and her brother Shahin departed Iran, bound for the United States. She knew about Mr. Trump’s promise to crack down on migrants, but said she believed that he was only targeting criminals.

They went to Abu Dhabi, then South Korea and arrived in Mexico City. There, they asked around at a hotel and found a smuggler. He charged them each $3,000 and ferried them to Tijuana.

There, near the border wall in the middle of the night, the smuggler pointed to a ladder.

“Go,” she remembers the smuggler saying. “Climb the wall and go, quick.”

When her feet touched American soil, she burst into tears. “It’s over,” she said she told her brother. “We are finally here.”

The euphoria was short-lived. Minutes later, border agents surrounded them. They were transported to a detention facility and separated. She has not seen nor spoken to her brother since, she said. Her mother told her that he was taken to a facility in Texas, where he remains.

Ms. Ghasemzadeh said she repeatedly told the authorities that she was a Christian convert from Iran seeking asylum.

A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said that “not a single one of these aliens asserted fear of returning to their home country at any point during processing or custody.” Ms. Ghasemzadeh said that she was never interviewed about her asylum claim.

“They kept saying now is not the time, tomorrow morning,” she said.

She was shackled and put on a military plane to Panama on Feb. 12. The plane’s engine roared so loudly that her ears rang. The turbulence made her nauseous.

It was her 27th birthday.

Deported

Ms. Ghasemzadeh met nine other Iranians on the plane, all Christian converts, who remarkably shared a similar story. The group has since banded together.

For about a week, they were held inside a hotel under the watch of armed guards. The New York Times has been in daily contact with her since she arrived in Panama.

Ms. Ghasemzadeh, who like many Iranians of her generation is digitally savvy, made a video describing their plight and shared it with Persian news channels outside Iran. It went viral.

After she and others refused to sign documents that would pave the way for their repatriation, they were put on buses and sent to the jungle camp.

Ali Herschi, an Iranian-American human rights lawyer in Washington, represents the Iranians pro bono. Mr. Herschi said his priority was to stop Panama from deporting them to Iran. Then, he said, “appealing with American authorities to reverse course and allow the group re-entry to the U.S. on humanitarian grounds.”

The jungle camp, Ms. Ghasemzadeh said, looks like a large fenced cage. The sleeping area was muggy and the migrants did not have blankets. They were given one bottle of water and told to refill it from the bathroom faucet, she said.

Her arm was swollen and red from mosquito bites and one of the children in their group, Sam, 11, had fallen and injured his ankle. Medical staff told the Iranian parents the camp did not have an X-ray machine to determine if bones were broken, she said.

Panama has said the migrants have everything they need.

Every night Ms. Ghasemzadeh scribbles Christian quotes in a small notebook. On one page, she wrote to Jesus in Persian: “I am certain you can hear my voice from up there. So please help.” Next to it she drew a tiny red heart.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Sunday that he was willing to step down if it meant peace in Ukraine. His remark came days after President Trump questioned his legitimacy and called him a “dictator without elections,” echoing a Kremlin talking point.

At the same time, he continued to push back against Mr. Trump’s insistence that he sign a minerals deal that Ukraine says is unpalatable. And he announced a meeting on Monday of over 30 countries in person or online as a kind of coalition of support for Ukraine’s war effort.

It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Zelensky had seriously considered the option of stepping down or was merely responding to the latest jabs from Washington and Moscow. He added that he could trade his departure for Ukraine’s entry into NATO — a highly unlikely scenario given Mr. Trump’s opposition to allowing Ukraine into the military alliance.

“If it brings peace to Ukraine, and if you need me to step down — I am ready,” Mr. Zelensky said during a news conference on Sunday, on the eve of the third anniversary of the war. “Second, I can exchange this for NATO.”

For now, Mr. Zelensky said, Ukraine and the United States remain locked in negotiations over a deal to trade Ukraine’s minerals and other natural resources for American aid. Mr. Zelensky said he was still not ready to sign the United States’ latest proposal, which would require Ukraine to pay the United States $500 billion using revenues from its natural resources.

“I am not signing something that will be paid by ten generations of Ukrainians,” Mr. Zelensky said, noting that negotiations would continue.

The talks had already stretched late into Saturday night, according to two Ukrainian officials briefed on the negotiations, and coincided with a huge Russian drone assault on Ukrainian cities overnight. The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia had launched 267 drones, calling it a record since the war began three years ago. That claim could not be independently confirmed.

The buzz of attack drones flying over buildings echoed through the night in central Kyiv, the capital, followed by the sound of heavy machine guns trying to shoot them down. Ukraine said that most of the drones were shot down or disabled by electronic jamming, but that debris from destroyed drones damaged houses and sparked fires in parts of the capital.

On Saturday evening, President Trump ramped up pressure on Ukraine to sign the deal, which has now been under negotiation for more than 10 days. Several draft agreements have already been rejected by the Ukrainian side because they did not contain specific U.S. security guarantees that would protect Kyiv against further Russian aggression.

“I think we’re pretty close to a deal, and we better be close to a deal,” Mr. Trump told the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday evening, noting that he wanted payback for past American military and financial assistance to the war-torn country. He also said, “We’re asking for rare earth and oil — anything we can get.”

Frustration over the drawn-out negotiations has fueled an escalating dispute between Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Trump. The Ukrainian leader said that Mr. Trump was living in a “web of disinformation.”

On Friday, the United States proposed a new draft agreement, obtained by The New York Times, which still lacked security guarantees for Ukraine and included even tougher financial terms. The two Ukrainian officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations, said Ukraine sent back amendments on Saturday night.

The new draft agreement reiterated a U.S. demand that Ukraine relinquish half of its revenues from natural resource extraction, including minerals, gas and oil, as well as earnings from ports and other infrastructure.

Under the proposed deal, those revenues would be directed to a fund in which the United States would hold 100 percent financial interest, and Ukraine should contribute to the fund until it reaches $500 billion. That sum is more than four times as much as the value of U.S. aid committed to Ukraine so far and more than twice the value of Ukraine’s economic output in 2021, before the war.

“It’s astronomical for us, and I don’t understand why would you impose such a burden” on an economy already reeling from the war, said Victoria Voytsitska, a former Ukrainian lawmaker and energy expert. “It sounds like the next couple of generations will have to pay reparations under such a scheme.”

The agreement does not commit the United States to security guarantees for Ukraine, or promise further military support for Kyiv. The word “security” was even deleted from a formulation contained in a previous version of the deal, dated Feb. 14 and reviewed by The Times, which stated that both countries aimed to achieve “lasting peace and security in Ukraine.”

Instead, the agreement says that a portion of the revenues collected by the fund will be reinvested into Ukraine’s reconstruction. It also states that the United States intends to provide long-term financial support for Ukraine’s economic development, although no figure is specified.

This potential commitment aligns with an argument in the White House that the mere presence of American economic interests in Ukraine will deter future Russian aggression.

“This economic partnership would lay the foundations for a durable peace by sending a clear signal to the American people, the people of Ukraine, and the government of Russia about the importance of Ukraine’s future sovereignty and success to the U.S.,” Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury secretary, wrote in a Saturday opinion piece for The Financial Times.