A standoff between Ukraine’s defense minister and the official in charge of procuring weapons threatened to escalate on Monday, stirring dissent in the government at a critical time as it seeks to persuade President Trump to maintain American support in its war with Russia.

The dispute erupted three days ago when the minister, Rustem Umerov, said he would not renew the contract of the official, Maryna Bezrukova, citing “unsatisfactory” results. But on Monday, Ms. Bezrukova said she would remain in her position, pointing out that her contract had been renewed by her agency’s supervisory board and that Mr. Umerov had no right to override that decision.

The agency was established to ensure transparency and efficiency in acquiring arms. Activists and some lawmakers, including a prominent one in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s party, denounced Mr. Umerov’s move as an abuse of power undermining anticorruption efforts.

“The minister’s action is a serious offense against our legislation and corporate governance,” Ms. Bezrukova said in an interview over the weekend, calling it an “attack” on the agency’s efforts to cut out questionable intermediaries Ukraine has sometimes relied on to buy weapons during the war.

She reported to her office on Monday, and it was unclear how the standoff would be resolved.

The dispute threatens to weaken an organization that managed over $7 billion in weapons procurement last year and has become a partner for Western allies channeling funds into Ukraine’s growing defense industry — a new initiative aimed at developing an alternative for dwindling arms supplies from the West.

After meeting with government and agency officials in Kyiv on Monday to discuss the standoff, diplomats from the Group of 7 nations urged in a statement that the situation “be resolved expeditiously and focus on keeping defense procurement going.” It said that “consistency with good governance principles and NATO recommendations is important to maintain the trust of the public and international partners.”

The head of the Ukrainian Parliament’s anticorruption committee has called for the defense minister’s resignation, but it seems unlikely that he will resign, as Mr. Zelensky has not offered any criticism so far. Mr. Umerov did not respond to a request for comment.

This is not the first time the Ukrainian government has moved to oust officials with responsibility for reforming state institutions, some of whose efforts have caused internal friction.

But the attempt to dismiss Ms. Bezrukova comes as Ukraine is struggling to send enough weapons to troops at the front trying to fend off the Russian invasion that began in 2022 and faces the risk of losing vital arms supplies from its key ally, the United States. Activists are also concerned that it sends the wrong message to Western partners who have expressed concerns about corruption in Ukraine.

“What minister Umerov is doing is sabotaging our defense capabilities and our ability to keep the trust of our international partners regarding weapons procurement,” said Daria Kaleniuk, the executive director of Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center, a group dedicated to rooting out public graft that is now focused on war profiteering.

Mr. Umerov said in a post on Facebook that the agency had failed in the “timely supply of ammunition to our army” and had instead become embroiled in “political games, leaks of contracts, and leaks of information.” He did not provide specific examples.

Tamerlan Vahabov, a former adviser to Ms. Bezrukova who resigned last year, has also criticized the agency, saying it had sometimes failed to effectively evaluate contracts. He said the agency leaned too heavily on purchasing from state companies instead of private suppliers.

Ms. Bezrukova was appointed a year ago, after Mr. Umerov took over as defense minister, and promised to root out corruption in the ministry following a series of revelations about mismanaged contracts for weapons and basic supplies such as food.

The main task of Ms. Bezrukova, a former top manager at the national electricity company, was to eliminate intermediaries, often shady arms dealers who were inflating prices. She said the agency had reduced Ukrainian intermediaries’ share of procurements from 81 percent in 2023 to just 12 percent last year. These figures could not be independently verified.

Ms. Bezrukova said her work led to tensions with the ministry. She claimed that defense officials pressured her to sign a contract with a state-owned Ukrainian weapons factory that lacked the workers and gunpowder to produce mortar shells. Many of the shells failed to fire after being sent to the front setting off a major scandal in Ukraine.

Mr. Vahabov said that even if she faced pressure, Ms. Bezrukova should have been more vocal in opposing the contract. He also said that she could have conducted more due diligence controls of production of the weapons at the factory.

Ms. Bezrukova said she had hoped that the creation of a supervisory board at the agency late last year, a move applauded by Western partners, would help safeguard her independence. “I don’t want to be window dressing or a reputational washing machine,” she said in the interview Saturday.

However, a day before the board’s first meeting, on Dec. 17, the defense ministry amended the agency’s charter, effectively granting the ministry final authority over most of the board’s decisions. “They de facto sterilized the board’s authority,” said Yuriy Dzhygyr, the chairman of the board.

After the supervisory board voted last week to extend Ms. Bezrukova’s contract for one year, Mr. Umerov said he would not renew her contract and announced the dismissal of two state representatives on the board, including Mr. Dzhygyr.

