(KYIV, Ukraine) — Ukraine’s most senior military intelligence official is blaming Russia for the massive leak of U.S. government secrets that has dominated headlines in recent days.
In his first interview since classified documents from the U.S. Department of Defense were leaked online last week, Ukrainian Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov told ABC News in Kyiv on Wednesday evening that information warfare of this kind is nothing new.
“Russia is the only beneficiary of this,” Budanov said. “We will get the final answer only after the completion of the investigation.”
Budanov confirmed he spoke with his U.S. counterparts soon after the leak.
“We have communication with relevant services in the U.S.,” he added, “and from literally the first few hours, we started to talk.”
The Ukrainian intelligence chief insisted there was “no risk” that the matter would damage the relationship between his war-torn country and the United States. Instead, he downplayed the likely impact the shocking revelations will have on the battlefield, as Ukraine endures a second year of Russia’s invasion.
“If there is a problem, it will be solved,” he told ABC News. “If there is no problem, even better. This will not be able to affect the real results of the offensive operation.”
Budanov, who has been credited with predicting the precise date and time of the Russian invasion, talked up the Ukrainian military’s ability to make headway in an upcoming and long-awaited counteroffensive against Russian forces, despite U.S. officials suggesting in private that any prospective gains will likely be more modest than last year’s lightning operation that returned huge swathes of territory to Ukrainian government control.
“What will be the results of these actions? I think that, in the near future, everyone will see and feel it,” he said.
However, Budanov admitted that the “success of this offensive operation is badly needed” — not just for Ukrainians but also their allies who are supplying them with funds and ammunition. While he noted that the “taxpayers” of countries supporting Ukraine’s defensive, such as the U.S., expect to see results, Budanov said he was not aware of any demands made by Western allies nor that continued support would be conditional on battlefield success.
“Without victories, sooner or later, questions will be asked whether it’s worth continuing to support Ukraine,” he told ABC News.
Budanov sat down with ABC News in his office in the Ukrainian capital just days after the leaked cables, which was described by analysts as the most serious breach of U.S. intelligence in over a decade. Budanov refused to be drawn in on some of the more explosive claims, including what appears to be evidence that U.S. officials were listening in on internal Ukrainian discussions about striking targets deep within Russia.
Further evidence of U.S. assistance for Ukraine emerged earlier Wednesday. A U.S. official confirmed to ABC News that a small military special operations team based at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv has been providing intelligence assistance to Ukrainian special forces and security assistance to VIPs since the early phase of Russia’s war. A former U.S. official told ABC News that, in addition to providing assistance with the oversight of U.S. equipment and supplies being sent to Ukraine, they have also assisted Ukrainian military planners with their operations that have resulted in hundreds — if not thousands — of Russian military casualties. The sources stressed that they were not in combat.
When talking about Russia, Budanov was characteristically bullish. He made headlines last year when he told ABC News that the Ukrainian military would strike at targets “deeper and deeper” inside Russian territory.
Speaking to ABC News on Wednesday evening, Budanov vowed to take back the Crimean Peninsula and mocked Russian President Vladimir Putin’s not-so-veiled nuclear threats and failed “winter offensive,” the latter of which has seen minimal gains and heavy losses. While studying a map of Russia, Budanov predicted seismic change within the neighboring country that he believes will play a part in ending Putin’s war in Ukraine’s favor.
“Borders can be changed,” he said. “This is an artificially created mistake and, now, the moment has come for this country to collapse.”
(NEW YORK) — Thousands of foreign volunteer fighters are currently fighting on the side of Ukraine to help the country turn back Russia’s invasion.
But for one group of those foreign fighters, the ongoing war has hit close to home.
ABC News’ Patrick Reevell got an inside look at two brigades made up of mostly Chechen volunteers, filming with them as they trained outside Kyiv before returning to the frontline in eastern Ukraine.
The fighters, many of whom are keeping their identities a secret for fear of reprisal from their repressive government back home, said they volunteered their services to Ukraine because they are all too familiar with the violence wrought by Russia’s government.
“What is happening in Ukraine now, it’s the same thing that happened to Chechnya,” a Chechen volunteer fighter who goes by the call sign “Maga,” told Reevell. “All these occupation(s), all these massive graves, all this genocide of civilians.”
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia fought two devastating wars in Chechnya from 1994 to 1996 and again from 1999 to 2009 to prevent the region from breaking away from Moscow’s control. Russian forces laid waste to Chechnya, razing its capital Grozny to the ground with tactics it is now repeating again in cities in eastern Ukraine, like Bakhmut. Between 50,000 to 250,000 civilians were estimated to have been killed in the wars.
Chechnya’s current leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, who was appointed by president Vladimir Putin to keep a tight grip on the region, has turned it into his personal fiefdom, accused of frequently kidnapping, torturing and killing his critics.
Kadyrov has sent thousands of Chechen troops into Ukraine to support Russian forces.
“It’s slaves of the Russian Tsar,” Maga said of Kadyrov and its forces.
Maga belongs to the Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion, named after Chechnya’s leader in the 1990s, who declared its independence. The brigade has around 50 Chechens fighting in it, according to Maga.
Maga and a number of the Chechen soldiers had been already fighting for Ukraine before last year’s full-scale invasion, and when Russian troops began advancing on Kyiv last March they grabbed rifles and joined the defense. Since then, they have become one of Ukraine’s most-battled hardened units, involved in many key Ukrainian victories, including the counteroffensive in Ukraine’s northeast last year, when they were among the first units to enter the strategic city of Izyum.
The victories have given hope to many of these foreign volunteer fighters that they can eventually defeat Russia in Ukraine, which they see as a step towards gaining independence for their own homeland.
“Our objective is to liberate Ukraine and after, to totally liberate Chechnya,” Maga said.
