The Portuguese container ship Solong struck the U.S.-flagged oil tanker Stena Immaculate while the tanker was anchored on the U.K.’s eastern coast near Hull, England, with both vessels catching on fire, officials said Monday.
Thirty-six people between the two ships were safely brought to shore, the U.K. coast guard said.
One of the Solong’s crew members remains missing in the wake of the collision, according to Ernst Russ, the manager of the container vessel.
The search for the missing crew member was unsuccessful and has ended, the U.K. coast guard said in an update Monday night. The missing person is believed to be dead, U.K. Transport Minister Mike Kane told the House of Commons on Tuesday.
Humberside police said they began a criminal investigation into the collision and have arrested a 59-year-old man following the “conclusion of search operations by HM Coastguard for the missing crew member of the Solong.”
“The man arrested remains in custody at this time whilst enquiries are underway, and we continue speaking with all those involved to establish the full circumstances of the incident,” Humberside Detective Chief Superintendent Craig Nicholson said in a statement.
Police did not release any additional details on the suspect, including his name or connection to the incident.
Fires burning on board the two vessels appeared in aerial footage to have been largely put out a day after the collision, although a shipping official said it would be “premature” to say the fire on the tanker had been extinguished.
“There will be an investigation,” Martyn Boyers, chief executive of the Port of Grimsby, said Tuesday. “With all the technology that these vessels have, there’s no way it should have happened.”
The Stena Immaculate was carrying 220,000 barrels of jet fuel at the time, with at least one cargo tank rupturing in the collision and resulting in multiple explosions onboard, according to Crowley, the ship’s manager.
Both ships sustained significant damage and were abandoned by their crews.
The British coast guard said in a statement on Tuesday that the two ships had been separated and that an “exclusion zone” had been put in place within a kilometer of the ships.
“Safety vessels and other vessels with firefighting capabilities are still on scene with more arriving today,” the coast guard said.
The Marine Accident Investigation Branch is investigating the cause of the collision.
Kane told the House Commons on Tuesday that officials with the agency are on-site to survey the two vessels and will report back to him with official findings.
No pollution had been reported yet, Kane said.
“As it currently stands, no sign of pollution from vessels is observed at this time,” he said. “But monitoring is in place and should that change, assets in place will be provided as needed.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti and Mark Osborne contributed to this report.
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(LONDON and ROME) — Pope Francis’ condition appears to be “stationary,” the Vatican said on Wednesday, following his pneumonia diagnosis.
“Blood tests, evaluated by the medical staff, show slight improvement, particularly in inflammatory indices,” the Vatican press office said in a statement.
The pope was admitted to a hospital on Friday for tests and to continue his ongoing bronchitis treatment, the Vatican said.
He was subsequently determined to have a respiratory tract infection, the Vatican said. On Tuesday, the Vatican updated that he also has the “onset of bilateral pneumonia,” saying tests, a chest X-ray and the pope’s clinical condition present a “complex picture.”
Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, visited the pope in the hospital on Wednesday, the Vatican said.
Pope Francis also “went about his work activities with his closest collaborators,” the Vatican said.
The Vatican described the pope as being in “good spirits” on Tuesday.
“He gives thanks for the closeness he feels at this time and asks, with a grateful heart, that we continue to pray for him,” the Vatican said.
The Jubilee Audience on Saturday has been canceled as the pope continues to recover in hospital, the Vatican announced on Tuesday.
The pope was admitted to a hospital on Friday for “necessary tests” and to continue his ongoing bronchitis treatment, according to the Vatican.
The Italian news agency ANSA reported that “several sources” revealed the pope had arrived on Friday at Gemelli Hospital very fatigued due to difficulty in breathing related to an excess of phlegm, and that the treatment he was undergoing at home had not yielded the expected results.
(LONDON) — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared martial law early on Feb. 24, 2022, under Kyiv skies still tinged black by the smoke from Russian missile strikes.
Three years later, the ravaged nation is still living under the extraordinary powers granted to the government in order to sustain its defensive and existential war against President Vladimir Putin’s invading Russian forces. Powers that Russia is wielding to undermine the country’s wartime leader.
Under the Ukrainian constitution, elections — whether presidential or parliamentary — cannot be held while martial law is in force.
Moscow has for months been seeking to weaponize Ukraine’s democratic freeze, with Putin and his allies framing Zelenskyy as illegitimate and therefore unsuitable to take part in peace talks.
President Donald Trump now appears to be lending his weight to the Kremlin’s campaign.