Ms. Kaleniuk, the anticorruption activist, said the charter did not grant the defense ministry a say in extending the agency head’s contract. The charter, reviewed by The New York Times, does, however, allow the defense ministry to dismiss any agency official “in the event of identified existing or potential threats to Ukraine’s national security.”

It remains unclear on what legal grounds Mr. Umerov decided to fire Ms. Bezrukova.

On Monday, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau opened an investigation into Mr. Umerov over accusations of abuse of power. The inquiry follows a complaint filed by the Anti-Corruption Action Center, according to a letter from the bureau to the group, which was shared with The Times by Ms. Kaleniuk.

With Western partners unable to supply all the weapons Ukraine needs, the agency has helped enact an initiative that uses Western funds to pay for contracts signed with local arms manufacturers. The defense ministry said that more than half a billion dollars’ worth of weapons were produced through this new mechanism last year.

Whether that will still happen is unclear.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States, a research institution, raised concerns about the Ukrainian infighting.

“This is the worst possible time,” it said in a statement, “for Kyiv to turn back the clock on a defense reform success story: when Ukraine needs additional funding for weapons and cynical opponents in Moscow and in certain quarters of Washington are looking for reasons to cast doubt upon the integrity of Ukrainian defense governance.”

Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting.

In the end it took only about 12 hours for President Trump’s first head-to-head confrontation with one of the United States’ closest allies in Latin America, a blowup over Colombia’s rejection of U.S. military flights to return illegal immigrants, to result in a complete retreat by the target of Mr. Trump’s threats.

It wasn’t much of a contest. Colombia depends on the United States for more than a quarter of its exports. And while the specifics of the dispute will probably be quickly forgotten, the rapid-fire threat by Mr. Trump to impose crushing tariffs, and the quick surrender by President Gustavo Petro, are likely to encourage Mr. Trump as he contemplates how to make use of the same weapon against new targets.

There is little mystery about whom he has in mind: Denmark, whose prime minister told him Greenland was not for sale during a heated, expletive-filled conversation almost two weeks ago, and Panama, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio is supposed to land in a few days to demand it return control of the Panama Canal to the United States — the country that built it, 120 years ago.

Welcome to the age of what Fred Kempe, the president of the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, characterized as the era of “more mercantilism, less free trade and more big-power swagger.”

The Sunday diplomatic debacle with Colombia had elements of all three. But it was also instructive about how foreign-policy decision-making in the Trump White House happens: There were no policy papers, or Situation Room meetings to weigh options, or talk of a quiet mission to de-escalate tensions with an ally whose cooperation America needs on a variety of problems. That would be how a dispute over returning Colombians, deported because they were in the United States illegally, would be resolved in an ordinary presidency, whether the president was a Democrat or Republican.

In this case, perhaps there wasn’t much need for internal debate: Colombia is not China, or Russia, or even North Korea and Iran, all countries that have ways to strike back at the United States or its interests. So it was an easy target — and a relatively cost-free place for Mr. Trump to make a point about how he envisions the use of American power.

There was no such process in this case — and no time for such a process. It unfolded first on social media, with an angry post by Mr. Petro declaring that he would not allow the United States to land military aircraft in his country bearing shackled Colombian returnees. “I cannot make migrants stay in a country that does not want them,” Mr. Petro wrote, “but if that country sends them back, it should be with dignity and respect for them and for our country.”

Mr. Trump shot back on Truth Social — where he puts pronouncements before they are released by the White House press office (which catches up by citing the Truth Social posts) — demanding that Mr. Petro get out of his way or watch his economy be crushed. He vowed to impose 25 percent tariffs on Colombian exports right away, which would obviously affect the crude oil, coal and coffee industries. The tariffs would double if Mr. Petro didn’t fold on the issue within a week, Mr. Trump said. For good measure he called the Colombian president a “socialist,” which Mr. Petro would freely admit.

What happened next was fascinating: Mr. Petro briefly fought back, announcing his own tariffs on American imports and accusing Mr. Trump of trying to topple his democratically elected government. “You don’t like our freedom, fine,” Mr. Petro wrote. “I do not shake hands with white enslavers.”

There was a lot of history here, of course. One hundred twenty-two years ago, the United States supported a Panamanian revolution against Colombia, knowing it would speed the way to building the canal. It is an era Mr. Trump keeps talking about wistfully.

Presumably, Mr. Petro looked at his chances of coming out on top of this conflict and decided it was zero. And he quickly decided his best course was to get out of Mr. Trump’s way. The military flights could resume, his foreign ministry announced. There were more words about demanding that the passengers be treated with dignity, but clearly that was not enforceable. The United States suspended the tariff increases before they happened, and Mr. Rubio said that visa restrictions on Colombian leadership would remain until the planes actually landed.