The Chechens are joined by a number of Crimean Tatars, a Muslim minority from the peninsula that Russia seized in 2014. Like the Chechens, tens of thousands of Crimean Tatars were deported from their homeland by Soviet authorities under Joseph Stalin.
Since the Kremlin’s takeover of Crimea, Russian security forces have persecuted the Tatar community, seeing them as disloyal, with dozens arrested on extremism charges, as well as some reportedly kidnapped and tortured.
Tamila Tasheva, the Ukrainian president’s permanent representative for Crimea, who is a Crimean Tatar herself, told ABC News that of 181 political prisoners in Crimea, 116 of them are Tatars.
Ukraine’s successes on the battlefield, as well as a growing number of Ukrainian strikes on Russian bases within the peninsula — most spectacularly on the Crimean bridge connecting it to Russia — have fanned the hopes of Crimean Tatars that Ukraine could re-take Crimea militarily, despite most experts’ belief that that remains a tall order.
A Crimean volunteer fighter, who asked not to be identified, said he left his country in 2014 after the Russian annexation because of the persecution. During a recent training session, he said it is only a matter of time before Ukraine will retake Crimea.
“I definitely don’t know how many years, but I hope that it will be in the near future,” the volunteer fighter said. “I want to return home. I want to visit the tombs of my ancestors.”
(WASHINGTON) — A small U.S. military special operations team has been based at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv since early in the war in Ukraine that began in February 2022, according to a former and a current U.S official.
Both officials stressed to ABC News on Wednesday that the U.S. military team does not go out on the front lines with Ukrainian troops and only operates out of the U.S. Embassy.
Among several duties this team provides is security for VIPs and intelligence assistance to Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, according to the current U.S. official. The official stressed that they are not on the front lines and they are not accompanying Ukrainian troops in Ukraine.
The former U.S. official told ABC News that in addition to providing assistance with the oversight of U.S. equipment and supplies being sent to Ukraine, the team has assisted Ukrainian military planners with operations that have resulted in hundreds, if not thousands, of Russian military casualties.
The presence of U.S. military personnel working at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv was first disclosed by the Pentagon last November.
But the information that there are presumably special operations forces was included in one of the 38 apparently highly classified documents that appear to have been leaked on the internet and that have been reviewed by ABC News. ABC News has not independently verified the authenticity of these documents.
That document mentioned 14 U.S. special operations forces in Ukraine in late February in a round-up description of other NATO countries that had special operations forces inside Ukraine.
Dated to Feb. 28, the apparently leaked document seems to list a total of 97 special operations forces from five NATO countries operating in Ukraine with the highest number coming from the United Kingdom and numbers comparable to the U.S. team from other countries.
The purported leaked document also noted the presence of additional U.S. military personnel working at the embassy with the Defense Attaché’s office and the Defense Cooperation Office.
Last November, the Pentagon’s top spokesman noted the presence of U.S. military personnel at the embassy to help with the accountability of the billions of U.S. military assistance being provided to Ukraine and emphasized they were not in Ukraine in a combat role.
“We’ve had U.S. forces serving at the embassy as part of the Defense Attache Office, which is where these guys are assigned,” Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said at a Nov. 1 press briefing.
“We’ve been very clear there are no combat forces in Ukraine, no US forces conducting combat operations in Ukraine,” Ryder said at the time. “These are personnel that are assigned to conduct security cooperation and assistance as part of the Defense Attache Office.”
(CAIRO) — A 3,200-year-old tomb belonging to Panehsy, the guard of the temple of Egyptian deity Amun, has been uncovered in Saqqara necropolis, south of the Egyptian capital Cairo, the tourism ministry said on Wednesday.
The temple-shaped tomb, dating back to ancient Egypt’s 19th dynasty (1292-1189 BC), was discovered by a team of Dutch and Italian archeologists.
Saqqara, one of the most important burial sites of ancient Egypt, has seen a series of archaeological discoveries in recent years.
Egypt aims to show off newly discovered artifacts as it seeks to revive its vital tourism industry, a key source of foreign currency and jobs for the struggling economy. The country attracted 11.7 million visitors in 2022.
“The new find sheds light on the development of Saqqara necropolis during the Ramesside era, and lifts the curtain on new individuals not yet known in historical sources,” said Mostafa Waziri, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
The tomb resembles a freestanding temple with an entrance, an inner courtyard of columned porticoes, a shaft leading to underground burial chambers, and three chapels. It borders the tomb of Maya, a high-ranking official during the reign of ancient Egypt’s boy-king Tutankhamun.
Inside the tomb, archeologists found a stela picturing Panehsy and his wife Baia, who was the singer of Amun, in front of an offering table, as well as several other drawings of priests and religious offerings.
The team also unearthed four small chapels during excavation work in the area, two of which bear well-preserved reliefs of funeral scenes and drawings of the resurrection of a mummy to live in the afterlife, officials said.
The team includes archeologists from the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden (RMO), whose mission has been excavating the area since 1975, and the Egyptian Museum in Turin (Museo Egizio), which joined the excavation project as a main partner in 2015.
(NEW YORK) — More than a year after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine, the countries are fighting for control of areas in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian troops have liberated nearly 30,000 square miles of their territory from Russian forces since the invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022, but Putin appeared to be preparing for a long and bloody war.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 12, 2:50 PM EDT
Efforts to pressure Russia to release WSJ reporter ‘senseless and futile,’ Russia says
Days after the U.S. designated Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as wrongfully detained in Russia, Russian officials referred to pressure from the U.S. to release him as futile.
“Any attempts to put pressure on the Russian authorities and the court, insisting on a ‘special treatment’ for U.S. citizens who have violated Russian law, are senseless and futile,” the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
After some missed calls, President Joe Biden finally connected with the parents of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre confirmed Tuesday.
“He felt it was really important to connect with Evan’s family,” she told reporters on Air Force One as the president travels to Ireland.
