2 Russian oil tankers damaged off Crimea, emergency authorities say
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(LONDON) — Two Russian tankers believed to be carrying thousands of tons of oil were damaged off the coast of Crimea in the early hours of Sunday amid stormy weather, Russian emergency services and media reported.
The Volgoneft 212 and Volgoneft 239 vessels were both damaged while transiting the Kerch Strait waterway separating the occupied Crimean Peninsula from Russia’s western Krasnodar Krai region, the country’s Emergencies Ministry reported on Telegram.
The ministry cited “bad weather in the Kerch Strait” for the damage, the extent of which is not yet clear. The state-owned Tass news agency cited an unnamed ministry source in its report that the ship’s bow was torn off. The vessel was around 5 miles from shore when it was damaged, the agency said.
An Emergency Ministry Mi-8 helicopter and a rescue boat were dispatched to the Volgoneft 212 vessel, which had 13 people aboard, the ministry wrote. “The crew requested assistance,” it said. The ministry later said that one sailor died and the remaining 12 evacuated alive.
“It is known that there are oil products on the ship,” the ministry added. “Information about the spill is being clarified.”
The Interfax news agency reported that the Volgoneft 212 was carrying 4,300 tons of oil.
The Emergency Ministry later said the Volgoneft 212 “was damaged and ran aground.”
The Volgoneft 239 had 14 people on board and was also carrying oil, the Emergency Ministry said.
The ministry reported that the vessel was drifting after sustaining damage.
(WASHINGTON) — Following a tense standoff between the nations’ respective presidents, an agreement was reached on Sunday night regarding the return of repatriating citizens to Colombia from the United States.
Conflict ensued earlier in the day after Colombian President Gustavo Petro blocked two U.S. military flights carrying undocumented immigrants from entering the country.
In a retaliatory response, U.S. President Donald Trump posted threats against Colombia on his social media platform, alleging that Petro’s decision “has jeopardized the National Security and Public Safety of the United States.”
Trump said in the post that he ordered his administration to place an emergency 25% tariff on goods coming into the United States from Colombia, and he threatened to raise it in a week to 50%. Additionally, he said that his administration would issue a travel ban and immediately revoke the visas of Colombian government officials — and those of all of the country’s allies and supporters. Trump further threatened to issue visa sanctions on all party members, family members and supporters of the Colombian government. Finally, he said that he would also enhance Customs and Border Protection Inspections of all Colombian nationals and Colombian cargo.
Trump said he would use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to fully impose the aforementioned treasury, banking and financial sanctions.
“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump said in his post. “We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!” No evidence has been produced to show that Colombia forced anyone into the U.S.
The Colombia Foreign Ministry confirmed to ABC News that two U.S. military aircraft had been blocked from landing in Colombia on Sunday. It was not immediately clear if all 160 passengers aboard the flights were Colombian citizens.
“A migrant is not a criminal and must be treated with the dignity that every human being deserves,” Petro said in a statement posted on X on Sunday. It included a video of Brazilian deportees handcuffed after landing in Brazil.
The Foreign Ministry of Brazil also issued a statement Sunday asking the United States to clarify the “degrading treatment” of the deportees.
Petro had issued an early-morning statement on X saying that he objected to U.S. military repatriation planes landing in Colombia — although, the country would accept civilian planes repatriating citizens, he added.
But a U.S. defense official told ABC News that the two U.S. Air Force C-17 transport aircraft had been granted diplomatic clearances. Then, when the planes were already heading south, Colombia notified the U.S. that they would not be allowed to land, the defense official said.
In a statement posted on X on Sunday afternoon, Petro offered to send his presidential plane to bring deportees to Colombia in a “dignified” manner.
Mexico has also denied U.S. military repatriation flights from landing there, a U.S. official familiar with the situation told ABC News, while explaining that such flights are not being prepared until after all diplomatic clearances have been finalized.
Like Colombia, Mexico does not have a problem with contracted civilian aircraft carrying out the flights, the official said, and those are what the Department of Homeland Security typically uses.
Discussions are ongoing, the official added.
In an interview on Sunday with Martha Raddatz — ABC News’ chief global affairs correspondent and a co-anchor of “This Week” — Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, discussed what would happen to countries that won’t take the undocumented immigrants back.
“Oh, they’ll take them back,” Homan said. “We got President Trump coming to power. President Trump puts America first. Mexico didn’t want the ‘Remain in Mexico’ program under the first administration. They did it. They didn’t want to put military on the southern border. They did it.”
But if countries didn’t comply, “then we’ll place them in a third safe country,” he added.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted a statement on X on Sunday afternoon, saying, “President Trump has made it clear that under his administration, America will no longer be lied to nor taken advantage of.”