On Wednesday, Trump criticized his Ukrainian counterpart as “a dictator without elections” — prompting widespread consternation of Trump’s remarks both within the U.S. and especially among European allies.
Trump also claimed — without offering evidence — that Zelenskyy’s public approval rating was “down to 4%.” Recent major surveys show Zelenskyy’s approval rating at above 50%.
The push for new elections is “not a Russia thing,” Trump said. “That’s something coming from me and coming from many other countries also.”
A source close to the Ukrainian government — who did not wish to be named as they were not authorized to speak publicly — told ABC News they believe the push is coming from those who “believe that Zelenskyy, personally, is a problem because he is not compliant enough, he’s not simply going to accept anything that they propose or anything that they demand.”
Kyiv has repeatedly warned that elections during war time would be severely destabilizing. If Ukraine is forced into a rush and insecure election, “We could see absolute political chaos in Kyiv,” the source said.
In reality, until now, the legitimacy argument has come almost exclusively from Moscow.
“You can negotiate with anyone, but because of his illegitimacy, he has no right to sign anything,” Putin said of Zelenskyy in January, repeating his false claim that Ukraine’s inability to hold elections in 2024 meant that the president’s term had expired.
The country’s parliament and its speaker “remain the only legitimate authorities in Ukraine,” Putin said in May 2024.
Foreign allies of Kyiv have dismissed Putin’s claims, noting the totalitarian nature of Kremlin rule and Russia’s own carefully managed electoral theater, that has kept Putin in power for more than two decades.
They have also pushed back Trump’s attacks on Zelenskyy, with most leaders expressing solidarity with him. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz — for example — said it was “wrong and dangerous to deny President Zelenskyy democratic legitimacy.” Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer also said it was “reasonable” not to hold elections during wartime, following a call with Zelenskyy.
Trump’s domestic allies mobilized to support the president and criticize Zelenskyy. Elon Musk, for example, said Trump “is right to ignore” the Ukrainian president. Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters, “We need elections in Ukraine,” while Sen. Josh Hawley likewise said Zelenskyy “should hold an election.”
Most Ukrainians politicians and experts have warned that any contest held during wartime would be vulnerable to Russian interference, could not guarantee the representation of soldiers deployed on the battlefield or refugees displaced either internally or abroad, and would threaten to destabilize the state at its most vulnerable moment.
Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament representing Zelenskyy’s party and the chair of the body’s foreign affairs committee, told ABC News that Putin “wants to use an election campaign during the war to undermine stability with Ukraine.”
“Putin is trying to push this narrative through someone in Trump’s entourage,” Merezhko said.
The Trump effect
Trump’s recent attacks on Zelenskyy appear to have bolstered the latter’s political position. Allies and rivals alike rallied around the Ukrainian president’s office in the aftermath of Trump’s broadsides.
“Only Ukrainians have the right to decide when and under what conditions they should change their government,” former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko wrote on Facebook. “None of us will allow such elections before the end of the war. Our enemies and even our allies may not like it, but it is true.”
Serhiy Prytula — another prominent political figure — urged compatriots to “ignore that rhetoric and ‘dictator’ accusations from Trump.”
The source close to the Ukrainian government said that certain figures in Trump’s orbit want Zelenskyy replaced by a more malleable successor, one less likely to push back on controversial American efforts to force a peace deal.
“According to their logic, the problem here is not Russia or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it’s the ‘the ongoing war,'” the source said. “What is the mechanism for changing that, and in their view creating the conditions for someone who would be more compliant in Kyiv? It’s elections.”
The source said Trump’s team are wrong to think that Zelenskyy is on unstable political ground. “They’re operating under all of these false assumptions, one of which is that if you hold elections in Ukraine, it will necessarily result in the success of a candidate who is willing to bend to whatever it is that Trump is demanding,” they said.
“I don’t think that they have anyone in mind,” the source added. “I just think that they’re confident in their ability to either create that individual in a way, or to cut some sort of private deal with someone.”
Even if the U.S. and Russia succeeded in unseating Zelenskyy in favor of a more pliant successor, “if you end up with leadership in Kyiv that is willing to cut some sort of deal that is absolutely unacceptable to a large segment of Ukrainian society, we could see fragmentation, even of the Ukrainian military,” they said.
“If the Trump administration pushes this government, or any Ukrainian government, too far, I think that this scenario becomes a real one, and this is certainly not in Ukraine’s interest or Europe’s interest, but I don’t see how it’s in the interest of the United States either.”
