Ukraine delegation on way to US for more peace talks
Nikolas Mhtrousias/NurPhoto via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Ukraine is sending a high-level delegation to the U.S. on Saturday for more talks on the Trump administration’s new peace plan, ahead of White House envoy Steve Witkoff’s visit to Moscow expected early next week.
Ukraine’s presidential office confirmed the delegation is on its way.
The Ukrainian delegation will now be led by the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Rustem Umerov, after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff was forced to resign on Friday amid a corruption scandal.
Ukraine’s head of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, is also listed as part of the delegation, as well as senior military, security and foreign ministry officials.
The U.S. and Ukraine last held talks around a week ago in Geneva when they revised the peace plan to make it more acceptable to Ukraine.
In a post on social media on Saturday, Zelenskyy said he expects to be briefed by Umerov on the outcome of the talks on Sunday.
The talks are aimed at ensuring the results from the Geneva talks a week ago are “hammered out” and to “swiftly and substantively work out the steps needed to end the war,” he said.
“Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine and head of the Ukrainian delegation Rustem Umerov, together with the team, is already on the way to the United States. Rustem delivered a report today, and the task is clear: to swiftly and substantively work out the steps needed to end the war,” Zelenskyy said.
“Ukraine continues to work with the United States in the most constructive way possible, and we expect that the results of the meetings in Geneva will now be hammered out in the United States,” Zelenskyy continued. “I look forward to our delegation’s report following its work this Sunday. Ukraine is working for a dignified peace.”
Meanwhile, Kyiv was targeted with major attack overnight into Saturday as Ukraine’s foreign minister said last night’s attack shows how Putin is determined to prolong the war despite the peace talks and called on the international community to help out more pressure on Russia.
“While everyone is discussing points of peace plans, Russia continues to pursue its “war plan” of two points: to kill and destroy,” Andriy Sybiha, the the Ukrainian foreign minister, wrote on X.
“Putin wants to prolong the war at any cost. The war he cannot win — and the war refuses to end. But the international community has the means to ensure that this cost becomes unbearable for him,” he said. “We urge additional support for Ukraine’s defense and resilience, additional strong sanctions on Russia, and a swift decision to enable the full use of frozen Russian assets.”
Iranian protesters participate in a pro-Government rally in Tehran, Iran, on January 12, 2026. The rally takes place in Tehran against the recent anti-government unrest, opposition to the U.S. and Israel in Iran, and in support of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — The death toll from major anti-government protests in Iran reached at least 2,000 as of Tuesday, according to data published by the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), over 16 days of unrest.
U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on social media on Tuesday, “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price.”
“I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY,” Trump added.
At least 10,721 people have been arrested, HRANA said in an earlier update on Tuesday, in protests that have been recorded in 606 locations in 187 cities across all 31 Iranian provinces. Among the dead are at least nine children, the group reported.
The HRANA data relies on the work of activists inside and outside the country. ABC News cannot independently verify these numbers. The group earlier on Tuesday said 646 people had been killed. The Iranian government has not provided any death tolls during the ongoing protests.
Iranian state-aligned media, meanwhile, has reported that more than 100 members of the security forces have been killed in the unrest. HRANA said that 133 military and security personnel were among those killed in the protest wave to date, along with one prosecutor.
Trump on Monday announced a 25% tariff on any country doing business with Iran, after repeatedly warning Tehran against the use of force to suppress the ongoing protests.
“Effective immediately, any Country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a Tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America,” Trump said in a social media post on Monday. “This Order is final and conclusive.”
In response to the announcement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the position of Beijing — which is a key trading partner for Tehran — “is very clear — there are no winners in a tariff war. China will firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.”
China “supports Iran in maintaining national stability,” she added. “We have always opposed interference in other countries’ internal affairs and the use or threat of force in international relations.”
Members of Trump’s national security team — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe — met Tuesday morning to discuss Iran, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Trump did not attend the meeting, nor was he scheduled to, she said.
One U.S. official told ABC News that among the options under consideration regarding Iran are new sanctions against key regime figures or against Iran’s energy or banking sectors.
Leavitt suggested to reporters on Monday that military options remain open to Trump.
The president, she said, “is always keeping all of his options on the table and air strikes would be one of the many, many options on the table for the commander in chief. Diplomacy is always the first option for the president.”
Citing “escalating” protests and increased security measures, the State Department also urged Americans to leave Iran.
U.S. citizens should expect continued internet outages, plan alternative means of communication, and, if safe to do so, consider departing Iran by land to Armenia or Türkiye,” a new security alert posted on the U.S. “virtual” Embassy Tehran website on Monday stated.
Protests have been spreading across the country since late December. The first marches took place in downtown Tehran, with participants demonstrating against rising inflation and the falling value of the national currency, the rial.
As the protests spread, some have taken on a more explicitly anti-government tone.
The theocratic government in Tehran — headed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — moved to tame the protests, with security forces reportedly using tear gas and live ammunition to disperse gatherings.
A sustained national internet outage has been in place across the country for several days. Online monitoring group NetBlocks said on Tuesday that the “nationwide internet shutdown” had been ongoing for 108 hours.
The United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement on Tuesday that hundreds of people had been killed and thousands arrested.
Turk said he was “horrified by the mounting violence against protesters” and urged Iranian authorities to immediately halt all forms of violence and repression, and restore full access to internet and telecommunications.
Khamenei and top Iranian officials have said they are willing to engage with the economic grievances of protesters, though have framed the unrest as driven by “rioters” and “terrorists” sponsored by foreign nations — prime among them the U.S. and Israel — and supported by foreign infiltrators.
On Monday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the wave of protests as a “terrorist war” while speaking to foreign diplomats in Tehran.
