Zelenskyy chief of staff resigns after anti-corruption raids
Beyza Binnur Dönmez/Anadolu via Getty Images
(LONDON) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Andriy Yermak, his chief of staff, has resigned after anti-corruption searches on his home and office on Friday morning.
Zelenskyy announced the resignation in an address he posted online Friday.
The head of Zelenskyy’s presidential office, Yermak is the president’s powerful right-hand man and had been leading the negotiations with the United States to end the war with Russia.
Yermak’s fall strips Zelenskyy of his closest adviser and chief negotiator at a moment when he has been under intense pressure to agree to a new peace plan with Russia.
Yermak had increasingly faced suspicion he could be implicated in a sprawling high-level corruption scandal in Ukraine’s energy sector that has rocked the country’s government, already taking in a former business partner of Zelenskyy’s and prompting the resignations of the justice and energy ministers.
Zelenskyy had resisted calls for Yermak’s resignation, but after the highly publicized raids on Yermak’s addresses Friday morning, he appeared to have concluded the suspicions against his chief of staff were causing too much damage. He did not directly acknowledge the raids or accusations during his address, saying he had made the decision to remove Yermak because he wanted to “avoid rumors and speculation” that could harm internal unity at a critical time.
““For internal strength to exist, there must be no reasons to be distracted by anything other than defending Ukraine. I want there to be no questions whatsoever about Ukraine,” Zelenskky said in the video statement.
He said he would hold consultations on Saturday to choose Yermak’s replacement.
Investigators from Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) on Friday morning raided Yermak’s office and home as part of their investigation into the corruption scandal that has been dubbed “Mindich-gate” in Ukraine, a reference to Zelenskyy’s former business partner Timur Mindich who is implicated.
Prosecutors allege senior officials and Mindich arranged a kickback scheme that funneled tens of millions of dollars from contractors building defenses to protect Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Investigators have not formally announced any allegations against Yermak or charged him. But he has faced mounting suspicion with critics alleging Yermak must have known about the corruption or bore responsibility for it. Some members of Parliament and anti-corruption campaigners also alleged that he was featured in recording made as part of the investigation under the name “Ali Baba.”
Yermak was also accused by opponents of being behind a failed attempt over the summer by Zelenskyy’s administration to strip independence from the same anti-corruption bodies now investigating him, which triggered mass protests.
There is no evidence Zelenskyy himself knew about the alleged corruption scheme or benefited from it. But as the scandal moved to the heart of his administration, he faced widespread calls to act or be seen as complicit, with worries he could face protests again if Yermak remained in post.
On Friday before his resignation Yermak posted he was “fully assisting” investigators.
Often referred to as Zelenskyy’s “grey cardinal,” Yermak has long-faced accusations of creeping authoritarianism and over-centralizing power, while allegations of corruption have lingered.
He has played a central role in Ukraine’s negotiations, including leading the delegation to Geneva last weekend for the talks with the U.S. on the Trump administration’s new peace plan. In an interview on Thursday with Time Magazine, Yermak ruled out ceding any territory to Russia.
Zelenskyy on Friday thanked Yermak for his role in leading the negotiations to end the war, saying “it has always been a patriotic position” and that he had represented Ukraine’s position “exactly as it should be.”
New peace talks are expected to be held perhaps as early as this weekend and Zelenskyy said they would now be headed by the head of Ukraine’s General Staff, as well as its National Security Council and foreign ministry representatives.
A large flash is seen in Tel Aviv, Israel, June 13, 2025. (ABC News)
(LONDON) — President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to “knock the hell” out of Iran if it tries to rebuild its nuclear program.
“Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again, and if they are, we’re going to have to knock them down. We’ll knock them down. We’ll knock the hell out of them,” Trump said as he took reporter questions while welcoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
“But hopefully that’s not happening,” Trump continued. “I heard Iran wants to make a deal. If they want to make a deal, that’s much smarter. You know, they could have made a deal the last time before we went through, you know, a big attack on them. And, they didn’t decide not to make a deal. They wish they made that deal. So I think, again, they should make a deal.”
Earlier this year, the U.S. attacked three of Iran’s nuclear facilities using bunker busting bombs and cruise missiles. Trump claimed that the U.S. “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities, yet it’s unclear how far back their nuclear program was actually setback.
Trump on Monday also said he would support an Israeli attack on Iran if Iran continues with their ballistic missile and nuclear weapon program.
“The missiles, yes. The nuclear, fast. Okay. One will be, yes, absolutely. The other was, we’ll do it immediately,” Trump said.
Asked if he would support an overthrow of the Iranian regime, Trump said he was not going to discuss it.
“I mean, I’m not going to talk about overthrow of a regime. They’ve got a lot of problems they are in. They have tremendous inflation. Their economy is bust, they’re economy is no good. And I know that people aren’t so happy,” Trump said.