Meanwhile, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Gershkovich’s detention is “pretty fresh” and officials are still trying to get consular access to Gershkovich, which they have not been able to do.
He would not get into any specific conversations the U.S. is having with Russians about releasing Gershkovich or if a prisoner swap is a possibility.
“I just want to make a couple of things clear that is, the determination of wrongful detention, it doesn’t start the clock necessarily on communicating with the Russians about getting him released,” Kirby said. “We’re very early in this process here and I certainly, I think you can understand why I wouldn’t talk about any discussions we might be having with the Russians about his release or Paul [Whelan]’s release. We certainly wouldn’t do that.”
Kirby said the administration is “certainly having discussions about what we can do to get him released.”
“I don’t want to go into details about these internal deliberations, having things out in the public sphere viscerally might actually make it harder to get Evan and Paul home, and that’s what we’re focused on,” Kirby said.
-ABC News’ Justin Gomez
Apr 10, 4:28 PM EDT
Gershkovich designated as wrongfully detained by Russia
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has determined that Wall Street Journalist reporter Evan Gershkovich is being wrongfully detained by Russia, according to a statement released Monday afternoon.
Two Americans are now considered to be wrongfully detained by Russia — Gershkovich and Paul Whelan.
Gershkovich’s case will now be transferred to the Office of the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs, the U.S. government’s top hostage negotiator.
Gershkovich, a 31-year-old New Jersey native who has lived and worked in Moscow as an accredited journalist for the last six years, was in a restaurant in Yekaterinburg on March 29 when Russia’s Federal Security Service arrested him on espionage charges that the Wall Street Journal, his colleagues and the U.S. government have said are absurd.
-ABC News’ Shannon K. Crawford
Apr 06, 8:00 PM EDT
Pentagon reviewing reported leak of classified Ukraine war planning documents to social media
The Pentagon is investigating the reported leak of classified U.S. and NATO documents posted on Twitter and Telegram, a spokesperson said.
The New York Times first reported the investigation.
“We are aware of the reports of social media posts, and the Department is reviewing the matter,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said in a statement provided to ABC News.
The war plans provided statistics on Ukrainian troop and casualty numbers as well as information about weapons deliveries and Ukrainian troop schedules, the New York Times reported.
-ABC News’ Luis Martinez
Apr 05, 12:16 PM EDT
Blinken says he views WSJ reporter as ‘wrongfully detained’ in Russia
At a press conference following a bilateral NATO meeting in Brussels, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters the U.S. is going through a formal process to determine whether it will designate Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as wrongfully detained in Russia, but said he has no doubt that is the case.
“In Evan’s case, we are working through the determination on wrongful detention, and there’s a process to do that, and it is something that we are working through very deliberately but expeditiously as well,” Blinken answered a WSJ reporter who had asked about the determination.
“I’ll let that process play out. In my own mind, there’s no doubt that he’s being wrongfully detained by Russia, which is exactly what I said to Foreign Minister [Sergey] Lavrov when I spoke to him over the weekend and insisted that Evan be released immediately,” Blinken added.
Blinken said he expected the formal process to be “completed soon.”
-ABC News’ Shannon Crawford
Apr 04, 5:22 PM EDT
Zelenskyy invited to NATO summit in July
NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced that he invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to a NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 11 and 12.
Zelenskyy will meet with alliance member states, according to Stoltenberg.
-ABC News’ William Gretsky
Apr 04, 3:35 PM EDT
US ‘working diligently’ to get WSJ reporter consular access: White House
The U.S. is continuing to push for consular access for Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter detained in Russia, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a briefing Tuesday, adding that “this is a priority” for President Joe Biden.
Asked how worrying it was the U.S. still didn’t have consular access, Jean-Pierre said, “We’re concerned.”
“We’re taking this very seriously,” Jean-Pierre said, pointing to Secretary Antony Blinken’s conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov over the weekend. “We’re working diligently, very hard to get a counselor to Evan.”
Jean-Pierre declined to say whether the U.S. was close to determining that Gershkovich was being “wrongfully detained” or provide a timeline of when that determination may happen, saying the State Department’s process “is currently ongoing.” That classification would allow the federal government to use more resources to try to free him.
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson
Apr 04, 12:05 PM EDT
US announces $2.6B in new security aid for Ukraine
The Pentagon announced $2.6 billion in new security assistance for Ukraine on Tuesday.
The aid will come in two forms: a $500 million presidential drawdown authority package pulling from existing U.S. stockpiles (the 35th such package for Ukraine); and $2.1 billion from Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funds to procure new equipment.
Both the PDA and USAI packages are largely focused on providing munitions for Ukraine, including additional Patriot air-defense missiles and HIMARS ammunition. They also include anti-drone weapons, vehicles, communications equipment, spare parts and more.
-ABC News’ Matt Seyler
Apr 03, 10:21 PM EDT
At least 501 children killed, almost 1,000 injured since February 2022: UNICEF chief
At least 501 children have been killed and almost 1,000 others injured since February 2022, Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF, tweeted Monday.
“Another tragic milestone for Ukraine’s children and families,” she wrote, adding: “This is just the UN verified number. The real figure is likely far higher, and the toll on families affected is unimaginable.”
Apr 03, 1:45 PM EDT
Russia to arrest anyone who supports ICC warrant for Putin
The Russian State Duma will arrest anyone who agrees with the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin accusing him of committing war crimes, the State Duma said on its official Telegram channel Monday.
Russia will imprison those who “call for the implementation of the decision” of the International Criminal Court “on the arrest of Vladimir Putin accused of war crimes,” the State Duma of the Russian Federation said.
“The profile committees of the State Duma are preparing amendments to the Federal Law ‘On Security,’ which will prohibit the activities of the International Criminal Court and international bodies directed against the Russian Federation on our territory and its citizens,” Chairman of State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin said.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes in March, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.