“It is the responsibility of each nation to take back their citizens who are illegally present in the United States in a serious and expeditious manner,” Rubio wrote. “Colombian President Petro had authorized flights and provided all needed authorizations and then canceled his authorization when the planes were in the air. As demonstrated by today’s actions, we are unwavering in our commitment to end illegal immigration and bolster America’s border security.”
Later in the evening, the U.S. Department of State added a post saying that Rubio “immediately ordered a suspension of visa issuance at the U.S. Embassy Bogota consular section” and is now “authorizing travel sanctions on individuals and their families, who were responsible for the interference of U.S. repatriation flight operations.”
Tariffs are a tax on imports that U.S. companies pay to import their goods, and the higher costs are largely passed on to consumers.
Trump leveraging a tariff of 25% to 50% could have a serious impact on Colombia’s economy because the U.S. is Colombia’s largest trading partner. According to the U.S. State Department, the United States accounts for 34% of Colombia’s total trade.
But that could also hurt American consumers: The U.S. imported $17.5 billion dollars’ worth of goods from Colombia in 2024, according to Moody’s Analytics.
Notably, Colombia is a top supplier of crude oil to the U.S.
Petro responded to Trump’s threatened sanctions late Sunday, saying in a post on X that Colombia will impose reciprocal 50% tariffs on U.S. goods.
“I’m told that you impose a 50% tariff on the fruits of our human labor to enter the United States, and I do the same,” Petro said in the impassioned post.
Later that evening, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson threatened in a post on X that Congress is “fully prepared” to pass sanctions and “other measures” against Colombia.
The White House issued a statement shortly after 10 p.m. on Sunday saying that Colombia had agreed to all of Trump’s terms, “including the unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on U.S. military aircraft, without limitation or delay.”
The statement also said that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act that Trump had drafted would not go into effect unless Colombia failed to honor the agreement with the U.S.
“The visa sanctions issued by the State Department and enhanced inspections from Customs and Border Protection will remain in effect until the first planeload of Colombian deportees is successfully returned,” it said.
Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs Luis Gilberto Murillo Urrutia acknowledged the statement shortly afterward in a video posted to X, stating that Colombia would accept repatriates who are transported back with dignity. He also confirmed that Petro would be sending his presidential plane to retrieve those citizens who had been on the rebuffed military planes, but didn’t specify when that would occur.
The foreign affairs minister said that a high-level diplomatic meeting between the U.S. and Colombia would take place in a matter of days.
“Colombia ratifies that it will maintain diplomatic channels of dialogue to guarantee the rights, national interest and dignity of our citizens,” he said in the video.
ABC News’ Luis Martinez, Selina Wang, Hannah Demissie and Nate Luna contributed to this report.
Mathilde Kaczkowski/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
(LONDON) — President-elect Donald Trump will return to office on Monday having promised a peace deal to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, which is still raging nearly three years after President Vladimir Putin troops crossed into Ukraine expecting to be welcomed as heroes.
It is hard to say how Trump will try to unpick the twisted knot constricting eastern Europe.
The president-elect has hinted at territorial concessions and reduced aid for Ukraine in pursuit of peace, but has also suggested the U.S. will expand military support if Putin refuses to come to the table.
Ukrainian lawmakers and a former official told ABC News they are bracing to again deal with perhaps the most unpredictable president in living memory — one who former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her memoir engaged on “an emotional level.”
Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and chair of the body’s foreign affairs committee, nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize in November — an honor the president-elect has long coveted.
“Trump takes some things personally and we should establish human contact with him,” Merezhko told ABC News. “Our destiny and survival depends also on Trump — we should be respectful and constructive towards him.”
President Joe Biden “used to say that international relations are interpersonal relations — and it’s true,” Merezhko added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears to have embarked on a Trump charm offensive of his own.
Zelenskyy was quick to laud Trump’s “historic landslide victory” in November, echoing the president-elect’s own “peace through strength” slogan.
A meeting with Trump in Paris in December was “good and productive,” Zelenskyy said, with the Ukrainian president praising Trump’s “strong resolve” and repeating the “peace through strength” mantra.
After a December meeting with European Union leaders in Brussels, Zelenskyy told reporters, “I think that President Trump is a strong man and I want very much to have him on our side.”
Asked how he would feel when Trump does take office in January, the Ukrainian president responded, “Welcome Donald! What can I say?”
Art of the deal In 2024 unlike in 2016, foreign leaders appeared prepared for a Trump election victory, their immediate reactions tailored to appeal to the president-elect’s transactional world view.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte framed aid to Ukraine as “a good deal” for Trump and the U.S.
Macron said he was ready to work towards “peace and prosperity” with his next American counterpart. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was looking forward to working towards “prosperity and freedom” with the incoming administration.
