(LONDON) — Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov riffed on President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Ukrainians “may be Russians some day,” as both Moscow and Kyiv maneuver for leverage in revived peace talks the White House hopes will end nearly three years of full-scale war.
Peskov told reporters at a Tuesday briefing that the situation in Ukraine “largely corresponds to President Trump’s words.”
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson was referring to remarks made by Trump during an interview with Fox News which aired on Monday. The president told Bret Baier of his plans to secure U.S. access to $500 billion worth of rare earth metals located in Ukraine in exchange for continued American backing.
“They have tremendously valuable land in terms of rare earth, in terms of oil and gas and other things,” Trump said. “I want to have our money secured because we’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars and, you know, they may make a deal. They may not make a deal.”
“They may be Russians some day or may not be Russians some day,” Trump then added.
On Tuesday morning, Peskov said Trump’s remarks indicated the situation on the ground in Ukraine — often referred to by Putin and other Russian officials as the “new territorial realities” of Russian military occupation.
“The fact that a significant part of Ukraine wants to become Russia, and has already, is a fact,” Peskov told reporters, referring to Moscow’s claimed 2022 annexation of four Ukrainian regions, not all of which Russian forces actually control.
Asked if Trump’s peace proposals had a chance of success, Peskov replied, “Any phenomenon can happen with a 50% probability — either yes or no.”
Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the chair of the body’s foreign affairs committee, told ABC News of Trump’s comments, “It will never happen.”
“We saw what life under Russia might look like for Ukrainians in Bucha and Irpin,” Merezhko added, referring to the Kyiv suburbs briefly occupied by Russian forces in 2022 and where evidence of executions, torture and other abuses against civilians were uncovered after Moscow’s retreat.
“Trump’s statement means that he needs to communicate more with [President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy to understand the real picture,” Merezhko said.
Zelenskyy has expressed openness to Trump’s rare earth metals proposal. “The Americans helped the most, and therefore the Americans should earn the most,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with Reuters last week.
Zelenskyy this weekend told ITV News he “would be ready for any format for talks” if there was “an understanding that America and Europe will not abandon us and they will support us and provide security guarantees.”
Trump said Monday that his Ukraine-Russia envoy Keith Kellogg would visit Ukraine this week as the White House formulates a peace plan.
Zelenskyy is also expected to meet with Vice President JD Vance at next weekend’s landmark Munich Security Conference in southern Germany.
Zelenskyy has repeatedly rejected any suggestion of territorial concessions to Russia in exchange for peace, though has acknowledged it may not be possible to free the occupied territories via military means.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
Security forces and emergency workers respond to the scene of a shooting attack that targeted a bus and other vehicles on January 6, 2025 in the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, West Bank. Three people were reported killed and others injured, and security forces are still searching for the assailants. The site is located between the Israeli West Bank settlements of Karnei Shomron and Kdumim. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Rebel forces in Syria are building a transitional government after toppling the regime of President Bashar Assad in a lightning-quick advance across the country.
The Israel Defense Forces continues its intense airstrike and ground campaigns in Gaza, particularly in the north of the strip around several Palestinian hospitals. A latest round of peace talks to end the 15-month-old war is set to resume in Qatar.
Meanwhile, the November ceasefire in Lebanon is holding despite ongoing Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah targets, which Israeli officials say are responses to ceasefire violations by the Iranian-backed militant group.
Tensions remain high between Israel and Iran after tit-for-tat long-range strikes in recent months and threats of further military action from both sides. The IDF and the Yemeni Houthis also continue to exchange attacks.
Israeli warplanes bomb West Bank
The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday its fighter jets “struck a terrorist cell” in the occupied West Bank Palestinian town of Tamun.
Unconfirmed reports by local media suggested that two children were among three Palestinians killed.
On Tuesday, the IDF said its aircraft struck and killed two armed Palestinian militants in the area of Tamun after an armed cell opened fire toward Israeli security forces there.
-ABC News’ Nasser Atta, Jordana Miller and Joe Simonetti
Israeli strikes kill 51 people in Gaza, health officials say
At least 51 people were killed and 78 others were injured in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
In total, at least 45,936 people have been killed and another 109,274 have been injured by Israeli forces in Gaza since the ongoing war began on Oct. 7, 2023, the ministry in the Hamas-run territory said.
-ABC News’ Diaa Ostaz, Samy Zyara and Joe Simonetti
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar met with United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayad on Tuesday, according to a release from Saar’s office.
The Israeli Foreign Minister was invited by the UAE, the readout said, his visit coinciding with the resumption of ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas in Doha, Qatar.
The UAE has discussed with Israel and the U.S. the idea of participating in a provisional administration of post-war Gaza until a reformed Palestinian Authority is able to take charge, Reuters reported this week.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller and Ellie Kaufman
Biden, Trump teams ‘very collaborative’ on Gaza push, envoy says
President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, told reporters that President Joe Biden’s team has been “very collaborative” on working towards a Gaza hostage release deal, with renewed talks ongoing in Qatar.