-ABC News’ Oleksiy Pshemyskiy
Apr 03, 5:11 AM EDT
Suspect arrested in St. Petersburg explosion, report says
A suspect in a St. Petersburg cafe blast that killed a Russian military blogger on Sunday has been arrested, Inferfax reported.
The Russian Investigative Committee said on Telegram that Darya Trepova was arrested on suspicion of involvement, the Russian wire service reported.
-ABC News’ Joe Simonetti
Apr 02, 5:21 PM EDT
Russia to move tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus’ western border
Russia plans to move tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus to the country’s western borders, Boris Gryzlov, the Russian ambassador to Belarus, said Sunday.
Gryzlov’s announcement comes just three days after Russia and the United States clashed in the United Nations over the Kremlin’s plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. U.S. officials denounced the move as a desperate attempt by Russia to avoid military defeat and “threaten the world with nuclear apocalypse.”
Gryzlov said in an address aired on the Belarusian STV channel that tactical nuclear weapons “will be moved to the western borders of our Union State and will increase the possibilities for ensuring our security.”
The western border of Belarus is shared by Poland, a NATO country supporting Ukraine. Russian forces have used Belarus as a staging ground for the war in Ukraine.
“This will be done despite the noise in Europe and the United States,” Gryzlov said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the decision and slammed Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, saying he “no longer decides which weapons are on his territory.”
“And does (Vladimir) Putin threaten the world? Of course, if Ukraine does not resist, it will fall, Putin will move on, we have emphasized this many times,” Zelenskyy said. “With the help of our friends and partners, our army will stand firm and win what is rightfully ours. Victory and our independence.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned a Russian missile strike on Sunday in the eastern Ukraine city of Kostiantynivka that killed six people and injured at least 11.
In an address to his country Sunday night, Zelenskyy called Russia an “evil state” for targeting residential buildings in Kostiantynivka with long-range missiles.
“The evil state must be defeated,” Zelenskyy said.
Kostiantynivka, which is close to Bakhmut, is being used as a second-line staging area for Ukrainian troops holding the line on that part of the front.
Zelenskyy said the fighting in Bakhmut was “especially hot” on Sunday.
He predicted a day would come when Ukraine will “celebrate the last Russians being killed or driven out of currently Russian occupied territories, including Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson Oblasts, as well as Crimea.”
A top Russian pro-war blogger has been killed in a bomb attack on a cafe in Russia, according to police.
The explosion on Sunday tore through a cafe in St. Petersburg, killing Vladlen Tatarsky, one of the best-known of the Russian military bloggers who have become influential during the war in Ukraine.
At least 30 other people were injured in the blast, according to the Ministry of Health. Video circulating online appeared to capture the aftermath, showing bloodied people emerging from the heavily damaged cafe.
The Russian Interior Ministry said an explosion has occurred in a cafe on the city’s Universitetskaya Embankment.
“One person was killed in the incident, it was military correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky, the Russian Interior Ministry press center told reporters on Sunday.
Denis Pushilin, acting head of the Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, issued a statement describing Tatarsky as “a great patriot” of the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine and Russia. Pushilin blamed the attack on the Kyiv regime, calling it a terrorist regime.
“A man with a difficult fate, Vladlen earned the respect of his comrades-in-arms because he lived and worked for the sake of truth and justice, for the sake of victory,” Pushilin said of Tatarsky. “He managed to fight, and in the status of a military correspondent to make his contribution.”
Pushilin said Tatarsky was to be awarded a medal “for the liberation of Mariupol” in eastern Ukraine.
It was the most serious bomb attack on a pro-war Russian figure inside Russia since the high-profile assassination of the Daria Dugina, the daughter of the ultra-nationalist Alexander Dugina, who was killed in a car bombing last year.
Tatarsky was a Russian ultra-nationalist and one of the best-known military bloggers, who strongly supported the war in Ukraine. He had also criticized the execution of the war by Russia’s military command.
Tatarsky had become a significant source of information for how the war was being fought on the Russian side.
His killing will likely set off speculation on whether Ukraine or Russia was behind his killing, similar to the Dugina episode.
In the Dugina case, U.S. intelligence sources eventually told The New York Times that Ukraine was behind the attack.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned a Russian missile strike on Sunday in the eastern Ukraine city of Kostiantynivka that killed six people and injured at least 11.
In an address to his country Sunday night, Zelenskyy called Russia an “evil state” for targeting residential buildings in Kostiantynivka with long-range missiles.
“The evil state must be defeated,” Zelenskyy said.
Kostiantynivka, which is close to Bakhmut, is being used as a second-line staging area for Ukrainian troops holding the line on that part of the front.
Zelenskyy said the fighting in Bakhmut was “especially hot” on Sunday.
He predicted a day would come when Ukraine will “celebrate the last Russians being killed or driven out of currently Russian occupied territories, including Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson Oblasts, as well as Crimea.”
A top Russian pro-war blogger has been killed in a bomb attack on a cafe in Russia, according to police.
The explosion on Sunday tore through a cafe in St. Petersburg, killing Vadim Tatarsky, one of the best-known of the Russian military bloggers who have become influential during the war in Ukraine.
At least 16 other people were injured in the blast, according to Russian police. Video circulating online appeared to capture the aftermath, showing bloodied people emerging from the heavily damaged cafe.
The Russian Interior Ministry said an explosion has occurred in a cafe on the city’s Universitetskaya Embankment.
“One person was killed in the incident, it was military correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky. Sixteen people were injured and are being examined by medics,” the Russian Interior Ministry press center told reporters on Sunday.
It was the most serious bomb attack on a pro-war Russian figure inside Russia since the high-profile assassination of the Daria Dugina, the daughter of the ultra-nationalist Alexander Dugina, who was killed in a car bombing last year.