President Trump’s comments come after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said that Tehran is in a “full-scale” war with the U.S., Israel and Europe, describing the country’s diplomatic situation as “complicated and difficult.”
“In my opinion, we are in a full-scale war with America, Israel, and Europe; they do not want our country to stand on its feet,” Pezeshkian said in a lengthy interview posted to the official website of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday.
“This war is worse than the war in Iraq with us; if one understands well, this war is much more complicated and difficult,” Pezeshkian added, referring to the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
Pezeshkian said that despite sanctions and foreign pressure, Iran remains steadfast and capable of defending its national interests.
The interview was published ahead of Netanyahu’s visit to the U.S., where Iran was among the topics expected to be under discussion.
Netanyahu’s meeting with Trump was expected to be on advancing the Gaza peace plan, disarming Hamas, demilitarizing Gaza and the fate of the last hostage still remaining in the Strip, a spokesperson for the Israeli foreign ministry said before the Israeli delegation departed on Sunday for the U.S. The spokesperson added that Netanyahu’s agenda is expected to include the “danger Iran poses” to both the Middle East and United States.
The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in June during a 12-day conflict that killed some 1,100 Iranians and saw strikes against Iran’s key nuclear facilities, its air defense network and prominent military and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sites around the country.
Senior military, IRGC and nuclear research personnel were among those killed. Retaliatory missile attacks by Iran killed 28 people in Israel.
In the lead up to and during the June conflict, Netanyahu repeatedly hinted that Israel may pursue a regime change strategy in Iran, seeking to topple the Khamenei-led theocracy there. “This is your opportunity to stand up,” Netanyahu said in an address to Iranians during the war.
Trump even raised the prospect of killing Khamenei in the days before the U.S. joined Israel’s campaign. “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” Trump wrote on social media. “He is an easy target, but is safe there — We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.”
The months since the conflict have seen little progress on a new deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear program or cap its ballistic missile arsenal — two goals long expressed by Trump.
Netanyahu met with Trump on Monday shortly after Iran conducted a major military exercise involving ballistic missiles. Referring to recent Iranian activity, Netanyahu warned last week that “any action against Israel will be met with a very severe response.”
At home, the Iranian regime faces serious economic challenges as the country’s currency — the rial — edged lower over recent weeks, causing widespread dissatisfaction and protests.
Over the weekend, groups of shop-owners closed their businesses in two large malls in downtown Tehran protesting the rapid drop in the value of the rial.
Pezeshkian was elected to replace late President Ebrahim Raisi — who died in a helicopter crash in 2024 — with the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s presidential election history. He was widely seen as a moderate alternative to hardliners aligned with the IRGC.
(NEW YORK) — Dozens of humanitarian organizations have begun rapidly scaling up operations in the hopes of delivering aid to Gaza again amid the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
Items in Gaza — including food, clean water, medicine and hygiene products — are running low, the organizations say. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of families have been displaced, many living in tents in extremely crowded areas.
Humanitarian aid workers told ABC News that they will face several challenges in delivering aid to Gaza. Israeli authorities have limited the amount of aid that can enter the strip, and destroyed roads and neighborhoods make it difficult to reach areas of the enclave.
Additionally, winter is fast-approaching, and aid workers say they have a limited amount of time to deliver provisions to help Palestinians in Gaza get through the cold weather months.
“We’re not asking for anything unreasonable. We’re asking for the volume of aid that entered Gaza Strip before the escalation in October 2023,” Tess Ingram, communications manager for UNICEF, told ABC News. “I think that’s something to watch for in the coming days. Does the aid flow? Are the crossings open? Is the U.N. enabled to do its job, to serve the children of Gaza. … But the other part is, does the ceasefire hold? The stakes are really high right now, so that ceasefire has to hold.”
Lifting restrictions on aid
The U.N. said that Sunday, Oct. 12, was the first day progress was seen in the scale-up of humanitarian aid deliveries into Gaza.
Hundreds of thousands of hot meals and bread bundles were distributed in the north and south, according to the U.N. Additionally, cooking gas entered the strip for the first time since March as well as tents, frozen meat, fresh fruit, flour and medicine, the U.N. said.
However, on Monday, no trucks entered Gaza because of the transfer of Israeli hostages, and border crossings were also closed on Tuesday due to the Jewish religious holiday of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.
Israeli officials announced on Tuesday it would not reopen the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt and would limit aid entering Gaza after Hamas failed to return all the bodies of the deceased hostages, as called for under the ceasefire agreement.
“Starting tomorrow, only half of the agreed number of trucks — 300 trucks — will be allowed to enter, and all of them will belong to the U.N. and humanitarian NGOs, with no private sector involvement,” COGAT, the Israeli defense body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, said in a statement. “No fuel or gas will be allowed into the Strip, except for specific needs related to humanitarian infrastructure.”
