Russia to continue testing, start mass producing new ‘Oreshnik’ missile: Putin
State Emergency Service of Ukraine/AFP via Getty Images
(MOSCOW) — Russia will continue testing and start mass producing the new “Oreshnik” missile, an intermediate-range ballistic missile that was used to target Dnipro, Ukraine, this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday.
“We will continue testing the latest system,” Putin said at a meeting with the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and representatives of the military-industrial complex. “It is necessary to establish mass production. We will assume that the decision on the serial production of this system has been made. As a matter of fact, it is practically organized.”
Putin said Russia will continue testing the new Oreshnik missile system, “including in combat conditions.”
“The tests were successful, I congratulate you on this. As already mentioned, we will continue these tests, including in combat conditions, depending on the situation and the nature of the security threats that are being created for Russia,” Putin said.
“In addition to the Oreshnik system, several systems of this kind are currently in operation in Russia for further testing,” Putin added.
Russia warned the U.S. 30 minutes before the launch of its Oreshnik missile against targets in Dnipro on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news outlet TASS.
The Ukrainian air force said it had tracked the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, along with six additional missiles, all targeting the Dnipro region. The U.S. would later specify the missile was not an ICBM, but instead a shorter-range IRBM.
The missiles were launched in about two hours, beginning at about 5 a.m. local time Thursday, and targeted businesses and critical infrastructure, but only the IRBM struck the city, Ukraine said. The six other missiles were shot down. There were no reports of casualties or significant damage, officials said.
The IRBM appeared to have been launched from the Astrakhan region, in Russia’s southwest, Ukrainian military officials said. The distance from what Ukraine said was the launch point to the strike location in Dnipro is about 600 miles, a distance shorter than what an ICBM would be expected to travel.
The experimental Oreshnik missile was based on a Russian RS-26 Rubezh missile, deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh confirmed Thursday during a briefing, without going into any other specific details. She also confirmed that the U.S. was notified “briefly” before the launch.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the Oreshnik missile launch Thursday during his evening address, saying a “new ballistic missile was used” and calling it “a clear and severe escalation in the scale and brutality of this war.”
Putin, in remarks Thursday following the missile launch, said Russia has the right to use its weapons against the military facilities of countries employing their weapons against Russia.
The missile launch arrived amid concerns that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine could further escalate.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday that Ukraine for the first time launched U.S.-made ATACMS missiles toward targets within Russia. An ammunition depot in the Bryansk region of Russia was struck, a U.S. official said.
The incident occurred days after U.S. President Joe Biden approved Ukraine’s use of the long-range American-made MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System — colloquially known as the ATACMS — to hit targets in Russia’s western Kursk region.
Zelenskyy would not confirm if Ukraine had used ATACMS to conduct a strike on an ammunition depot in the Bryansk region of Russia, but said Ukraine has ATACMS and “will use all of these” against Russia.
Hours after Russia said it had struck down several of the ATACMS, the Kremlin announced that Putin had updated the country’s nuclear doctrine, a move that lowered the bar for Russia to respond with nuclear weapons. Russian ICBMs are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, but the IRBM fired on Thursday was not equipped with one.
(TIBET) — At least 95 people were killed and more than 100 others were injured as a 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck near Tibet’s holy city on Tuesday, according to Chinese state media.
The earthquake occurred in Dingri County, Shigatse City, Tibet, just after 9 a.m. with a focal depth of 10 kilometers, according to China Earthquake Networks Centre.
The U.S. Geological Survey placed the earthquake’s magnitude at 7.1, pinpointing the epicenter in Xizang, China, the local name for the Tibet Autonomous Region.
“The region near the India and Eurasia plate boundary has a history of large earthquakes,” the USGS said in a summary of the quake. “In the past century, there have been 10 earthquakes of magnitude 6 and greater within 250 km of the January 7, 2025, earthquake.”
The Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism’s exiled spiritual leader, said in a statement that he was “saddened” to learn of the deadly earthquake.
“It has caused the tragic loss of many lives, numerous injuries, and extensive destruction to homes and property,” he said. “I offer my prayers for those who have lost their lives and extend my wishes for a swift recovery to all who have been injured.”