Tatarsky was a Russian ultra-nationalist and one of the best-known military bloggers, who strongly supported the war in Ukraine. He had also criticized the execution of the war by Russia’s military command.
Tatarsky had become a significant source of information for how the war was being fought on the Russian side.
His killing will likely set off speculation on whether Ukraine or Russia was behind his killing, similar to the Dugina episode.
In the Dugina case, U.S. intelligence sources eventually told The New York Times that Ukraine was behind the attack.
At least six civilians were killed and eight others were injured Sunday when Russian missiles slammed into houses and apartment buildings in an eastern Ukrainian city, Ukrainian officials said.
The attack occurred in downtown Kostiantynivka, a city in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, the site of the war’s fiercest fighting.
Andriy Yermak, deputy head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office, said at least six people were killed in the attack.
Three Russian S-300 long-range missiles and four other rockets hit homes and apartment buildings in Kostiantynivka, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, the regional governor.
Kostiantynivka is about eight miles west of the embattled town of Bakhmut, currently the main hotspot of the war.
-ABC News’ Tatiana Rymarenko
Apr 02, 11:33 AM EDT
Blinken speaks to Russian counterpart about arrested US journalist
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged the Kremlin to release imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in a phone call Sunday with his Russian counterpart, according to a State Department spokesperson.
Blinken spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, conveying the United States’ “grave concern” over the “unacceptable detention” of a U.S. citizen, according to Vedant Patel, a deputy spokesperson for the State Department.
“The secretary called for his immediate release. Secretary Blinken further urged the Kremlin to immediately release wrongfully detained U.S. citizen Paul Whelan,” said Patel, referring to the American held in Russia on espionage charges since 2018.
According to a read out of the phone call released by the Kremlin, Lavrov emphasized that Gershkovich “was taken red-handed while trying to obtain classified information, collecting data constituting a state secret under the guise of journalistic status.”
“In the light of the established facts of illegal activity of a U.S. citizen, of whose detention the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was notified in accordance with the established procedure, his further fate will be determined by the court,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
The Kremlin said that during the conversation, Lavrov emphasized officials in Washington and the Western media are “escalating the hype with the clear intention of giving this case a political coloring.”
Blinken and Lavrov also spoke of the “importance of creating an environment that permits diplomatic missions to carry out their work,” according to Patel.
Apr 02, 9:27 AM EDT
World media groups demand Kremlin release Wall Street Journal reporter
More than three dozen of the world’s top news media organizations are calling on Russia to release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
The news groups joined the Wall Street Journal and the Committee to Protect Journalists, in penning a letter to Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, writing Gershkovich’s “is a journalist, not a spy.” The media organizations — including the Associated Press, New York Times, the Washington Post and The Times of London — wrote that Kershkovich’s “unwarranted and unjust arrest” represents “a significant escalation” of anti-press actions by the Russian government.
“Russia is sending the message that journalism within your borders is criminalized and that foreign correspondents seeking to report from Russia do not enjoy the benefits of the rule of law,” the letter reads.
The media groups urged Russia to immediately give Gershkovich access to a lawyer hired by the Wall Street Journal and allow him to communicate with his family.
The Kremlin has yet to publicly respond to the letter.
-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Mar 31, 1:09 PM EDT
Finland set to join NATO in ‘coming days,’ Stoltenberg says
Finland will formally join NATO in the “coming days,” after the country was able to clear its final hurdle, according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
“Their membership will make Finland safer and NATO stronger. Finland has highly capable forces, advanced capabilities and strong democratic institutions. So Finland will bring a lot to our alliance,” Stoltenberg said in a statement Friday.
Turkey was the last of the 30 NATO allies to approve Finland’s bid to join the alliance.
Mar 30, 4:22 PM EDT
6 missiles fired at Kharkiv
Russia just struck Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine with multiple missiles, Ukrainian officials said Thursday night.
Local officials in Kharkiv said Russia fired six Soviet-era S-300 surface-to-air missiles.
ABC News reporters heard explosions outside the city center and saw Ukrainian air defense active just before and during the attacks.
There are currently no reports of casualties or damage to infrastructure as a result of the strikes in Ukraine’s second-largest city.
There are also reports of Russian strikes in the Dnipro region.
-ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge
Mar 30, 1:37 PM EDT
Russia to enlist 147,000 soldiers in April
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Thursday ordering a spring conscription. Russia will call up 147,000 people to join the Russian Armed Forces from April 1 to April 15.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Mar 30, 11:10 AM EDT
Russia preparing to start another soldier recruitment, UK says
Russian media reporting suggests authorities are preparing to start a major military recruitment aiming to sign up an additional 400,000 troops, the United Kingdom’s Defense Ministry assessed.
Russia is presenting the campaign as a drive for volunteer, professional personnel, rather than a new, mandatory mobilization. There is a realistic possibility that in practice this distinction will be blurred, and that regional authorities will try to meet their allocated recruitment targets by coercing men to join up, UK officials said.
Russian authorities have likely selected a supposedly ‘volunteer model’ to meet their personnel shortfall in order to minimize domestic dissent. It is highly unlikely that the campaign will attract 400,000 genuine volunteers, according to UK officials.
However, rebuilding Russia’s combat power in Ukraine will require more than just personnel; Russia needs more munitions and military equipment supplies than it currently has available, UK officials said.
Mar 30, 6:22 AM EDT WSJ ‘vehemently denies’ spying allegation against reporter
The Wall Street Journal said on Thursday that it “vehemently denies” the spying allegations brought by Russia’s intelligence service against its reporter.
“The Wall Street Journal vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich,” a spokesperson for the WSJ said in a statement to ABC News. “We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family.”
