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(LONDON) — Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev praised U.S. President Donald Trump’s “peace efforts” after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to the White House on Sunday to discuss a possible peace deal to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country.

“The whole world appreciates President Trump and his team’s peace efforts,” Dmitriev, who also serves as the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and has been closely involved in negotiations with U.S. representatives, said in a post to X. 

Dmitriev also posted criticism of what he called “UK/EU warmongers” for their continued backing of Ukraine, echoing the established Kremlin narrative that seeks to frame U.S. diplomatic efforts as being undermined by NATO and European allies.

Trump and Zelenskyy met at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday.

Before the meeting, Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone, according to Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov. The call was “organized at the initiative of Trump,” Ushakov said, as quoted by Russia’s state-run Tass news agency.

After his meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump told reporters that the negotiating teams are “getting a lot closer, maybe very close” to achieving a peace deal to end Russia’s full-scale invasion, which Moscow launched in February 2022.

“We had a terrific meeting. We discussed a lot of things. As you know, I had an excellent phone call with President Putin that lasted for over two hours. We discussed a lot of points, and I do think we’re getting a lot closer,” Trump said.

The president said the two leaders covered “95%” of the issues needed to end the war. Trump then detailed a call with European leaders after his bilateral meeting with Zelenskyy, indicating that it went well.

The thorniest negotiating issues still appeared unsettled following the White House meeting. Both Trump and Zelenskyy said the question of Ukrainian territorial concessions — specifically regarding the eastern Donbas region — was yet to be agreed upon.

Russia wants Ukrainian forces to withdraw from the entirety of the Donbas — which is formed of Donetsk and Luhansk regions — in exchange for a peace deal. Zelenskyy has instead proposed a “demilitarized zone” covering the area.

Trump also again dismissed the idea of an immediate ceasefire to facilitate subsequent peace negotiations, which Ukraine has repeatedly proposed. Instead, Trump indicated sympathy with Putin’s demand for a full peace deal before any halt to the fighting.

“He feels that look, you know, they’re fighting and to stop and then, if they have to start again, which is a possibility, he doesn’t want to be in that position,” Trump said of Putin. “I understand that position.”

Zelenskyy nonetheless gave a positive readout of his White House visit in subsequent posts to social media.

“Thank you to President Trump and his team for the negotiations,” he wrote on Telegram. “Thank you to the United States for their support. Together, we have and can implement our vision of a series of steps towards peace.”

Zelenskyy described the talks as “a wonderful meeting,” which included “a meaningful discussion on all issues and highly appreciate the progress made by the Ukrainian and American teams over the past few weeks.” 

Zelenskyy also thanked presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who have been fronting the White House’s recent shuttle diplomacy.

“We discussed all aspects of the peace framework and achieved significant results. We also discussed the sequence of further actions,” Zelenskyy said. 

“We agree that security guarantees are key to achieving lasting peace, and our teams will continue to work on all aspects. We agreed that our teams will meet next week to finalize all discussed issues,” he added.

Trump, Zelenskyy said, agreed to host Ukrainian and European leaders in Washington, D.C., in January for further talks. “Ukraine is ready for peace,” Zelenskyy said.

Trump said if things go “really well,” a peace settlement could be reached in “a few weeks.” It’s also possible that a breakthrough never comes.

“But you know, in a few weeks we will know one way or the other,” Trump said, adding, “It’s been a very difficult negotiation.”

On Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Putin and Trump will speak over the phone again “in the very near future.” Peskov said the Kremlin did not yet know the outcome of the Sunday talks in Florida, but said Moscow agrees with Trump’s statement that peace is “significantly closer.”

As to a possible call between Putin and Zelenskyy, Peskov said, “There is no talk of such a conversation at this time.”

Responding to questions from journalists while traveling back from Florida on Monday, Zelenskyy gave more details on the ongoing peace talks.

Asked by ABC News whether Ukraine has a plan B, Zelenskyy said, “Ukraine has always had plan A, which is peace.”