The Chinese media also reported that as of 10 a.m. local time, multiple aftershocks were recorded, the largest of which was 4.4.
The death toll had previously been reported at 53, with about 60 other injured.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(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.
Meanwhile, the 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. The Israel Defense Forces continues its intense airstrike and ground campaigns in Gaza.
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.
14 Syrian security force members killed in clashes: Syrian official
Fourteen members of the Syrian security forces, part of Syrian de-facto leader Ahmad al-Sharaa’s militia, were killed and 10 were wounded after “being ambushed” by supporters of ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the countryside of Tartus on Syria’s western coast, the Syrian minister of the interior said Thursday.
There were wide-scale clashes Wednesday between al-Sharaa’s forces and supporters of al-Assad in six cities across Syria including Latakia, Tartus, Jableh, Homs and some parts of Damascus. Curfew was imposed on six cities and reinforcements are being sent to the Syrian coastal area.
-ABC News’ Nasser Atta
5 journalists killed by Israeli strike in Gaza: Medical sources
Five journalists were killed in Gaza on Wednesday evening, medical sources and the Gaza government media office said.
Israeli forces bombed a journalists’ vehicle in front of the Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, Gaza medical sources said.
Israeli forces claimed the five killed were Islamic Jihad operatives in a statement about the attack from the Israel Defense Forces.
“Intelligence from multiple sources confirmed that these individuals were Islamic Jihad operatives posing as journalists,” the IDF said.
-ABC News’ Sami Zyara, Diaa Ostaz and Bruno Nota
Israeli forces conduct strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen: IDF
Israeli forces conducted strikes on Houthi military targets in Yemen on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said.
The military targets struck were “used by the Houthi terrorist regime to smuggle Iranian weapons into the region and for the entry of senior Iranian officials. This is a further example of the Houthis’ exploitation of civilian infrastructure for military purposes,” the IDF said in a release.
Houthi forces have launched drones and missiles towards Israel over the past week.
-ABC News’ Dana Savir
Missile from Yemen sets off attack alerts in Israel
A missile fired by Houthi forces from Yemen in the early hours of Wednesday set off sirens across central Israel, the Israel Defense Forces said.
The IDF said the missile was intercepted before reaching Israel. “Details are being investigated,” the IDF wrote on X.
Wednesday morning’s incident was the fourth time in a week that Houthi fire set off sirens in Israel.
On Saturday, 16 people were injured when a missile hit a playground in Tel Aviv after Israel’s air defense system failed to intercept it.
Negotiation team returning after ‘significant week’: Israeli PM office
The Israeli negotiation team will return to Israel from Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday after a “significant week of conducting negotiations” regarding a ceasefire and hostage deal, the Israeli Prime Minister’s office said in a statement.
“The team returned for internal consultations in Israel regarding the continuation of negotiations for the return of our hostages,” the statement continued.
-ABC News’ Anna Burd
IDF ‘besieging’ 3 Gaza hospitals, health ministry says
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said in a statement Tuesday that Israeli forces are “intensifying” their attacks on three hospitals in the devastated and depopulated northern portion of the strip.
Israeli troops, the ministry in the Hamas-run territory said, are “besieging and directly targeting the Indonesian Hospital, Kamal Adwan Hospital and Al-Awda Hospital during the past hours and insisting on putting them out of service.”
The ministry said Israeli troops were “forcing the wounded and patients to evacuate the Indonesian Hospital,” while bombing “all departments of Kamal Adwan Hospital and its surroundings around the clock without stopping.”
“Shrapnel is scattered inside the hospital yards, causing terrifying sounds and serious damage,” the ministry said.
“We appeal to all international and UN institutions and concerned parties to urgently intervene to protect the health system in the Gaza Strip,” the ministry wrote.
On Monday, Palestinian officials said 20 people were injured when Israeli forces detonated a “robot bomb” in the vicinity of Kamal Adwan Hospital.
The IDF has not commented on the latest developments around Kamal Adwan or the other north Gaza hospitals.