Ukraine will need to make itself attractive to the self-styled master dealmaker, mindful of the transactional brand of foreign policy he pursued in his first term and promised for his second.
Amid the leaks and innuendos, Yehor Cherniev — a member of the Ukrainian Parliament and the chairman of his country’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly — told ABC News he had seen little in the way of concrete policy about the future of Ukraine.
“We’ve used this time to deliver our position and our conditions for these new peace negotiations,” Cherniev said. “We’ve tried to explain and give information — not only to officials, but to U.S. citizens and Western people — that this war was started not for several territories of Ukraine or even for the whole of Ukraine as a country, but for the revision of the world order.”
Without NATO membership or a binding bilateral security deal with the U.S. akin to its agreements with Japan, South Korea or Israel, “it will be a failure of the whole Western world,” Cherniev said. “This is our position, and we try to deliver this position to officials in the Trump administration.”
Jonathan Eyal of the Royal United Services Institute think tank in the U.K., told ABC News there are indications that may encourage Kyiv, despite Trump’s repeated hints at Ukrainian concessions.
“It appears that Trump seems to have bought into the idea that he can’t end the Ukraine war with an American retreat, that this would look very bad for him to start his presidency with — a retreat that would look as humiliating as Biden’s from Kabul in the summer of 2021.”
“So, there is this search for something that could be presented as an end to the war that is also an honorable one and not one that ends up with a sellout — or with the sacrifice of — Ukraine,” he said.
Trump selected retired general Keith Kellogg as his special envoy to Ukraine and Russia. The pick, Eyal said, might pique hope in Kyiv.
“Kellogg is on record in a lot of media interviews and articles saying that the war could be brought to an end only from a position of strength, and only if Putin is impressed by America’s determination to otherwise continue the war,” he said.
“I think there is a level of optimism in Kyiv that somehow the administration seems to have accepted that merely to get Putin to the negotiating table for a ceasefire, the United States will have to appear to be determined to defend Ukrainian interests rather than betray them,” he added.
Peace through exhaustion Some in Ukraine may have their own personal political calculations. Zelenskyy, for example, will be under pressure to quickly hold the presidential election scheduled for spring 2024 but delayed due to the conflict.
The wartime leader became a global icon for his gruff fortitude in the opening stages of the war, but his domestic popularity has since dipped. There is no guarantee that a post-war election will deliver Zelenskyy another term, especially if his legacy is tainted by territorial concessions to Moscow.
“He doesn’t want to lose, obviously,” a former Ukrainian official told ABC News on the condition of anonymity. “And for this, he needs to blame Trump for a fast peace, for a ceasefire, as if Ukraine could win the territories. But everybody knows we cannot, and he also knows he cannot.”
Many Ukrainians are hopeful despite the thorny question of concessions, the former official said. “When people heard that Trump promised to finish the war, they understood it’s not possible to do in 24 hours, but at least it was a break of the status quo,” they said.
“These calls to stay as long as is needed with Ukraine — that lost any meaning long ago,” the former official added of the common refrain offered by allied leaders since February 2022.
“People don’t care anymore about losing territories or how it will happen,” the former official said. “They want suspension, they want a break, they want a ceasefire, any deal.”
“That’s why so many of them were so joyful to see Trump coming in power, and many still have big hopes that he is strong enough to stop this war.”
There remain many unknowns. Lawmaker Merezhko said his efforts to build ties with Trump’s team had so far not been reciprocated.
“I have the impression that they might be hesitant to reach out to Ukrainian politicians before the inauguration,” he said. “Perhaps they don’t know yet what Trump’s policy is with regard to Ukraine.”
But like many of his compatriots, Merezhko said he remained hopeful. “I don’t have a feeling that Trump’s presidency will be catastrophic for Ukraine,” he explained.
“Of course, he will make an attempt to stop Russia’s war against Ukraine, but I doubt that it will be a success,” Merezhko continued. “Not because of Trump, but because of Putin, who is absolutely not interested in peace or a ceasefire.”
“Reality — harsh reality — is more powerful than any plans, ideas or desires of politicians.”
(TEL AVIV) — Israeli police are responding to a suspected terror attack on buses near Tel Aviv, the Israeli Police Spokesperson’s Unit said in a statement Thursday evening.
The two buses where bombs exploded were empty and in separate parking lots about 500 meters apart from each other, the mayor of Bat Yam, where the incident occurred, said. Bat Yam is on Israel’s southern coast and is just south of Tel Aviv.
There are no injuries from the explosions, police said.
“Multiple reports have been received of explosions involving several buses at different locations in Bat Yam. Large police forces are at the scenes, searching for suspects. Police bomb disposal units are scanning for additional suspicious objects,” the Israeli Police Spokesperson’s Unit said.
Police urged the public to avoid the areas and remain alert for any suspicious items.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