Also on Monday, state television broadcast footage of pro-government rallies organized in other major cities.
The footage showed crowds waving Iranian flags in Tehran’s Revolution Square. State television described the Tehran demonstration as an “Iranian uprising against American-Zionist terrorism.”
Dissident figures abroad, meanwhile, have urged Iranians to take to the street and overthrow the government.
Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi — who from his base in the U.S. has become a prominent critic of the Iranian government — on Monday appealed to Trump to act in support of the protesters.
“I have called the people to the streets to fight for their freedom and to overwhelm the security forces with sheer numbers,” Pahlavi wrote on X. “Last night they did that. Your threat to this criminal regime has also kept the regime’s thugs at bay. But time is of the essence.”
“Please be prepared to intervene to help the people of Iran,” Pahlavi added.
ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian, Morgan Winsor, Meredith Deliso, Anne Flaherty, Mariam Khan, Othon Leyva, Britt Clennett, Joseph Simonetti and Lalee Ibssa contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The Kremlin on Wednesday said Russian President Vladimir Putin hadn’t outright rejected the latest version of the U.S.-backed plan at his Tuesday meeting with American officials, but added that more work would have to be done to make the proposal acceptable to Moscow.
“No, it would not be correct,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on Wednesday. “The fact is that such a direct exchange of views took place for the first time yesterday, and, again, as was said yesterday, something was accepted, something was noted as unacceptable, and this is a normal working process of seeking compromise.”
Those statements came as two of the top Ukrainian security officials were set to regroup on Wednesday in Brussels with several European counterparts to discuss the outcomes of Tuesday’s U.S.-Russia meeting in Moscow, the Ukrainian presidential office said in a statement.
Rustem Umerov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, and Andrii Hnatov, chief of the General Staff, were expected to join talks in Belgium, which would follow a day after top U.S. officials held a high-stakes sit-down with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
“This is our ongoing coordination with partners, and we ensure that the negotiation process is fully active,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday on social media.
After their meetings in Brussels, Umerov Hnatov were expected to begin preparations for a meeting with envoys of the Trump administration, Zelenskyy said.
The sit-down in Moscow followed a series of meetings between top U.S. and Ukrainian officials, during which the parties sought to revise the original peace-plan proposal presented by the Trump administration to Ukraine last month. Witkoff and other top U.S. officials — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — met on Sunday in Florida with a Ukrainian delegation to attempt to find a deal that Ukraine and Russia might both accept to end the war.
Witkoff and Kushner on Tuesday conveyed the outcomes of that meeting to Putin. The Kremlin’s top foreign policy aide said Tuesday’s five-hour talks in Moscow had been “useful” but added that “no compromise plan” had been found yet on the toughest issues.
None of the parties involved in the negotiations has detailed the current version of the proposal.
Peskov on Wednesday told reporters in Moscow on Wednesday that Russia also didn’t plan to publicly disclose what Witkoff, Kushner and Putin had discussed, but added that Russia was “grateful for these efforts by the Trump administration and we are all ready to meet as many times as necessary to achieve a peaceful settlement.”
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns visits Ahmed al Ahmed, who was identified as the bystander who seized a rifle from one of the gunmen during the deadly shooting at Bondi Beach on Sunday, at a hospital in Sydney, Dec. 15, 2025. (@ChrisMinnsMP/X)
(SYDNEY) — A Sydney man is being praised as a hero for disarming one of the alleged shooters in the Hanukkah attack that left 15 dead and 42 injured at Australia’s Bondi Beach on Sunday, as seen in video obtained by ABC News
The video shows a man, identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed, 43, running towards one of the alleged shooters. He’s then seen disarming the alleged gunman before pointing his weapon back at him, prompting him to walk away.
The fruit seller was having lunch in the area with a friend when the shooting unfolded and he intervened, according to his brother, Huthaifa.
“I’m really proud about my brother,” he told ABC News.
“He’s a good man. He’s brave,” he said.
The father of two was taken to a hospital, where he was treated for bullet wounds. His brother said he is recovering in the hospital, but is not 100% yet.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns called him a “real-life hero.”
“Last night, his incredible bravery no doubt saved countless lives when he disarmed a terrorist at enormous personal risk,” Minns posted on Instagram while sharing a photo with al-Ahmed in the hospital.
“It was an honour to spend time with him just now and to pass on the thanks of people across NSW. There is no doubt that more lives would have been lost if not for Ahmed’s selfless courage,” he added.
At Sunday night’s National Menorah Lighting in Washington, D.C., Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the director of advocacy group American Friends of Lubavitch, praised al-Ahmed’s heroism and asked for prayers for his recovery.
“I ask all those across the community and beyond — here, and around the world — to please pray for the recovery of Ahmed al-Ahmed, someone who is not a member of the Jewish community, but gave up his safety and wellbeing to stop one of the gunmen and thus prevent even further loss of life. May he recover speedy and fully,” Shemtov said.
A GoFundMe page for al-Ahmed has raised almost $1.5 million with thousands of donations.
“We’re seeing an outpouring of love for Ahmed al Ahmed following his heroic actions at Bondi Beach,” the site posted on X.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman also shared the fundraiser on his X account Sunday, donating $99,999.
Mohamed Fateh al-Ahmed told reporters that his son is “a hero.”
“He served in the police, he has the passion to defend people,” he said.
The victims of Sunday’s mass shooting ranged in ages 10 to 87, and the alleged gunmen are father and son, aged 50 and 24, officials said. Their names have not been released, but authorities said the father is dead and the son was hospitalized.
Six firearms were collected from the scene alongside two improvised explosives, according to officials.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the attack “an act of pure evil, an act of antisemitism” and “an act of terrorism,” in a video shared on his Instagram account.
