Russia-Ukraine war cannot end until ‘nuances’ addressed, Kremlin says
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(LONDON) — Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov warned Wednesday that “a whole series of nuances” needs to be addressed before Russia will agree to any U.S.-brokered peace deal to end Moscow’s 3-year-old invasion of Ukraine.
Speaking with journalists, Peskov appeared to downplay hopes of a quick peace agreement — which President Donald Trump said this weekend he wants to secure within two weeks.
President Vladimir Putin, Peskov said, “said that he supports this initiative — the establishment of a ceasefire, he supports it, but before going for it, a whole series of questions need to be answered and a whole series of nuances need to be resolved,” as quoted by the state-run Tass news agency.
Peskov was responding to suggestions — including from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — that Putin is not genuine about his professed desire to agree a peace deal.
Zelenskyy again urged greater international pressure on the Kremlin on Wednesday, citing the latest round of drone strikes in which 45 people were injured in Kharkiv — including two children — and one person was killed in Dnipro.
“Russian drones continue flying over Ukrainian skies all morning,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. “And this happens every single day. That’s why pressure on Russia is needed — strong, additional sanctions that actually work. Not just words or attempts at persuasion — only pressure can force Russia to agree to a ceasefire and end the war.”
“Pressure from the United States, Europe and everyone in the world who believes war has no place on Earth,” the president wrote.
Zelenskyy said that more than 100 Russian attack drones were launched at Ukrainian targets overnight into Wednesday, with a total of 375 drones launched so far this week.
Ukraine’s air force said its forces shot down 50 of the 108 drones launched, with another 22 lost in flight without causing damage.
Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces downed 35 Ukrainian drones overnight into Wednesday morning.
ABC News Guy Davies and Oleksiy Pshemyskiy contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — The Israel Defense Forces issued evacuation warnings for three ports in Houthi-controlled Yemen after intercepting two of three ballistic missiles fired by the Iran-backed group in the past 24 hours. The IDF said one Houthi missile misfired on Tuesday.
The IDF said in a post to X that the third missile launched toward Israel on Wednesday was intercepted just before 8 a.m. local time. Air raid sirens rang out from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, sending several million Israelis rushing for cover. About two hours later, IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee ordered those present at the Red Sea ports of Ras Isa, al-Hudaydah and al-Salif to evacuate the area.
“Due to the terrorist Houthi regime’s use of seaports for its terrorist activities, we urge all those present at these ports to evacuate and stay away from them for your own safety until further notice,” Adraee wrote in a post to X.
The IDF routinely issues such evacuation orders ahead of planned airstrikes. The IDF’s first such warning for Yemen was issued on May 6, before Israeli strikes on the Sanaa International Airport in the Yemeni capital.
The spate of Houthi missile attacks came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces would enter Gaza with “full force” in the coming days. Last week, Netanyahu’s security cabinet approved plans to expand the IDF’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
Netanyahu said Wednesday that intensified military action is required “to accomplish all of Israel’s war goals, including the release of all our hostages, destroy Hamas’s military and governance capabilities and ensure that Gaza will never again pose a threat to Israel.”
The Houthis have been attacking U.S. military and global commercial shipping and launching drones and missiles toward Israel since Hamas’ deadly surprise attack on Israel in October 2023. The Houthis say their attacks are a protest of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
Last week, the Houthis agreed to end attacks on American commercial shipping in the region in exchange for an end to the intense U.S. airstrikes against them, a campaign President Donald Trump began in March. The Houthis have clarified that this agreement struck with the U.S. does not include stopping its attacks on Israel.
Trump announced the agreement on May 6. Over the next two days, the Houthis launched an attack drone and a ballistic missile toward Israel, both of which the IDF said were intercepted.
While traveling to Saudi Arabia to begin a tour of Gulf nations on Monday, Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity of the Houthis, “You know, they’re tough fighters. They can take a lot of punishment.” Asked if the ceasefire would hold, he responded, “With respect to America, they say it’s true. We’ll see.”
The Houthis have vowed to continue attacks on Israel until it ends its operation in Gaza and the blockade of humanitarian aid into the strip. The Israeli war on Hamas began after the terror group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel.
The attack killed nearly 1,200 people in Israel with 253 others abducted as hostages, the Israeli government said. Fifty-seven hostages remain in Gaza, including 20 who are believed to be alive.
IDF soldier Edan Alexander — the last living U.S. citizen being held hostage in Gaza — was freed on Monday after direct talks between Hamas and the Trump administration. U.S. officials told ABC News that Alexander’s release was viewed as a goodwill gesture toward the Trump administration and a potential opening to jumpstart talks on a Gaza ceasefire.
After Netanyahu met top U.S. officials in Israel Monday ahead of Alexander’s release, the Israeli leader announced he would send an Israeli negotiating team to Doha, Qatar, for ceasefire talks. Indirect talks with Hamas entered their second day on Wednesday.
But Netanyahu said Tuesday that any new ceasefire deal reached — for example to facilitate the release of more living hostages — would be temporary. “There will be no way we will stop the war,” Netanyahu said. “We can make a ceasefire for a certain period of time, but we’re going to the end.” Netanyahu has repeatedly said that Hamas cannot remain in power in the Mediterranean exclave.
Also on Tuesday, a series of airstrikes targeted the European Hospital near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Mohammad Sinwar — the leader of Hamas in Gaza and the brother of former leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by the IDF in October — was the target, an Israeli source familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The IDF has not confirmed Mohammed Sinwar was the target and it is not yet clear whether he was killed in the attack. Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health said that at least six people were killed and 40 others were wounded in the strike.