“We never wanted war. And in Russia plan A was the war. Therefore, in my opinion, Russia should already think about plan B, about ending the war,” he continued.

Zelenskyy also said he was open to a phone call with Putin, as well as “any options” that can help end the war.

Talks are ongoing as to U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine, Zelenskyy said. The current term of the proposed guarantee is 15 years with the possibility of extension, he added. Kyiv is pushing to extend that term to 30 to 40 years, Zelenskyy said.

Kyiv and Moscow continued their exchange of nightly long-range strikes overnight into Monday, though their scale was somewhat muted compared with major attacks in recent days. 

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 25 drones into the country overnight, of which 21 were shot down or suppressed. Four drones impacted at two locations, the air force said. 

Sunday night’s attack was the smallest since the one launched on the night of June 27 to 28, according to air force data analyzed by ABC News.

Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said it downed at least 112 Ukrainian drones overnight. 

Flight restrictions were introduced at airports in Krasnodar, Kaluga and Pskov during the overnight attacks, said Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya.

ABC News’ Natalya Kushnir, Nataliia Popova, Yulia Drozd and Somayeh Malekian contributed to this report.

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(KYIV and LONDON) — Russia has carried out one of the biggest attacks on Kyiv in months, using an estimated 500 drones and 40 missiles, including powerful Kinzhal missiles, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The strikes began early Saturday morning and appeared to target power stations and residential area buildings in Kyiv as officials said at least 22 people have been injured, including two children, with 12 being taken to hospital.

In the wider Kyiv oblast, at least one woman has been killed and several apartment buildings were hit as fires broke out and rescue workers looked for people believed to be trapped under the rubble amid the destruction.

More than 2,600 apartment buildings and many schools have lost heating and an estimated 320,000 homes in the region had no electricity.

There were hits on Kyiv’s TPP-5 power plant and on the Bila Tserkva plant, according to officials, in another sign that Russia is attempting to break Ukraine’s energy infrastructure during the winter months.

The Ukrainian president said the attack was Russia’s “answer” to peace efforts, calling on Western countries to send more air defense systems.

Zelenskyy told journalists in a WhatsApp chat on Saturday  –while already on the plane to the United States for his planned meeting with President Donald Trump — that Ukraine can only move toward peace if there are strong, legal security guarantees from the U.S. and Europe. He said Ukraine has agreed to “many different compromises,” but stressed they only make sense if the country is fully protected the day after a ceasefire.

Zelenskyy said everything depends on keeping allies together. “If the whole world – Europe and America – is on our side, together we will stop Putin,” he said.

Earlier this week, at least seven people were killed and 39 injured in Ukraine after Russia and Ukraine exchanged hundreds of long-range drone strikes Wednesday night into Thursday morning, according to Ukrainian officials.

“Unfortunately, even on Christmas Eve and during Christmas night, the Russian army did not stop its brutal strikes against Ukraine, targeting our energy system and our people. There are brownouts in many of our cities and villages,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X.

“Russian troops are once again striking the cities of our east, and in Chernihiv, aid was being provided at the very moment of our conversation with the Patriarch to people wounded by a Russian drone that struck an ordinary residential building,” Zelenskyy added.

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(LONDON) — The River Thames winds 215 miles through England, carving out the curves and bends that define much of the geography, including London’s. For centuries, the river has been called “monster soup” and the “dirty old river.”

For thirty years, Lubos Grajciarik, known online as Urban Angler Lou, has stood on its banks with a fishing rod in hand.

“Originally, I came from Slovakia… and I have fished most of my life,” he told ABC News.

He has witnessed firsthand the river’s slow transformation, from Canary Wharf’s rise to the quieter stretches upstream at Richmond and at the weir Teddington Lock.

“Yes, there is improvement,” he said. “Water is still polluted. But it is significantly lower than in previous years.”