Zekenskyy’s challengers
For now, there appears little in the way of a concrete challenge to the incumbent.
In Kyiv, Valerii Zaluzhnyi — the former Ukrainian commander-in-chief who is now serving as Kyiv’s ambassador to the U.K. — is widely seen as the only real potential challenger to Zelenskyy.
Zaluzhnyi publicly fell out with the president and his team — prime among them Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelenskyy’s office — in late 2023 over public comments framing the war as a “stalemate.”
It is not clear whether Zaluzhnyi would stand for election. The former commander-in-chief has dodged questions about any future political ambitions.
But a November poll by the Social Monitoring Center organization put the former general at the top of preferred potential presidential candidates backed by 27% of 1,200 respondents. Zelenskyy trailed on 16%, with former President Petro Poroshenko on 7%.
A February survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) indicated diminished trust in the current president compared to the extraordinary highs of the early months of the war. But it still remains high compared to most democratically-elected leaders. Public trust in Zelenskyy among 1,000 respondents was at 57% in February, compared with 77% in December 2023 and 90% in May 2022, around three months after Russia’s invasion. The latest poll showed a 5% bump in trust from December 2024.
Another recent poll by the Identity and Borders in Flux project in partnership with KIIS published on Feb. 19, showed two-thirds of Ukrainians approve of Zelenskyy’s actions.
The KIIS poll found that trust in Ukraine’s civilian government overall fell to 26% — a decline from 52% in 2023. In contrast, those surveyed reported overwhelming 96% trust in the Ukrainian military, with 88% saying they trust Zaluzhnyi.
The showdown between Zelenskyy and Zaluzhnyi ended with the former assuming an ambassadorial posting to the U.K., in which the former general has maintained a relatively low media profile and avoided any public revival of tensions with the president.
The same cannot be said for Poroshenko — another potential electoral rival — with whom the president is now locked in a very public battle. Earlier this month, Zelenskyy signed a decree sanctioning Poroshenko and several other politically connected wealthy Ukrainians for allegedly undermining national security.
Poroshenko dismissed the sanctions as politically motivated and unconstitutional. “Why are they doing this? Hatred, fear and revenge,” he said in a statement. “And because they have elections. Not us. The government.”
The IBF project poll showed a much lower proportion — 26-32% — of Ukrainians would vote for Zelensky in an election. But that still far outpaces Poroshenko, his nearest current rival, and remains far above the 4% figure put forward by Trump.
Zelenskyy has been unclear on his own political goals. In 2022, the president said he will “definitely” remain in his post until Kyiv achieves victory. “After that, I don’t know,” he added. “I’m not thinking about that now, I’m not ready.”
Peace could prove perilous for Zelenskyy if Ukrainian voters do not agree with its terms.
One former official — who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation — told ABC News the president “needs to blame Trump” if Ukraine is indeed forced into a controversial peace deal.
“He cannot stop this war now and take responsibility, because for him, it will be political suicide,” they said.
(LONDON) — A Russian citizen held in a U.S. prison will be repatriated to Russia following the release of U.S. citizen Marc Fogel, who was returned to the United States on Tuesday, Moscow said.
“In exchange for Fogel, a Russian citizen imprisoned in the United States will be returned to Russia in the coming days,” Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, said on Wednesday.
Peskov did not disclose which Russian citizen held in a U.S. jail would be repatriated, but said the United States had agreed to the release during negotiations for the return of Fogel, who had been detained in Russia since 2021.
President Donald Trump didn’t disclose on Tuesday the negotiations that led to Fogel’s release or say whether there had been any conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I can only say this: We got a man home whose mother and family wanted him desperately,” Trump said.
Mike Waltz, the White House national security adviser, said in a statement on Tuesday that Washington had “negotiated an exchange that serves as a show of good faith from the Russians and a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine.” His statement did not include details on the exchange.
Trump earlier on Tuesday had been asked if Russia had given the United States anything in return.
“Not much, no,” Trump said. “They were very nice. We were treated very nicely by Russia, actually.” Peskov on Wednesday declined to say whether additional prisoner exchanges were expected in the future, but said that “contacts between the relevant departments have intensified in the last few days.”
Then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in October 2024 that Fogel, an American teacher, had been “wrongfully detained,” the State Department confirmed to ABC News.
The U.S. tried but was unable to include Fogel in the large prisoner swap in August 2024 that freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, a State Department spokesperson said last year.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti, Michelle Stoddart, Nathan Luna and Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