Mar 30, 4:24 AM EDT WSJ reporter detained in Russia on spying charge
Russia’s FSB intelligence agency said on Thursday it had detained a journalist working for The Wall Street Journal on spying charges.
Russian state media cited an FSB statement saying Evan Gershkovich was detained in Ekaterinburg, a city in central Russia, and accusing him of collecting “state secrets” on an enterprise belonging to Russia’s military industrial complex on behalf of the United States.
A criminal case has been opened against him, the officials said.
“It is established that Evan Gershkovich, acting on the instruction of the American side, was collecting information consisting of state secrets, about the activity of one of the enterprises of the Russian military industrial complex. He was arrested in Ekaterinburg during an attempt to receive secret information,” Russian media said, quoting FSB officials.
Earlier reports from local media said that Gershkovich had been in Ekaterinburg reporting on the Wagner private military company.
Gershkovich is a reporter for the WSJ covering Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet Union. He previously reported for Agence France-Presse and The Moscow Times, according to his WSJ profile. He also served as a news assistant at The New York Times.
Mar 28, 4:45 PM EDT
US will support special tribunal to try ‘crime of aggression’ against Russia
The U.S. will support the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute top Kremlin officials for Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine, State Department officials said Tuesday, marking a significant shift for the Biden administration and a notable step toward outlining what accountability on the international stage might look like after the conflict.
A department spokesperson said the administration envisioned the tribunal would take the form of an international court that is “rooted in Ukraine’s judicial system” but ideally located in another European country.
The spokesperson added that such a mechanism would work to “facilitate broader international support and demonstrate Ukraine’s leadership in ensuring accountability for the crime of aggression” as well as “maximize the chances of achieving meaningful accountability for the crime of aggression.”
Ukraine and other Western countries have long called for a special tribunal, but until now, the U.S. has not publicly declared if it would support the creation of a new structure.
Mar 27, 12:21 PM EDT
Two dead, 29 hurt in Russian missile strike on Sloviansk
At least two people were killed and 29 were injured Monday morning when a pair of long-range Russian missiles slammed into buildings in a city in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said.
The two S-300 Russian missiles hit administrative and office buildings, and private homes in Sloviansk, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, the regional governor.
Sloviansk is in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, where heavy fighting has been waged since the start of the war.
The missiles struck the city around 10:30 a.m. local time, Kyrylenko said.
He said the town of Druzhkivka in the Donetsk region was also targeted in Monday’s missile attacks. Kyrylenko said a Russian missile “almost completely destroyed” an orphanage in Druzhkivka, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
“Another day that began with terrorism by the Russian Federation,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine “will not forgive the torturing of our people.”
“All Russian terrorists will be defeated,” Zelenskyy said. “Everyone involved in this aggression will be held to account.”
Mar 26, 1:47 PM EDT
Ukrainian drone injures 3 inside Russia
Three people were injured in an explosion in the Kireevsky district of the Tula region on Sunday, Yekaterina Makarova, press secretary of the region’s Ministry of Health, told Interfax.
Russian authorities and law enforcement agencies said a Ukrainian drone with ammunition caused the explosion in the town far from the two countries’ border.
Kireevsk is about 180 miles from the border with Ukraine and 110 miles south of Moscow.
The Russian state-run news agency Tass reported authorities identified the drone as a Ukrainian Tu-141. The Latvia-based Russian news outlet Meduza reported that the blast left a crater about 50 feet in diameter and 16 feet deep.
(LONDON) — Italy’s Cabinet on Tuesday approved a bill to fine vandals who damage monuments or other cultural sites up to 60,000 euros (about $65,000).
The legislation, championed by Italian Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano, was proposed following a string of vandalism by environmental activists across the European nation. Earlier this month, activists protesting fossil fuels dyed the water black in Rome’s iconic Barracia fountain at the foot of the Spanish Steps.
“The attacks on monuments and artistic sites produce economic damage to all,” Sangiuliano said in a statement on Tuesday. “To clean it up, the intervention of highly specialized personnel and the use of very costly machines are needed.”
“Whoever carries out these acts must assume also the financial responsibility,” he added.
The fines would range from 10,000 to 60,000 euros (about $11,000 to $65,000) and would help with repairs and clean-up. Offenders could also face criminal charges.
Vandalism by environmental activists to the facade of Palazzo Madama, a 15th-century palace that houses the Italian Senate, recently cost the government 40,000 euros (nearly $44,000) to repair, according to Sangiuliano.
Last year, an American tourist caused 25,000 euros (about $27,000) worth of damage to Rome’s Spanish Steps after throwing an electric bicycle down the 18th century stairway. That incident came just weeks after a Saudi tourist drove a Maserati down the 138 steps, causing an estimated 50,000 euros ($54,649) worth of damage.
The bill swung into law following the Cabinet’s approval on Tuesday but will expire if it is not adopted by Parliament within 60 days. Premier Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government holds a majority and is expected to pass the legislation.
Italy joins a host of other European countries and cities that have imposed similar measures to deter badly behaving tourists. The Netherlands’ capital, Amsterdam, has introduced several new regulations this year as part of its “stay away” campaign, including the early closure of bars and restaurants as well as a ban on cannabis in its famous red light district.
(NEW YORK) — President Joe Biden spoke to the family of Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who the United States says is being unjustly imprisoned by Russia, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday.
The president “felt it was really important to connect with Evan’s family,” Jean-Pierre said.
“We’re making it real clear that it’s totally illegal what’s happening,” Biden told reporters on the tarmac as he boarded the plane to depart for a state visit to Ireland.
The Gershkovich family said that it was encouraged by both the State Department’s announcement and the president’s call.
“We appreciate President Biden’s call to us today, assuring us that the U.S. government is doing everything in its power to bring him home as quickly as possible,” the statement said. “In addition to being a distinguished journalist, Evan is a beloved son and brother. There is a hole in our hearts and in our family that won’t be filled until we are reunited.”