Further improvement, and the hope for an even cleaner future, now rests on a monumental infrastructure project beneath London: the £4.5 billion, or about $6 billion, Tideway Tunnel, also known as the “super sewer.” The 25-km tunnel — the largest upgrade to London’s sewers in 150 years — is, according to its designers, intended to intercept overflows and capture waste before it reaches the river.

Four of the tunnel’s 21 gates, which are valves that are designed to stop the waste before it enters the Thames, are operational, with more to open in the coming months.

“The newly completed Tideway Tunnel will reduce the volume of discharges entering the tidal Thames in a typical year by 95%,” said a spokesperson for Thames Water, the company responsible for London’s wastewater.

Optimism from those along the riverbank appears to be supported by science. For more than half a century, the City of London Corporation has collaborated with anglers and ecologists in a citizen science project to track fish populations.

Scientists estimate that more than 100 species now inhabit the Thames, a river once declared biologically dead. In 2024, volunteers caught 122 fish across five species — bass, flounder, eel, pouting and dab.

Grajciarik said his catches reflect that resurgence. “There is a mixture of both species,” he said. “Freshwater pike and perch coexist with occasional mullets, sea bus, sea route.” The Thames, where saltwater meets fresh, has become a rare brackish habitat — alive again, yet still fragile.

But beneath the river’s revival, a darker current still runs.

“In many ways, the Thames is a much healthier ecosystem than it was. Though there are other pressures, like pharmaceuticals, chemicals, [micro]plastics, in the sewage now, against heavy metals several decades ago,” said Dr. Alexander Lipp, an Earth and environmental scientist who created Sewage Map, a platform that tracks sewage overflows in real time.

“Only 6% of the rivers and streams in the Thames basin are classed as in ‘good ecological health’ by the Environment Agency,” a spokesperson for Thames21, an environmental charity working to revive rivers in the Thames Basin, told ABC News. “The primary culprit is physical modifications (straightening, deepening or even paving over rivers), followed by sewage pollution.”

Thames Water saw serious pollution incidents more than double in 2024 — to 33 from 14 a year earlier — according to the Environment Agency’s latest report, which was released before the new “super sewer” began opening. Out of nine water companies assessed, Thames Water alone earned a one-star rating, the lowest possible.

Officials at the Environment Agency — a government agency responsible to protect and improve the environment in the U.K. — attributed the decline in the rating to a mix of factors: unusually wet and stormy weather, years of underinvestment, poor infrastructure maintenance and more rigorous monitoring.

Thames Water said that “all discharges of untreated sewage are unacceptable” in a 2023 statement.

Addressing the low ratings, a company spokesperson said in an emailed response to ABC News, that “in 2024-25, Thames Water also made a record capital investment of £2.225 billion. We know we need to further improve for our customers, community, and the environment, which is why we have embarked on the largest ever investment programme, delivering the biggest upgrade to our network in 150 years.”

Yet those promises are shadowed by debt — nearly £17 billion, or about $22.3 billion, as of March 2025 — amid the growing pressure of climate change. The company said this month that its debt had grown to nearly £20 billion and that it was negotiating with its creditors.

“Any sewage discharged into the Thames negatively affects the river, increasing nutrient loading, bacteria, and plastic pollution,” the Thames21 spokesperson said.

“Climate change is something that’s going to make this worse,” Lipp said. He explained that London’s combined sewage system, where stormwater and wastewater share the same pipes, is easily overwhelmed by heavy rain. With more intense downpours expected, spills will likely become even more frequent.

Still, Lipp noted, “I would say that Thames is better than other companies when it comes to data transparency.”

The company says long-term recovery will take patience. “Transforming Thames is a major programme of work that will take time; it will take at least a decade to achieve the scale of change required,” a spokesperson said.

“I can see the people taking more responsibility for our waters,” said Grajciarik, the fisherman. He often reports oil from nearby boats or sewage spills to the U.K.’s Environment Agency’s hotline number.

But whether the massive investments and new infrastructure will be enough remains uncertain.

“Only time will tell,” Lipp said.

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