-ABC News’ Nasser Atta
3 Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza
The Israel Defense Forces said Monday that three soldiers were killed in combat in northern Gaza.
Cpt. Ilay Gavriel Atedgi, 22, Staff Sgt. Netanel Pessach, 21, and Sgt. First Class (res.) Hillel Diener, 21, were all killed by an explosion during an operation in the Beit Hanoun area, which has been a focus of Israel’s intense recent offensive in the northern part of the strip.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and the border zone is now 391.
Health officials in the Hamas-run territory say more than 45,300 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.
-ABC News’ Dana Savir and Ellie Kaufman
20 injured after bomb detonates near Gaza hospital
Twenty people were injured among the medical staff at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza Monday evening after a “robot bomb” was detonated in the hospital’s vicinity, according to medical sources.
ABC News has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for a comment.
-ABC News’ Samy Zyara
Israeli forces kill Hamas operative in Gaza City, IDF says
Israeli forces killed the head of the national security directorate of Hamas’ security mechanism during an attack on Sunday in Gaza City, the Israel Defense Forces said.
The Hamas operative, Tharwat Muhammad Ahmed Albec, was “operating in a command and control center” that was embedded in a “compound that previously served as the ‘Musa bin Nusayr’ school” in a neighborhood in Gaza City, the IDF said in a statement on Monday.
Hamas has yet to comment on the IDF’s statement.
-ABC News’ Dana Savir
‘Certain progress’ made in hostage negotiations: Netanyahu
“Certain progress” has been made in ongoing hostage and ceasefire negotiations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a speech at the Israeli parliament on Monday.
“I can carefully say there has been a certain progress” made in the ongoing negotiations, Netanyahu said, adding that he “doesn’t know how long it’s going to take.”
“We will continue to operate in any way and without a pause until we bring them all back home from the enemy’s land,” he said.
-ABC News’ Dana Savir
Hamas reports Israeli attack on Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp
Hamas on Monday said the Israel Defense Forces killed or wounded at least 50 people in an air and ground assault on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
An IDF airstrike was followed by an incursion into the camp supported by 17 heavy vehicles, among them tanks and bulldozers, Hamas said.
Israeli forces also attacked Nuseirat camp two weeks ago, killing at least 33 people according to the Gaza Government Media Office.
The IDF is yet to comment on Monday’s operation.
-ABC News’ Diaa Ostaz and Tomek Rolski
Netanyahu says Israel will act against Houthis after missile strike
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that his nation would “act forcefully” against the Houthis in Yemen after a weekend missile attack on Tel Aviv injured 16 people, according to Israeli emergency authorities.
“Just as we acted forcefully against the terrorist arms of Iran’s evil axis, so we will act against the Houthis — the result will be the same,” Netanyahu said in a statement posted to X.
Since October 2023, the Houthis have been launching attacks on commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea, as well as long-range drone and missile attacks towards Israel.
On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said it intercepted a Houthi missile but that debris destroyed a school building in Tel Aviv.
The Houthis — which have close ties with Iran and are part of the Tehran-led “Axis of Resistance” — are demanding an end to Israel’s war in Gaza, launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, infiltration attack into southern Israel.
The U.S. and U.K. — supported by other allies — have launched a series of strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen since January. Israel has also launched significant strikes in Yemen in recent months, most recently on Thursday.
At least 7 dead after IDF strikes humanitarian area in Gaza
At least seven people were killed after an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis, which is located in the southern Gaza Strip.
The strike hit a collection of tents within what had been designated a humanitarian area, where displaced people were sheltering.
The Israel Defense Forces acknowledged the strike on Sunday, saying in a statement it was “an intelligence-based strike on a Hamas terrorist.”
“Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence,” the IDF said.
– ABC News’ William Gretsky
21 killed in Gaza, IDF northern offensive continues
The Gaza Ministry of Health said Saturday that 21 people were killed and 61 injured in three separate Israeli attacks over the last 24 hours in the Hamas-run territory.
A total of 45,227 people have been killed since the start of the war, health officials said.
Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces continued intense operations in northern Gaza, particularly around the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia.