The State Department announced on Monday that Gershkovich, who was arrested on espionage charges in late March that the U.S. adamantly denies, is now officially classified as a wrongfully detained American, a designation that grants additional powers and resources to U.S. officials as they work to secure his freedom.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed that as of Tuesday, Gershkovich has not been granted consular access.
“When I spoke to Foreign Minister Lavrov about a week ago now–just after Evan was detained–I of course pressed for his immediate release but I also pressed for immediate consular access to him,” he said. “The fact that Russia has not granted that access puts it once again in violation of international commitments it’s made–commitments that are at the heart of diplomatic relations between countries and the ability of our citizens as well to be able to safely be present in other countries.”
Blinken predicted Russia’s refusal to grant consular access would “do even more damage to Russia’s standing around the world– standing that has been in freefall particularly since its reinvasion of Ukraine last year.”
John Kirby, the White House’s National Security Council spokesperson, said this was just the beginning of what could be a lengthy battle to bring Gershkovich home.
“The determination of wrongful detention, it doesn’t start the clock necessarily on communicating with the Russians about getting him released. We’re very early in this process here,” he said.
American diplomats have still not been able to gain access to Gershkovich in detention — a violation of longstanding agreements between Russia and the U.S. and international law, according to the State Department.
Blinken and the U.S. ambassador to Russia have both spoken to their counterparts about Gershkovich’s case.
Kirby declined to disclose any details about conversations with the Russian government, but he said that officials within the administration were “certainly having discussions about what we can do to get him released.”
Russian officials have charged Gershkovich with espionage. Gershkovich denies the charges and his lawyers filed for an appeal, which is scheduled to be heard in Moscow later this month.
(NEW YORK) — The team of Russia’s top opposition leader, Alexey Navalny, is a sounding the alarm that his health is seriously deteriorating in prison and that an ambulance was called for him last Friday night because of “acute stomach pain.”
Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokeswoman, tweeted that Navalny had lost 8 kilograms — about 18 pounds — in just 16 days while in solitary confinement. She said he is not receiving any treatment.
“When Alexey asks what he is ill with, the prison doctor mockingly answers that it is ‘just spring and everyone has exacerbations,'” Yarmysh wrote.
She wrote that they cannot rule out that he may have been poisoned again to make his health slowly deteriorate.
He has been repeatedly put in solitary confinement for two-week stints for months, she said. The most recent stint was the 13th time he was placed in solitary confinement, according to Yarmysh.
“On Friday he was released from the punishment cell, but on Monday he was sent back there for the 13th time,” she wrote. “One of the prison officers told Navalny that a provocation was being prepared against him.”
She also pleaded for international attention on the situation.
Navalny’s lawyers made similar claims in the spring of 2021, saying he was in grave condition.
Navalny, who barely survived a poisoning in August 2020, was sentenced to another nine years in prison in March 2022 on charges of embezzlement and contempt of court. He had been serving 2 1/2 years in prison.
The charges have been condemned as politically motivated by the United States and many other Western countries.
“We condemn Russian authorities’ politically-motivated conviction and sentencing of opposition leader Aleksey Navalny on additional spurious charges to nine more years in a high security prison,” Ned Price, spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, said in a statement in March 2022. “This outlandish prison term is a continuation of the Kremlin’s years-long assault on Navalny and on his movement for government transparency and accountability.
He continued, “Of course, Navalny’s true crime in the eyes of the Kremlin is his work as an anti-corruption activist and opposition politician, for which he and his associates have been branded ‘extremists’ by Russian authorities.”
Navalny, a documentary about the Vladimir Putin critic, won the Oscar for best documentary feature last month.
(TAIPEI, Taiwan) — China’s military declared it’s “ready to fight” after wrapping up three days of combat drills simulating a blockade to “seal off” Taiwan.
The large-scale land and sea exercises follow last week’s meeting by Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in the United States.
China considers Taiwan a breakaway province and hasn’t ruled out taking the self-governed island by force.
The Taiwanese Defense Ministry said on Monday it tracked a record 91 Chinese fighter jets in the final day of the exercises, with dozens of warplanes crossing over the sensitive maritime median line of the Taiwan Strait.
The drills involved Su-30 and J-11 fighters, navy destroyers and missile speedboats, practicing to “encircle” Taiwan. China said it was simulating attacks on key targets, with the People’s Liberation Army even releasing an animation of what hitting those targets would look like.
A voice recording obtained by ABC News captures the moment of a standoff between a Taiwanese ship and Chinese ship. The Taiwanese officers are heard telling the PLA Xuzhou: “Your actions have seriously undermined the region’s peace, stability and security and deliberately provoked trouble, which have intensified security risk in the Taiwan Strait. Please leave immediately. If you insist on trespassing into our 24 nm contiguous zone, I will be forced to expel you.”
China’s Xuzhou responds, “The 24 nm contiguous zone doesn’t exist. Taiwan is an integral part of China. Those pursuing Taiwan independence are the ones undermining peace and stability across the Strait.”
China also claimed a U.S. Navy ship “illegally intruded” into waters it claims as its own, about 800 miles south of Taiwan. The USS Milius is a guided missile destroyer, it was carrying out a freedom of navigation patrol in the Spratly Islands, in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
The U.S. said it was monitoring China’s actions and that it was “comfortable and confident” it has the resources and capabilities to ensure peace and stability in the region.
This round of Chinese drills is shorter than the ones held last August, following former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. At that time China staged unprecedented drills for about a week, including firing missiles over the island.
Former Taiwanese defence minister Andrew Yang told ABC News that he thought this month’s drills were actually larger in scale, because of the use of China’s Shandong aircraft carrier.
On the streets of Taipei, ABC News spoke to a range of Taiwanese who had mixed views towards the Chinese threat, but many of them said it was easier “not to think about” whether there could be an invasion.
