US citizen sentenced to 15 years by Moscow court on espionage charges, Russian media says
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(MOSCOW) — An American citizen, Evgeny “Eugene” Spector, was sentenced to 15 years in a high-security prison by the Moscow City Court on espionage charges on Dec. 24, reported Interfax, a Russian news agency.
The Russian Security Service, or FSB, said Spector collected information from Russia “in the interests of the Pentagon to create a system for genetic screening of the Russian population,” Interfax reported on Friday.
“We are aware of reports of the sentencing of a U.S. citizen in Russia. We are monitoring the situation but have no further comment at this time,” a State Department official told ABC News. “The Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of our U.S. citizens overseas. We will continue to press for fair and transparent treatment for all U.S. citizen detainees in Russia and around the world.”
The Pentagon declined to comment, instead directing all inquiries to the State Department.
“The American, acting in the interests of the Pentagon and a commercial organization affiliated with it, collected and transferred to a foreign party various information on biotechnological and biomedical topics, including information constituting a state secret, for the subsequent creation by the United States of a high-speed genetic screening system for the Russian population,” the FSB said Friday, according to Interfax.
The sentence has not entered into force and can be appealed, Interfax reported. The court did not report how Spector pleaded to the charges. It was a closed-door trial “due to the secrecy of the case materials,” Russian state media said.
Before espionage charges were brought against Spector in August 2023, he was arrested in a case involving bribes to the former assistant to Arkady Dvorkovich, the former deputy prime minister of the Russian Federation, according to Interfax.
Spector was sentenced 3 1/2 years in a maximum-security penal colony for acting as an intermediary in giving a bribe to Dvorkovich’s aide.
The sentence of espionage charges was handed down in conjunction with the previous sentence Spector had already received for the bribery charges, Russian state media said. Spector was handed a 13-year sentence for espionage charges, which added to his existing bribery sentence, converting the overall sentence into a new 15-year sentence, Russian state media reported.
The presiding judge had decided Spector should now serve an overall 15-year sentence in a maximum-security penal colony as punishment for both cases on Tuesday, reported TASS, a Russian state news agency.
Prior to his arrest, Spector was the chairman of the board of directors of the Medpolymerprom Group, a company specializing in cancer-curing drugs. Spector was born in Russia and then moved to the US.
On Friday, the U.S. State Department confirmed to ABC News another American serving a prison sentence in Russia was determined to be “wrongfully detained” by Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this year.
Marc Fogel, an American teacher who was arrested in Russia on drug charges in 2021, is currently serving a 14-year sentence.
A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. has been trying to secure Fogel’s release and tried to include him in the large Aug. 1 prisoner exchange that freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, among others.
Blinken determined Fogel as being wrongfully detained in October, the spokesperson said, adding that there was a variety of reasons why the department may not have made the designation public.
(LONDON) — Ukrainian authorities said that at least 23 people were injured and 41 buildings damaged by a Russian missile strike in the northeastern city of Kharkiv overnight into Monday, as Moscow’s troops launched a fresh offensive effort in the region and claimed battlefield gains all along the eastern front.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram that the S-400 anti-aircraft missile impact in Kharkiv was part of a multi-pronged barrage against Ukrainian cities overnight. Kyiv, Odessa and Zaporizhzhia were all also targeted.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 145 drones, 71 of which were downed and 71 were lost during flight. One UAV flew into Belarusian airspace, the air force said.
The Russian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, claimed to have downed 23 Ukrainian drones over multiple regions. The ministry also said it downed eight ballistic missiles, though did not specify their type.
Vladislav Shapsha, the governor of Kaluga Oblast that borders Moscow Oblast to the southwest, said falling drone debris sparked a fire at a manufacturing facility. Ukraine’s General Staff, though, said its strikes destroyed the Kaluganefteproduct oil depot in the city of Kaluga.
“In total, since yesterday evening, Russia has used about one and a half hundred attack drones, aerial bombs and missiles against more than 10 of our regions,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram early Monday.
“These attacks by Russia on Ukrainian life can be stopped,” he added. “With pressure, sanctions, blocking the occupiers’ access to the components they use to create the tools of this terror, arms packages for Ukraine and a determination that must be unwavering.”
Only 19 miles from the Russian border, Ukraine’s “second city” of Kharkiv has faced near-constant attacks since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in early 2022.
Russian forces failed to encircle and capture Kharkiv during the opening weeks of the invasion, but fighting has continued along the shared border throughout the conflict.
Ukraine’s General Staff said in a post to Facebook on Monday that Russian forces launched assaults the settlement of Kozacha Lopan, around 2 miles from the border and 16 miles north of Kharkiv.
The Ukrainian Deep State Telegram military blogger reported that Russian forces also launched an amphibious operation across the Oskil River in eastern Kharkiv region, where Russian troops have been pushing towards the strategic objective of Kupyansk.
The Russian force established a foothold on the Ukrainian-controlled side of the waterway, Deep State wrote. The blogger’s claims could not be immediately be verified.
(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.
Pope Francis (R) reads a speech during his weekly general audience in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican on January 8, 2025. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP) (Photo by ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Pope Francis fell and injured his arm on Thursday in his residence, the Vatican said.
“This morning, due to a fall at the Santa Marta house, Pope Francis suffered a bruise to his right forearm, without fractures,” the Vatican said in a statement in Italian. “The arm was immobilized as a precautionary measure.”
The pontiff, 88, was seen in a photo released by the Vatican with his arm in what appeared to be a soft sling.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti and Helena Skinner contributed to this report.