Hamas said the rubble makes it logistically challenging to locate the bodies of the deceased hostages, but Israel said it believes Hamas knows where the hostages’ bodies are and is purposefully delaying their return.
Jolien Veldwijk, CARE Palestine Country Director, said the number of trucks entering Gaza is just “a trickle” of what is needed to meet the needs of the population.
“The destruction is significantly worse than compared to seven, eight months ago,” she told ABC News, compared to the first ceasefire when she was also in Gaza.
Multiple organizations, including CARE, said they have not been able to get aid into Gaza since March 2, when Israel imposed a total blockade — in an effort to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages — that lasted for 11 weeks.
The organization said their repeated requests to deliver aid have been denied by Israeli authorities. Veldwijk said supplies are currently stuck in warehouses in Egypt and in Jordan.
Similarly, James Hoobler, a humanitarian policy adviser with Oxfam America, told ABC News the group has had 4,000 food parcels and a large volume of essential water sanitation and hygiene equipment stuck in its warehouse in Amman, Jordan, since March.
Some organizations say they are also running into red tape while trying to access the strip.
“We’re running out of supplies now,” Veldwijk said of the CARE team on the ground in Gaza. “We still can’t bring anything in. … We’re desperate to get our supplies in, but we’re also sort of desperate for all the border crossings to open.”
Ingram, from UNICEF, who is currently in Gaza, said limiting the volume of aid entering the strip is the opposite of what is needed but that UNICEF has seen some success in its operations on the ground since the ceasefire went into effect.
“We are able to move far more freely, get access to areas that we haven’t been able to get to for a while,” she told ABC News. “We don’t have to coordinate our movements with the Israeli authorities anymore, which means that we’re not facing delays or denials.”
She went on, “So for example, the last three days, I was in and around Gaza City, and that was kind of the first time in a while that we were able to get into parts of Gaza City that were the focus of that intense bombardment in August and September, and really get a sense of how that has affected the area and how people are planning to resume living there, and what they need.”
Aid workers added that rebuilding sanitation networks is also necessary but will be a challenge until the supplies entering Gaza necessary increase.
“I went to a big wastewater dam in Gaza City, which is surrounded by residential area, and it’s at risk of flooding because the pumps aren’t working,” Ingram said. “Sanitation presents a massive disease risk if we don’t get on top of it. So, we need to really improve the systems that remove solid waste, that deal with sewage and wastewater.”
Clearing rubble and rebuilding roads
Destruction across Gaza also presents a logistical challenge in delivering aid to the civilian population. Many roads have been destroyed, and rubble may be hiding unexploded ordinances.
Zaheer Kham, global director of fundraising for the humanitarian charity Human Appeal, told ABC News that he received a message from teams on the ground in Gaza on Tuesday that rubble in the roads is starting to be removed.
“Is it enough? Of course not, we need heavy machinery to remove the rubble in the roads that has accumulated over two years,” he told ABC News.
Humanitarian workers told ABC News that rebuilding water networks will be critical in the rebuilding effort in Gaza, but it comes with many logistical challenges.
Aid workers said water that comes from the ground in Gaza is very salty from years of degradation. Drinking water needs to be desalinated, which is accomplished by desalination plants across Gaza, aid workers say.
“There needs to be quite a bit of work to make sure that they’re all functioning properly.” Ingram said. “There’s some that are out of service. So, there’s work that needs to go into making sure that drinking water production increases.”
The network of pipes that brought water into homes has mostly been destroyed so most people in Gaza receive their water from water trucks, which collect drinking water from desalination plants and distribute it throughout the strip.
Ingram said the trucks have gone through wear and tear, which may limit their ability to distribute water as water networks and wells are rehabilitated.
“The water trucks themselves are a limited fleet that have done two years in a war zone over rubble,” she said. “They need maintenance and repairs.”
Aid workers say there are many groundwater wells, which pump domestic water that people use for cooking, cleaning and showering, many of which need repairs.
Veldwijk said CARE has rehabilitated water networks in the past to bring drinking water and domestic water to people’s homes to complement the water supplied by trucks, but some of have been destroyed and need to be rebuilt.
She said the group is also working to rehabilitate wells as well as desalination units.
Aid workers added that rebuilding sanitation networks is also necessary but will be a challenge until the supplies entering Gaza necessary increase.
“I went to a big wastewater dam in Gaza City, which is surrounded by residential area, and it’s at risk of flooding because the pumps aren’t working,” Ingram said. “Sanitation presents a massive disease risk if we don’t get on top of it. So, we need to really improve the systems that remove solid waste, that deal with sewage and wastewater.”
Clearing rubble and rebuilding roads
Destruction across Gaza also presents a logistical challenge in delivering aid to the civilian population. Many roads have been destroyed, and rubble may be hiding unexploded ordinances.