So when the day was over, not much had changed. Mr. Petro had turned away some flights, Mr. Trump had threatened retaliation, Mr. Petro had folded, and the status quo had largely resumed.

But to anyone trying to figure out the next moves on the part of the Trump administration, there were a lot of indicators in this blowup about where things may be headed.

Start with Denmark, whose prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, had a fraught, aggressive conversation with Mr. Trump just five days before he was inaugurated. Having heard his threat that he might use military or economic coercion to get his way on Greenland and the Panama Canal, she opened with ideas about how the United States could expand its existing military presence in Greenland — there is a Space Force base there — and help exploit its considerable mineral resources. Mr. Trump wasn’t interested in cooperation; he wanted control, perhaps ownership, and seemed happy to encourage a movement in Greenland to seek independence from Denmark to get there.

It was a remarkable exchange. Denmark is, after all, a NATO ally, and over the past month Mr. Trump has talked about using all the elements of American power — economic and military — to reach the goal of forcing it to surrender territory. If ever there was an example of how Mr. Trump is uninterested in maintaining the post-World War II “rules-based order” and replacing it with superpower politics, this was it.

Denmark “would have been eager to negotiate with the Americans on basing rights, resource development, Arctic security coordination and whatever else the Trump Administration wanted,” Ian Bremmer, who heads the Eurasia Group consultancy, wrote on Monday morning. “It’s now more likely that Greenland will vote for independence in an upcoming referendum, creating its own security deal with the Americans, critically undermining U.S. relations with Denmark and, with it, the Nordic Bloc.”

And then there is Panama, getting ready to receive Mr. Rubio. Usually a secretary of state’s first visit is all about reaffirming alliances and looking forward to years of cooperation. Mr. Rubio’s arrival will probably include some of that — and a demand that the Panama Canal Treaty be scrapped and the arrangement go back to what Theodore Roosevelt had in mind in 1903: American control.

The man who is favored to be Germany’s next chancellor has opened the door to working with the Alternative for Germany to pass tough new immigration restrictions, potentially breaking a longstanding effort to shun a party whose flirtation with Nazi language has made it anathema to the political mainstream.

The opening by Friedrich Merz, the leader of the center-right Christian Democrats, who leads in the polls for the chancellor election next month, came after a knife attack last week in Bavaria by a mentally ill Afghan immigrant that killed two people, including a toddler.

The attack, the latest in a string of high-profile killings carried out by immigrants, has since upended Germany’s parliamentary election, set for Feb. 23, refocusing what had been an economy-themed campaign toward the contentious issue of migration.

Mr. Merz is trying to show voters that he and his party are serious about tightening Germany’s borders and following through on deportations of migrants whom authorities have determined should leave the country.

But until now, all parties at the national level had built what is colloquially known as a “firewall” around the AfD, hoping to blunt the party’s move into the mainstream.

The AfD is currently running second in polls before the election, sitting comfortably ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, though well behind Mr. Merz’s Christian Democrats.

Migration concerns have risen in Germany, where millions of refugees and other migrants have arrived in the last decade, largely from Syria and Ukraine. The AfD has made promises of border crackdowns and deportations of some migrants a centerpiece of its pitch to voters.

Other parties, including the CDU and Social Democrats, have promised new migration restrictions, particularly after a Syrian immigrant killed three people last summer in a stabbing attack in the city of Solingen.

But until last week, those mainstream parties had campaigned more heavily on promised fixes to Germany’s stagnating economy than on migration policy. The Bavarian attacks changed that script.

Mr. Merz has pushed in recent days to force a vote in Parliament over migration legislation. The plan would bring permanent border patrols, would stop anyone from entering the country without legal papers and place in custody all migrants who have been ordered to leave the country.

The legislation could pass on the strength of votes from the AfD, forming a partnership that mainstream German political parties have long treated as taboo, and drawing fierce criticism from other mainstream political leaders.

“Friedrich Merz is willing to make common cause with the AfD,” Lars Klingbeil, the co-leader of Mr. Scholz’ Social Democratic party, told the Rheinische Post, a regional daily newspaper. “In doing so, he is abandoning the CDU’s previous principles in its dealings with the AfD, splitting the democratic center of our country and alienating our European partners,” he added.

Mr. Merz defended his plan to support the restrictions.

“What is right in principle is not made wrong by the fact that the wrong people vote for it,” he said Monday.

