Ukraine hands revised 20-point peace plan proposal to US, official says
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine president, during a meeting at Downing Street in London, UK, on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025. (Tolga Akmen/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down at least 287 Ukrainian drones overnight into Thursday morning, soon after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy previewed more meetings with foreign partners regarding a possible peace deal.
Forty of the drones were shot down over the Moscow region, 32 of which the Defense Ministry said were “flying toward Moscow.”
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in posts to Telegram that emergency services had been dispatched to several sites where falling drone debris was reported.
A spokesperson for Rosaviatsiya, Russia’s federal air transport agency, said in posts to Telegram that temporary flight restrictions were introduced at all four of Moscow’s airports.
The latest exchanges came soon after Zelenskyy said his negotiating team was “finalizing work on the 20 points of a fundamental document that could define the parameters for ending the war.”
Zelenskyy was referring to the 20-point peace settlement proposal that Ukrainian, U.S. and European leaders have been working on for several weeks.
A Ukrainian official close to the peace talks told ABC News on Thursday morning that Ukraine had handed the U.S. a revised 20-point peace plan.
The official noted that the revised plan contains “some new ideas” regarding territories and control over the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
“This is not a new version, it is the same 20 points, only some of them have been slightly rethought,” the official said.
Ukrainian and American negotiating teams are expected to hold online consultations on Thursday regarding the peace plan, but the main topic will be security guarantees, not the revised points of the plan.
“Right now, there are three documents: the basic 20 points, the security guarantees and the document on the economy and reconstruction,” the Ukrainian official told ABC News. “Yesterday, we discussed the economy, today the guarantees.”
Russia continued its long-range strike campaign on Ukraine overnight.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 151 drones and three missiles into the country on Wednesday night into Thursday morning, of which 83 drones and two missiles were shot down. Impacts of one missile and 63 drones were reported across 34 locations, the air force said.
Zelenskyy said in a Wednesday social media post that a meeting with the “Coalition of the Willing” — a group of mostly European leaders backing Ukraine — was planned for Thursday.
“Ukraine is working swiftly; every visit and every negotiation we conduct always yields practical results for our defense and for our resilience,” Zelenskyy wrote.
The Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at the Yale School of Public Health observed numerous clusters with discoloration around them, consistent with the appearance of human bodies in the Darfur region of Sudan. (Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health)
(NEW YORK) — Satellite images and verified videos paint a harrowing picture of door-to-door mass killings in the Darfur region of war-torn Sudan as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary rebels captured a key city in the region.
The Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at the Yale School of Public Health says they observed numerous clusters with discoloration around them, consistent with the appearance of human bodies across the city as RSF advanced.
The apparent masses were seen in a hospital, all over residential neighborhoods, on the outskirts of the city and by military bases of the opposing Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).
The alleged killings took place “in under 72 hours since RSF took control of the city,” Nathaniel Raymond, an American human rights and war crimes investigator at HRL who has been documenting the massacres in Sudan with satellite imagery, told ABC News.
With his team at the research lab, Raymond said he observed “an explosion of objects that measure between 1.3 to 2 meters proliferate all over the ground,” which HRL Yale concluded is human bodies due to the length, shape and videos from the ground showing alleged systematic civilian killings.
“In Daraja Oula — a neighborhood where civilians have been hiding — we’re seeing a tactical posture on the vehicles that is highly consistent with house-to-house killing,” Raymond told ABC News. “This is also consistent with video and testimony from those who reached Tawila. Particularly women, who said that the men are being separated by RSF and then they hear gunshots.”
The research lab also observed discoloration around these objects, which they concluded is blood, further confirmed by the presence of Rapid Support Forces (RSF) military vehicles always spotted in close proximity, Raymond said. An update on the report shows that the piles have grown and none of the original objects have moved, Raymond told ABC News.
Researchers said they also corroborated reports of alleged executions at Saudi Hospital, where at least four clusters of bodies appeared. “We see a line of people standing on day one at an RSF detention facility that was formerly a children’s hospital. On day two, we see a pile now in the corner consistent with the color and length of those individuals who are standing there in a line on the previous day,” Raymond said.
On the outskirts of El Fasher, HRL Yale also said they observed multiple clusters appearing between Oct. 26 and Oct. 27, consistent with reports of civilians being killed as they tried to flee. West of the city, along its encircling berm, at least six clusters were observed as well as adjacent technical vehicles, which were not seen in images from Oct. 28, suggesting RSF had moved, leaving the large clusters of bodies behind, according to the research lab.
RSF has also taken control of the opposing Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) military bases in the city, the HRL analysis appears to show.
Satellite images from Oct. 26 show at least 15 new munition scars and thermal burns on the ground of the 6th Division HQ of the opposing Sudanese Armed Forces in a comparison with images from Oct. 15.
“We’ve seen that all of the Sudan Armed Forces vehicles left en masse at about the same time. Which is consistent with reports that they escaped in the night in what now appears to be a negotiated deal with the Rapid Support Forces, leaving the civilians in Al-Fasher to die,” Raymond said.
During the offensive, El Fasher has been cut off from the outside world. Besieged for 18 months — the UN called it the “epicentre of suffering” — and now with RSF forces inside the city, there is no observable mass movement of people fleeing, likely prevented from escaping the alleged killings in what experts fear is just the beginning of devastating violence.