The director of the hospital said there is shooting “around the clock” nearby, adding that on Friday the third floor and the hospital entrance were shelled.
The director said the IDF is blocking the entry of all requested medical supplies. Nine people need urgent evacuation for surgery in Gaza City and the hospital is currently treating over 70 people, he said.
(LONDON) — President Joe Biden will see out his term knowing that President-elect Donald Trump — a man he fought desperately hard to unseat in 2020 and called a “genuine danger to American security” — will succeed him.
Foreign policy has been central in Biden’s long political career. It will likewise form a major chunk of his legacy, as will the two wars — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Middle East conflagration sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack — that erupted during his term.
Now less encumbered by political calculations — for himself or for Vice President Kamala Harris — and with only two months until Trump’s second inauguration, the outgoing president may have one last window to wield the power of the Oval Office in both theaters.
But with Trump looming above the outgoing Biden-Harris administration, American allies and enemies may be hesitant to engage with the outgoing administration.
European nations, for example, are already shifting focus to how best to court Trump, Leslie Vinjamuri of the British Chatham House think tank told ABC News.
“All these European leaders are very quickly reaching out,” she added. “They’re congratulating him. They want to talk with him. They want to work with him, because they understand that the stakes are extremely high and they clearly feel that by talking with him, they have an ability to influence policy and the outcome.”
“What they don’t want to do is to be seen to be making a deal with Joe Biden that undercuts whatever it is that Trump is going to do,” Vinjamuri added.
“It’s a very tricky position to be in, because if anything’s visible that cuts across what he wants to do, you as a leader risk being punished.”
Those at the top of American politics know that foreign policy success can accelerate careers and define legacies. Former President Richard Nixon infamously undermined President Lyndon B. Johnson’s efforts to negotiate an end to the Vietnam War during the 1968 election campaign for fear it would reduce his chances of victory.
Though he has already secured his second term, Trump appears unlikely to help the Biden administration with any foreign policy “wins” in its closing days.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty and room for maneuver — it’s highly unpredictable,” Vinjamuri said.
Russia and Ukraine
Russia’s war on Ukraine has dominated much of Biden’s presidency. He will leave office with Moscow’s forces holding large parts of Ukraine and still advancing, even if slowly and at huge cost.
“I think that now Biden can be much more decisive in support of Ukraine, especially when he sees that Trump will be the next president,” Oleksandr Merezhko — a member of Ukraine’s parliament and the chair of the body’s foreign affairs committee — told ABC News.
“Biden has his hands completely untied,” Merezhko added. “Now Biden is thinking about his legacy.”
“He might even try to take some decisions which will make irreversible changes in support of Ukraine — for example, he might lift all the restrictions on the use of the Western weapons on the territory of Russia,” Merezhko said. “And he might start the process of inviting Ukraine to join NATO.”
Merezkho acknowledged that progress on the NATO front might be ambitious. “Yes, he doesn’t have much time,” he said. “But he — with [National Security Adviser] Jake Sullivan and [Secretary of State] Antony Blinken — might do something creative to help Ukraine.”
It appears unlikely that Biden’s final months will bring Kyiv any closer to NATO membership. Ukrainian leaders are still pushing for an invitation to join the alliance despite fierce opposition from Russia — and hesitance among key alliance members. Allies have repeatedly said that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO,” but even top officials in Kyiv acknowledge this cannot happen amid war with Moscow.
The outgoing president may at least be able to ring fence much-needed funding for Kyiv.
Matthew Savill of the Royal United Services Institute think tank in the U.K., said Biden “might choose in his last months in office to use the remainder of the funding available for support to Ukraine under Presidential Drawdown Authority, amounting to over $5 billion.”
The Pentagon has already committed to rolling out new funding packages between now and January totaling some $9 billion. “That is consistent with how we’ve been doing this in the past,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told journalists last week. “It’s something that we’ve done on a pretty regular, almost weekly, basis.”
Biden has also reportedly already decided to allow non-combat American defense contractors to work in Ukraine to maintain and repair U.S.-provided weaponry.