The IDF claimed its “precise strike” targeted “Hamas terrorists in a command and control center located in an underground terrorist infrastructure site beneath the European hospital.”
The IDF routinely alleges that Hamas uses civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, for military activities — allegations Hamas denies.
The Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza said Wednesday that at least 70 people were killed and dozens injured in overnight Israelis strikes on various targets across the strip.
At least 50 people — including 22 children — were killed by Israeli attacks on houses in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern part of the strip, the ministry said, citing local hospital officials.
The total death toll in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, now stands at 52,928 people, according to the Ministry of Health, with another 119,846 people injured. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant dead.
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(LONDON) — All eyes are on Vatican City Tuesday with just over a day to go until the start of the papal conclave to elect the 267th pope.
The 12th and last general congregation is taking place Tuesday morning and is expected to last until around 1 p.m. local time.
A total of 170 cardinals from around the world have already arrived in Vatican City following the death of Pope Francis, with many of them listening to approximately 20 interventions, or speeches, focusing on themes of major pastoral and ecclesial relevance as well as some time devoted to the question of ethnicism within the church and in society on Monday evening.
Migration was also discussed, recognizing migrants as a gift for the Church, but also highlighting the urgency of accompanying them and supporting their faith in contexts of mobility and change.
The ongoing wars around the world were referred on several occasions during Monday evening’s general congregation, with tones often marked by direct testimonies from cardinals who come from the regions affected by conflicts.
The discussion subsequently returned to the subject of the path of the Synod on synodality, seen as a concrete expression of an ecclesiology of communion, in which everyone is called to participate, listen and discern together.
Meanwhile, the cardinals also reaffirmed their commitment and responsibility to support the new Pope, called to be a true pastor, a guide who knows how to go beyond the confines of the Catholic Church alone, promoting dialogue and building relationships with other religious and cultural worlds.
In total, 133 cardinals will be voting during this conclave, the most electors ever, with 108 of them being appointed by Pope Francis. Ten are from the United States.
All of the cardinals will take an oath of secrecy before beginning to vote twice daily, two times in the morning and two times in the evening and will continue voting until two-thirds of the cardinals have agreed on a pope.
Their cell phones will also be taken away at the start of the conclave at Santa Marta and will be returned to them after the election of the new pope.
The ballots are burned after each vote and the smoke will emanate from the chimney that is being built on top of the Sistine Chapel. Black smoke means a majority has not been reached and the voting will continue. White smoke means a new holy leader of the Roman Catholic Church has been confirmed.
(TATAKOTO, FRENCH POLYNESIA) — A possible “biological treasure chest” of corals located in an underwater lagoon off a remote island in the South Pacific appear to be surviving extreme heat stress caused by climate change, scientists say.
In the pristine waters off a French Polynesian island in the South Pacific, a team of marine biologists believes it has made a “miracle-like” discovery — a type of coral which can survive in abnormally warm water.
The coral lives in a semi-enclosed underwater lagoon, within which the water temperature is significantly higher than the swirling South Pacific Ocean beyond.
The lagoon is situated off the remote island of Tatakoto, and in the warmest month of March, water temperatures can reach a sizzling 95 F (35 C) which is about 7 F to 9 F (4 C or 5 C) higher than the wider ocean, according to France’s National Scientific Research Center (CRNS), which is behind the study.
In extreme heat events, which scientists say have become more frequent around the world because of our planet’s changing climate, abnormally warm water temperatures can “bleach” corals, which are a vital food source and habitat for a vast array of marine organisms.
Bleaching means the coral loses the algae living in its tissues, turning it white. Coral struggles to survive in this state.
The warming of seas and oceans, which scientists say is primarily driven by human-amplified climate change, has contributed to the death of large areas of coral reef right across the globe, putting fragile underwater ecosystems at risk.
For four years, the team of marine biologists led by Dr Laetitia Hédouin — in a joint partnership with the marine research non-profit 1ocean.org — has been studying what they say are thermoresistant “super corals” living and “thriving” inside the abnormally warm lagoon off Tatakoto.
Hédouin told ABC News that she and her colleagues are carrying out further studies on the corals, but she is already confident the corals seem to have developed some type of “biological mechanism” that helps them survive.
Last year, French Polynesia experienced a “super long and super strong” marine heat wave that bleached other coral reefs elsewhere in French Polynesia in less extreme water temperatures, according to Hédouin.
It was “almost like a miracle” that the corals survived in the lagoon, because the sea water there is “way warmer” than the ocean outside, Hédouin said.
The aim of the mission is to study whether the so-called super-resistant corals can live and reproduce in new environments outside of the warm lagoon, and potentially survive extreme heat events that have bleached other corals.
The mission has the backing of UNESCO, the lead U.N. agency on ocean research. UNESCO described the corals found in the lagoon as “remarkable specimens” and said the study in French Polynesia could pave the way for the development of “new strategies to repopulate coral reefs worldwide.”
Hédouin and her team have planted cuttings of the heat-resistant coral from the lagoon in another area of the archipelago to see if they can adapt and thrive in a more typical environment where the sea temperature is lower.
If the corals from Tatakoto can survive being moved — a process known as “assisted migration” — then scientists behind the project hope the island could become “a biological treasure chest” of heat-resistant corals that would help restore damaged reefs elsewhere in the world.
The project is being documented by French underwater photographer and 1ocean.org founder Alexis Rosenfeld, who described the lagoon off Tatakoto as a symbol of hope because it represented what he said is humankind’s ability to “live better” with nature.
Rosenfeld said he and his team were documenting this project and others like it through photos and film to “build awareness” of the need to protect fragile ecosystems in our oceans and seas.