In January, the U.S. State Department announced it had concluded members of the RSF had committed genocide in Sudan, specifically pointing to human rights violations in Darfur. Raymond says what we are seeing “is the final battle of the Darfur genocide that began 20 years ago.”
Compared to previous RSF offensives — such as one in April on the largest displacement camp in Darfur, ZamZam — humanitarian observers are suggesting the new satellite imagery shows a more systematic way of killing that is making them warn of a possible genocide unfolding.
“Here, in the case of El Fasher, what’s different? They’re not burning the city to the ground. They have the city encircled. They are controlling the entrance and exit. And they are moving pretty systematically, unlike ZamZam. Pretty systematically, block by block. And as they move, we see objects consistent with bodies, often with discoloration, appear,” Raymond told ABC News.
From testimony on the ground, those who have fled said that men have been separated from women and children, who are now likely in hiding, but are next in the firing line, Raymond said.
“It’s now going to accelerate,” he said. “We haven’t even hit top velocity. The people that they will kill now are those who are hiding. And they’re mostly women and children… Now it’ll be those who were too weak to run or those men who were hiding and trying to protect them from the RSF.”
(PARIS) — When Alexander Boecker and his wife, Julia Schwartz, woke up last Sunday morning, the first headlines were not what they expected.
One of their company’s machines — a Boecker AgiLo furniture lift — had been used in a jewel heist at the Louvre Museum in Paris and the image of their lift beneath the iconic French museum’s balcony was already everywhere.
Last week’s Louvre heist saw four masked thieves steal eight pieces of jewelry valued at $102 million, sparking a national outcry and nationwide manhunt. The daring heist took just seven minutes, leaving investigators searching for answers as to how one of the world’s most secure museums was robbed in such a brief window of time.
Based in Werne, a small town in western Germany, Boecker is a third-generation family firm that employs more than 600 people and earns about 150 million euros ($174 million) a year, according to its website. Its lifts are designed to move furniture, pianos and scaffolding — not priceless treasures.
“At first we were shocked,” Boecker told ABC News. “It was a reprehensible act. They had used our device to do it.”
By Sunday evening, once it was clear no one had been hurt, the shock gave way to dark humor, the 42-year-old noted.
“We put some slogans together we found funny,” Boecker said.
His wife, who heads the company’s marketing department, came up with the line that would soon go viral: “When you need to move fast.”
On Monday morning, the company licensed the now-famous photo of the Louvre heist — their lift in full view — and posted it online with the slogan.
“We expected maybe a few laughs,” Boecker said. “Not millions.”
By Thursday, the post had reached 4.3 million views — an extraordinary leap from their usual 20,000.
Inside the office, other slogans were considered: “Return on investment in only seven minutes” and “Even professional criminals rely on the best machines.” In the end, they decided to hold back.
“We didn’t want to cross the line,” Boecker said. “Of course, it’s a crime — a very serious one. We didn’t want to make fun of that.”
The AgiLo in question had been sold to a French rental company in 2020. On Oct. 15, 2025, the thieves arrived posing as clients, attended a short demonstration, learned how to operate the lift — then drove away with it. The rental company reported the theft to police that same day.
Boecker described his machines as “safe, reliable, durable — and as quiet as a whisper.”
“Over 99% of the reactions are positive,” he said. “Some people wrote, ‘Who says Germans don’t have a sense of humor?'”
He noted that they may stop the campaign, since they don’t want to “step over a line.”
“But still,” Boecker said with a smile. “Quite a story, and quite a lift.”
Thick smoke and flames rise as fire engulfs high-rise residential buildings at the Wang Fuk Court complex on November 26, 2025 in Hong Kong, China. At least 13 people are dead and dozens of others injured as a major fire engulfed a residential apartment complex in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district on November 26. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — At least 13 people were killed and dozens of others were injured as a massive fire engulfed a residential apartment complex in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district on Wednesday, according to fire officials.
“A fire broke out at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po at 2.51 p.m. today … The fire was upgraded to No. 3 alarm at 3.02 p.m., and to No. 4 alarm at 3.34 p.m.,” according to a statement from the Hong Kong government.
By 6:22 p.m. local time the fire had been upgraded again to a No. 5 alarm, city officials said.
At least 13 people were dead, fire officials said in an update at about 8 p.m. local time. About two hours earlier, city officials had released a statement saying at least four people were dead.
Another 28 people were injured, including many who were transferred to two local hospitals, fire officials said.
One of the dead had been a firefighter who was called to the scene from nearby Sha Tin Fire Station, according to Andy Yeung, the director of Fire Services.
Yeung in a statement named the firefighter as Ho Wai-ho, 37, adding that he “was found collapsed at the scene” of the fire. He was rushed to the hospital, where he later died, Yeung said.
“The fire has resulted in many casualties, including a fireman who died in the line of duty,” Hong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee said in a statement posted to social media, “I express my deep sadness and my deep condolences to the families of the dead and the injured.”
Secretary for Security Tang Ping-keung said in a statement that emergency departments were at the scene of the blaze. The fire department was “doing its utmost to put out the fire,” he said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed his condolences to the victims and firefighters who died in the fire in a statement. The president also extended his sympathies to the families of the victims and the affected people.
The statement said Xi had ordered authorities to “do everything possible to ensure search and rescue operations, medical treatment for the injured, and post-disaster relief, and to provide necessary assistance to relevant departments and local authorities to minimize casualties and losses.”
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti and Karson Yiu contributed to this report.