Brian Pien, who works in IT recruitment, said, “They made it clear they’re gonna do something. We don’t know when that’s going to happen, we just hope we’re going to be safe.”
Twenty-six-year-old Becky Chen said, “I feel ever since Nancy Pelosi visited us the tension has been more intense than ever.”
J.C. Cheng, however, said the threat of China is something “us Taiwanese grow up with,” but admitted it’s something he does worry about.
Wu Rwei-Ren, associate research fellow at Academia Sinica, said “Taiwan on the surface, looks quiet and peaceful, and it seems like everything is business as usual, but in people’s conscience, something fundamentally different has occurred.”
“The economy is good. We have a vibrant democracy, we have human rights and freedom,” he went on to say, “And yet, on the other hand, we are facing probably one of the most dangerous times in history.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will head across the pond on Tuesday for a long-awaited trip to Ireland, his ancestral homeland, that will feature a heavy emphasis on family in addition to diplomacy.
Biden’s visit will be his first to Ireland as president and mark only the second time an Irish-Catholic president has made a visit from the U.S. It also comes nearly 60 years after the first Irish-Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, became the first sitting commander-in-chief to visit Ireland.
The president will depart Washington on Tuesday for Belfast, Northern Ireland — the first stop of his four-day, two-country trip. There, Biden will mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to 30 years of sectarian violence on the island known as “the Troubles.”
“President Biden cares deeply about Northern Ireland and has a long history of supporting peace and prosperity. As a U.S. senator, Joe Biden was an advocate for how the United States can play a constructive role supporting peace,” White House spokesperson John Kirby said Monday, previewing the trip.
Biden’s visit to Northern Ireland will also focus on “the readiness of the United States to support Northern Ireland’s vast economic potential to the benefit of all communities,” according to the White House.
The economic focus of Biden’s visit is particularly notable as Ireland, a member of the European Union, and Northern Ireland, part of the U.K., are still dealing with the fallout from Brexit, when the U.K. left the EU.
Earlier this year, a trade deal called the Windsor Framework was struck to prevent a strict land border from being reinstated on the island and to address some of the outstanding trade concerns remaining from Brexit.
A so-called “hard border” between Ireland and Northern Ireland, some feared, could undermine the 1998 peace agreement and see tensions reignited between mostly Protestant “unionists” and mostly Catholic “nationalists” in Northern Ireland.
Biden previously praised the Windsor deal as “an essential step to ensuring that the hard-earned peace and progress of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement is preserved and strengthened.”
After lowering the terrorism threat level to “substantial” last year, Northern Ireland has recently raised it back to “severe,” meaning an attack is highly likely, based off an MI5 intelligence assessment. But Kirby on Monday downplayed any concerns about security when asked about Biden’s travel.
“We don’t ever talk about security requirements of protecting the president, but the president is more than comfortable making this trip and he’s very excited to do it,” Kirby said.
Following his time in the U.K., Biden will head to the Republic of Ireland later this week, where he will meet with President Michael D. Higgins and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar as well as address a joint session of the Irish legislature.
“Today, one in 10 Americans claim Irish ancestry and Irish Americans are proudly represented in every facet of American life. Ireland’s a key economic partner of the United States, and the United States and Ireland are working closely together to make the global economy more fair,” Kirby said in his preview of the trip.
He also singled out Ireland’s contributions to Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion.
“The Irish government has been strong supporters of Ukraine, providing vital non-lethal assistance including medical supplies, body armor and support for Ukraine’s electric grid, as well as their agriculture,” he said.
“They have supported EU sanctions on Russia and the people of Ireland have generously welcomed nearly 80,000 Ukrainians, offering refuge to those who were forced to flee their homes in search of safety,” he said.
But perhaps the bigger focus of Biden’s trip will be tracing his connections back to Ireland, mainly through two families on his mother’s side: the Finnegans and Blewitts.
Biden is expected to meet with relatives and visit “places of significance to the Finnegans of County Louth and the Blewitts of County Mayo,” according to a White House official.
In County Louth on Wednesday afternoon, Biden will visit Carlingford Castle; on Friday in County Mayo, he will visit Our Lady of Knock and the North Mayo Heritage and Genealogical Center’s family history research unit. (He returns to Washington on Saturday.)
He is also expected to deliver remarks near St. Murdoch’s Cathedral in County Mayo that “celebrate the deep, historic ties that link our countries and people,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement announcing the trip.
That cathedral has deep ties to Biden’s family — some relatives were baptized there, and his great-great-great grandfather Edward Blewitt sold 27,000 bricks to the cathedral that were used in its construction, which ultimately helped fund the family’s voyage to America.
Even the most casual observers of the president have likely heard him boast of his Irish heritage. In nearly all his remarks, he will often quote members of his Irish family or some of his favorite Irish poems and literature, like Seamus Heaney’s “The Cure at Troy.”
“My colleagues up in the United States Senate used to kid me because I was always quoting Irish poets on the floor. They thought I did it because I was Irish. That’s not the reason. I did it because they’re the best poets in the world,” Biden has joked.
In the past he has spoken about his Irish roots as “part of [his] soul” and “how [he] was raised.”
The focus of his political pitch of “dignity” for all Americans is also based on his heritage.
“[I]t gets back to a word that’s probably overused in my house — as my grandfather would say, ‘Maybe it’s the Irish of it.’ The word ‘dignity.’ The simple dignity,” Biden said in May of his policies focused on trying to improve the middle class.
During his time in Ireland, Biden will “discuss how a fierce pride in being Irish and a value system that says everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity and respect have been passed down to each generation,” the White House official said of the trip.
“He will also discuss how the Irish-American story — of enduring difficult times but marching forward towards a better tomorrow — speaks to our shared past, present and future,” the official added.