Zaheer Kham, global director of fundraising for the humanitarian charity Human Appeal, told ABC News that he received a message from teams on the ground in Gaza on Tuesday that rubble in the roads is starting to be removed.
“Is it enough? Of course not, we need heavy machinery to remove the rubble in the roads that has accumulated over two years,” he told ABC News.
Veldwijk said the roads being destroyed make it difficult to travel from southern Gaza to central Gaza to northern Gaza and if all the border crossings are opened, supplies can more easily be funneled throughout Gaza.
Aid workers say entire sections in Gaza have been destroyed, making it difficult to find people who may be in need of aid.
“It’s like being inside the skeleton of a city,” Ingram said of visiting neighborhoods in Gaza City and Jabalia, just north of Gaza City. “Everything is gray. Things that would normally tell you where you are, are gone, and it’s very disorienting.”
On Tuesday, the U.N. Development Programme announced that the cost of rebuilding Gaza is estimated at around $70 billion, with $20 billion needed in the next three years alone.
Fast-approaching winter season
With the cold weather months approaching, humanitarian organizations say there is an urgent need to get warm clothes and blankets into Gaza.
Winters in Gaza are usually not very severe with low temperatures typically in the 40s F, but heavy rains and its seaside location can make it feel colder.
“It really is a race against time,” Hoobler, with Oxfam America, said. “Winterization is a major issue, especially with the amount of destruction to housing that we’ve seen. So, we know people are in very overcrowded conditions there. They don’t have adequate shelter. Many of the makeshift shelters that people were in were destroyed in bombings.”
Nine out of 10 homes have been damaged or destroyed in Gaza, meaning some people are sleeping in homes with missing walls or roofs while others are sleeping in tents, according to Ingram, increasing the need for mattresses, blankets and other provisions.
Ingram said that last winter, some children — including babies — died of hypothermia, which she said is preventable with the proper supplies.
She added that she is concerned that many children in Gaza have only one or two sets of clothes, many of which are not warm enough for winter months.
“Our aim is to provide every child in the Gaza Strip under the age of 10 with a new set of winter clothes during the ceasefire and a new pair of shoes,” Ingram said. “That goal is heavily dependent on the volume of aid that gets into the Gaza Strip, so we remain hopeful, but we do call on both parties to the conflict to adhere to the terms of the ceasefire.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin begin a meeting with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner at the Kremlin, aimed at finding a solution to end the Ukraine war, in Moscow, Russia on December 2, 2025. (Photo by Kremlin Press Office/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Ukraine’s top negotiator is scheduled on Thursday to meet in Florida with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, two days after the American’s high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, according to a senior U.S. administration official.
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is also expected to be in the meeting with Rustem Umerov, the secretary of Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, the official said.
Ahead of the meeting in Florida, Putin reiterated Russia’s demand that Ukrainian troops withdraw from territories they control in the east of the country and allow their annexation by Moscow — a proposal that Kyiv has repeatedly rejected.
“It all boils down to this — either we will liberate these territories by force, or Ukrainian troops will leave these territories and stop fighting there,” Putin told The Times of India ahead of his planned two-day visit to the country.
“No, they prefer to fight,” Putin said of the Ukrainian armed forces. “Well, now they’ve fought themselves into a corner.”
Putin again claimed the legitimacy of Russian control of eastern Ukraine citing the results of Russian-organized referenda in the occupied regions.
Ukraine, the U.S. and 142 other nations rejected those referenda as illegitimate in a 2022 United Nations resolution. Only Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Nicaragua and Syria voted against the measure.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed on Wednesday that preparations were underway for further discussions with U.S. officials, but did not disclose when the talks were expected.
“We’re preparing meetings in the United States — after the American team returns from Moscow and following the relevant consultations in Washington — Rustem Umerov, Andrii Hnatov, along with the rest of the negotiating team, will continue discussions with envoys of President Trump,” Zelenskyy said on social media.
Few details were released about what had been discussed during the five-hour meeting between Witfkoff, Kushner and Putin, but post-talks comments made by Washington and Moscow were mostly positive. Both parties acknowledged that more work would have to be done to make the deal acceptable to both Kyiv and Moscow.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Putin had found some terms “unacceptable,” but added that others were fine for Moscow. And Trump described it as a “reasonably good meeting.”
Trump said Witkoff and Kushner relayed their “impression” that Putin “would like to see the war ended.”
Both Russia and Ukraine continued their long range strike campaigns overnight into Thursday.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 138 drones and two missiles into the country overnight, of which 114 drones were shot down or suppressed. Two missiles and 24 drones impacted across 14 locations, the air force said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces downed at least 76 Ukrainian drones overnight, one of which was destroyed over the Moscow region.