“We’re just very collaborative together,” Witkoff said following Trump’s Tuesday Mar-a-Lago press conference. “I mean, this is a tense negotiation, so no one has pride of authorship. We are totally outcome oriented. Let’s get them home.”
Witkoff said he speaks every day with Brett McGurk, the top Biden White House official on Middle East policy.
During the press conference, Trump said “all hell will break loose” if the remaining hostages aren’t released before Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
Witkoff said “there was no exaggeration or embellishment with what the president said.”
“If you get on the phone with the hostage families, it’s harrowing to listen to them,” Witkoff said. “There are people who just want the remains of their children back…it is withering to listen to this, and he [Trump] listens to them all.”
Witkoff said the incoming administration “aspirationally” hopes for a 42-day ceasefire to be enacted before the inauguration.
“President Trump’s persona is such that he’s driving the narrative on these negotiations,” Witkoff added. “He will be in office when that 42-day ceasefire is over. That’s what Hamas cares about — how we move to phase two. That’s what the Israelis care about, how President Trump will be at the end of that ceasefire.”
Witkoff said he’s seen intelligence reports about how many hostages remain alive, and said it’s “not a small amount.”
-ABC News’ Selina Wang
Israeli settlers attack West Bank Palestinian villages
There were multiple overnight attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in parts of the West Bank, following a shooting attack that killed three Israelis and injured eight others earlier on Monday.
The Palestinian Authority-run WAFA news agency reported at least two attacks by settlers on Palestinian communities in Bethlehem and Ramallah.
The Yesh Din human rights group reported as many as 100 settlers attacking Palestinian villages, some in the al-Funduq area where Monday’s attack occurred.
Israeli security forces are still searching for the suspected perpetrators of Monday’s shooting attack, which Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz described as “an act of war.”
-ABC News’ Joe Simonetti
Blinken hopes for Gaza ceasefire in administration’s final weeks
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters Monday that the U.S. wants a ceasefire deal in Gaza and all remaining captives released within the next two weeks, before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
“We very much want to bring this over the finish line in the next two weeks,” Blinken told reporters while in Seoul, South Korea.
Blinken reported “intensified engagement,” including by Hamas, on reaching a deal, though added “we are yet to see agreement on final points.”
“We need Hamas to make the final necessary decisions to complete the agreement and to fundamentally change the circumstance for the hostages, getting them out, for people in Gaza, bringing them relief, and for the region as a whole, creating an opportunity to actually move forward to something better, more secure for everyone involved,” Blinken said.
“If we don’t get it across the finish line in the next two weeks, I’m confident that it will get its completion at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later,” Blinken added.
-ABC News’ Joe Simonetti
3 Israelis killed in West Bank shooting
Three Israelis were killed in a shooting that targeted a bus and a vehicle in the occupied West Bank on Monday morning, security and emergency officials said.
The attack occurred in the village of Al-Funduq, on one of the main east-west roads crossing the Palestinian territory, much of which is under Israeli security control.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service confirmed the death of three victims — two women in their 60s and a man in his 40s. MDA said it provided medical treatment to seven injured people, including the bus driver who is in serious condition.
The Israel Defense Forces said it launched a manhunt for the suspected Palestinian shooters.
“Anyone who follows the path of Hamas in Gaza and sponsors the murder and harm of Jews will pay heavy prices, ” Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a post on his X account, reacting to the attack.
Sending his condolences to the families of the victims, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attackers “will not get away.”
“We will find the abhorrent murderers and settle accounts with them and with all those who aided them,” his statement said.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah said in an extensive report Sunday that at least 838 Palestinians — including 173 children — have been killed by Israeli fire and over 6,700 have been injured in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller, Diaa Ostaz and Somayeh Malekian
WHO director calls for release of Kamal Adwan hospital director
Tedros Ghebreyesus, the director of the World Health Organization, said in a statement Saturday that WHO has received no updates about Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, the director of North Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital, since he was detained by Israeli forces on Dec. 27th.
“We continue to urge Israel to release him. We repeat: attacks on hospitals and health professionals must end. People in Gaza need access to health care. Ceasefire!” he said in a statement.
-ABC News’ Victoria Beaulé
Israeli strikes kill 150 in Gaza, officials say, as peace talks resume
More than 150 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip over the past three days, according to Palestinian health authorities.
The series of airstrikes on dozens of Hamas targets came amid a renewed push to reach a ceasefire in the 15-month-old war and return Israeli hostages home before President-elect Donald Trump takes office later this month.