Yehor Cherniev — a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the chairman of his country’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly — told ABC News that deeper sanctions on “Putin’s inner circle” are on Kyiv’s wish list, along with the delivery of all previously allocated aid, commitments for more, plus the end to restrictions on Western weapon use inside Russia.
Trump has suggested he would quickly end Russia’s invasion by threatening to cut off military aid to Kyiv unless it agrees to hand Moscow direct or indirect control of swaths of occupied territory in the south and east of the country.
As such, his election has raised concerns in Ukraine of an imminent sellout.
Merezhko, though, stressed the unpredictability of the president-elect. “Trump might become even more critical of Russia to show that all suspicions about him are groundless,” he said.
“We know that Trump loves his country and seeks to protect its interests in accordance with his vision,” Cherniev said. “Therefore, we are confident that the U.S. will not leave us alone with Russia, since this is not in the interests of the U.S. and the free world.”
“However, much will depend on Putin’s willingness to make concessions and compromises,” he added. “If the Russian dictator does not show due flexibility, I think Trump will increase his support for Ukraine.”
As to potential tensions between Trump and Biden in the coming months, Merezhko said, “Competition between them will continue.”
“For us, it would be better if they compete amongst themselves on who will do more for Ukraine.”
European nations, meanwhile, will be bracing for Trump while hoping to influence the president-elect’s take on the war.
Vinjamuri, of the Chatham House think tank, said Europeans will also be working closely with the Biden administration “to put in place everything that they can to keep Europe and Ukraine in as good a place as possible before Jan. 20, when Trump comes in and tries to negotiate a peace deal.”
“That means that getting Ukraine in the best position on the ground, because when you start negotiating a peace, a lot of what gets locked in is based on what land people hold,” she said.
The Middle East
The Biden administration’s pre-election Middle East diplomatic push does not appear to have made significant breakthroughs in either Gaza or Lebanon. Fierce ground fighting and devastating Israeli airstrikes continue on both fronts, with the toll of civilian dead and displaced growing ever larger.
The regional war began with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, which killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel and saw around 250 taken back to Gaza as hostages. Israel’s military response in the strip has killed some 43,600 people and injured more than 102,000, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. Israel’s airstrike and ground campaign in Lebanon has killed more than 3,000 since Oct. 8, 2023, Lebanese health officials say.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu replaced Defense Minister Yoav Gallant — one of his prime political rivals and an advocate for a cease-fire deal — on the eve of the U.S. election, reinforcing his position and entrenching his government’s commitment to what he has called “total victory.”
Hafed Al-Ghwell, senior fellow and executive director of the North Africa Initiative at the SAIS Foreign Policy Institute, Johns Hopkins University, told ABC News he has little expectation of peace during Biden’s final months. “I don’t think he has any incentive to do anything,” Hafed said.
“In the case of Israel and Palestine, Biden has taken not just a political stand but an ideological one, and there is no sign that he is going to change that,” Hafed added. “He has called himself a Zionist, and he had ample opportunity to stop this war. Even when the United Nations proposed a resolution to end the occupation, he didn’t support it.”
“It would be really controversial for an outgoing president to make any major decisions,” he continued.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu will be confident in the new White House’s backing in his suppression of Palestinian and Lebanese groups, as well as in his wider showdown with Iran.
Netanyahu “probably feels like he has a free run,” Vinjamuri said. “Even if Biden tried to push him, I’m not so sure he would be responsive, because he knows that Trump is now coming into office.”
Hafed suggested Netanyahu’s domestic concerns, too, will be driving his policy in the coming months. “He knows that the minute this war stops, the Israeli public won’t want him around,” he said. “So, he will continue the war in Lebanon and probably threaten Iran, knowing he will have the full support of Trump.”
Burcu Ozcelik at RUSI said the extent of Trump’s influence over Netanyahu tops “a complex list of unknowns.”
“Trump in recent weeks indicated that he was prepared to give Israel freer rein, provided that the war ended by the time he entered office,” he added.
Those living in the region will be left grappling with the fallout, Hafed continued. “For the people of the Middle East, Biden’s legacy is one of a bloodbath,” he said. “The region is bitter and battered.”
ABC News’ Luis Martinez contributed to this article.