The 28-year-old Afghan immigrant, whom German media outlets have identified as Enamullah O., attacked and killed a two-year-old Moroccan boy with a large kitchen knife. The boy and his friends, as well as their minders, were on a preschool outing in the park in Aschaffenburg, a quaint town in the state of Bavaria, close to Frankfurt. A bystander who attempted to stop the attacker was also killed. One of the teachers and a 61-year-old man were hurt.

The man suspected in the attack, who lived in asylum housing nearby, has been remanded to a closed psychiatric ward, authorities have said.

The seemingly random killings galvanized the country in ways similar to other attacks last year. Last May, a refugee from Afghanistan attacked a far-right demonstration, injuring five and killing a police officer. In December, a man who had immigrated from Saudi Arabia decades earlier drove into a Christmas market, killing 5 and injuring hundreds.

Some officials urged caution in response. Jürgen Herzing, the mayor of Aschaffenburg, a town of nearly 80,000 inhabitants, warned that despite “parallels” with other recent attacks, people should refrain from acts of revenge.

“We cannot and must not blame an entire population group for the actions of an individual,” Mr. Herzing said.

But political leaders were swift to call for action, most notably those with the AfD.

“The Aschaffenburg knife murders must lead to a change in asylum policy: dangerous asylum seekers are to be deported,” Tino Chrupalla, one of the two party leaders of the AfD, wrote in a post on social media just hours after the news broke.

Mr. Scholz issued a statement calling the killing an “unfathomable act of terror.” But he stopped short of visiting the site of the crime, as he did after other similar attacks.

A version of the bill that Mr. Merz is expected to bring to Parliament contains a paragraph criticizing the AfD for seizing on problems associated with “massive illegal migration” to promote xenophobia.

But despite earlier assurances that under his watch his Christian Democratic Party would never rely on the AfD for votes, Mr. Merz did not rule out doing so in this case.

“I don’t look to the right or the left. I just look straight ahead on these issues,” he said last week.

The AfD celebrated Mr. Merz’s announcement, implying that the legislation is little more than a copy of what the AfD has demanded.

“The firewall has fallen! The CDU and CSU have accepted my offer to vote together with the AfD in the Bundestag on the crucial issue of migration,” the AfD’s chancellor candidate, Alice Weidel, wrote in a post on X.

“This is good news for our country!” she added.

New Zealand relaxed its visa requirements for remote workers on Monday, as the country looked to spur economic growth by courting “digital nomads,” the skilled professionals who can work from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection.

With the new policy, a New Zealand visitor visa, which allows foreigners to remain for up to nine months, now also permits them to work for overseas employers during that time, which had been forbidden. The visitor visa still does not allow people to work for New Zealand employers, so “they won’t be competing for Kiwi jobs,” said Nicola Willis, the finance minister.

“The visa will open the doors to a whole new category of visitors,” she told reporters. “The government’s ambition is that new visa rules will put New Zealand boldly on the map as a welcoming haven for the world’s talent,” she added.

The visa change follows a difficult economic period for New Zealand, whose economy sank into recession in the third quarter of 2024.

Ms. Willis presented the new visa rules as a strategy to shift New Zealand “onto a faster growth track,” and said that advertising campaigns will specifically target skilled tech workers from the United States and East Asia. The government hopes to draw the interest not only of those workers, but also of their companies.

“We want more of the world’s wealthy and super-talented people,” she said.

The number of people working remotely full-time — either within their own countries or internationally — boomed during the coronavirus pandemic and has continued to rise since then. Digital nomads tend to have higher incomes, which translates into spending on stores, restaurants and lodging.

Despite its remoteness — more than 6,000 miles from the mainland United States and more than 1,000 miles from Australia — New Zealand, a country of just 5.2 million people, is a popular travel destination.

About 200,000 people work in the tourism industry in New Zealand, and in the year ending in March 2024, international visitors spent about $6.3 billion in the country.

“The new visa will also enable more visitors to New Zealand to extend their stays,” Ms. Willis said, adding, “Those longer stays mean more income for local businesses.”

There are some catches. Officials said that digital nomads who stay for longer than 90 days could face an added tax burden. And a worker in New Zealand would likely have to keep strange hours to be in meetings with colleagues in Europe or the United States.

The remote work visa rules are simpler than those in many other countries. Erica Stanford, the immigration minister, noted that other countries have specific visas for remote workers, while New Zealand now lets anyone on a visitor visa be a digital nomad.

New Zealand has a long history of carefully controlling immigration, and even as it tries to attract affluent remote workers for limited stays, it moved in April to tighten work visas for low-skilled workers seeking to move to and work in New Zealand. It introduced an English language requirement, among others.