Delegations from both Israel and Hamas were dispatched to resume indirect negotiations in Doha on Friday. The talks will be brokered by Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
President Joe Biden’s administration, which is helping to broker the talks, urged Hamas to agree to a deal. Hamas said it was committed to reaching an agreement deal, but it remains unclear how close the two sides are.
-ABC News Nasser Atta, Bruno Nota, Diaa Ostaz, Samy Zyara and Morgan Winsor
(NAIROBI, Kenya) — As cute and confident as Pardamat now seems, the little elephant had a difficult start to life.
“Pardamat was found next to the dead body of his mother,” Edwin Lusichi, head keeper at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust’s nursery in Nairobi, Kenya, where Pardamat is being cared for, told ABC News. “His mother had a big wound that had been caused by human beings.”
The story is similar for many elephants across the country — victims of what’s known as “human-wildlife conflict,” which has surpassed poaching as the No. 1 cause of illegal elephant death in Kenya, according to conservation groups.
Conservation groups say the growing human population, combined with drought and resource scarcity linked to climate change, are increasingly causing people and elephants to compete for things like space, food and water.
A common scenario involves elephants raiding and destroying crops in search of food. Some vulnerable farmers, desperate to protect their livelihoods, retaliate by spearing the elephants.
“The shopping malls, the roads, have been built on lands that used to belong to elephants and their migration routes,” Lusichi said. “So the resources are not there for humans and wildlife, and so animals are forced to get into human properties.”
According to some conservation groups, the issue has been exacerbated by the proliferation of new commercial farms growing crops like avocados for the West and China.
Every year, hundreds of people around the world are killed or injured by elephants due to conflict between humans and elephants, conversation groups said.
In southern Kenya, such conflict has become so common that some rangers now patrol farmlands on a nightly basis.
“On a busy night, on a dry season, even 20 elephants can come and raid,” Daniel Kutata, a ranger for the nonprofit conservation organization Big Life Foundation, told ABC News. “Farmers will be losing their crops, which they are depending on to earn a living, so yeah, there is a lot of pressure. We need both farmers and elephants to be safe.”
Big Life has installed an electric fence to help keep elephants within their protected areas. The organization reports that this initiative has significantly improved the situation, although some elephants have learned how to get around it.
A Maasai farmer who spoke to ABC News shortly after his tomato farm was raided told us he lost months of hard work and approximately $4,000 — that’s about eight times the average monthly salary in Kenya.
Save the Elephants, a research and conservation organization headquartered in Nairobi, has been working with local farmers to develop creative solutions to the problem.
ABC News spoke with farmer Jonas Makima, who nearly gave up on his business due to elephants raiding his crops.
“If an elephant gets onto the farm and raids everything, then it means now, you’ll not have food for the family, you’ll not have money for education for my children,” Makima said.
Makima told ABC News that during crop season, every night is a battle. He has set up all sorts of contraptions around his farm to keep the elephants away, including a watch tower, a sound cannon, and “chili bombs.”
However, Makima said his most effective tool is his beehive fence. A project by Save the Elephants found that elephants avoid crops up to 86% of the time during peak seasons because they are terrified of bees.
With Kenya’s population expected to double by 2070, Makima is now working with Save the Elephants to teach farmers across Africa that peaceful coexistence between people and elephants is possible with the right tools.
“People need to be educated, people need to know what to do when they encounter these animals in their farms,” Lusichi said. “And people need to know that these animals also have a right to life, a right to their space, so these habitats should not be invaded and occupied and used by people.”
(LONDON) — At least 190 people have been rescued from a train in Pakistan as of Wednesday after it was attacked one day prior and hundreds were taken hostage by the militant Balochistan Liberation Army, according to a Pakistani military official.
At least 17 people have been injured and 30 terrorists, members of the BLA, have been killed as a military operation continues, according to the official.
On Tuesday, a U.S. official told ABC News at least 450 people were taken hostage on the train and said six Pakistani military personnel were killed.
The separatist militant group claimed it had taken 182 military and security personnel hostage on the train, according to a post on Telegram, but said they had released the majority of the civilians on board. The group claimed a higher number of casualties in the attack, saying they killed 20 Pakistani military personnel and shot down a drone.
The BLA had threatened to kill all the hostages if Pakistan’s military tries to rescue them, the official said.
The BLA blew up part of the track, forcing the train to stop, before they boarded and took control, according to the official.
The attack happened in mountainous area right before a tunnel, making a rescue very difficult, they said.
Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attack and said the government would not make any concessions to “beasts who fire on innocent passengers.”
The train was trapped in a tunnel after the tracks were blown up and militants opened fire on it, reportedly injuring the driver, local authorities and police have told media.
The BLA believes the Balochistan region of Pakistan, in the country’s far west bordering Iran and Afghanistan, should be allowed to break off from Pakistan. They are well-known for committing terror attacks in Pakistan. The BLA also attacked Jaffar Express trains in August 2013 and October 2016.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
