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(WASHINGTON) — While President Joe Biden works to address the crisis over Russia menacing Ukraine, there is another critical one looming, with a senior State Department official telling reporters the “end game” is just weeks away.

Iran nuclear talks are scheduled to resume this week for their ninth round — with the U.S. and Iran still negotiating indirectly about both countries returning to the Obama-era nuclear deal that is in tatters.

This could be the final round before a deal is reached or the U.S. and its European allies call it quits — because after 10 months of negotiating with two different Iranian governments, the country’s nuclear program is advancing to the point of no return, the U.S. says.

“This can’t go on forever because of Iran’s nuclear advances. This is not a prediction. It’s not a threat. It’s not an artificial deadline. It’s just a requirement… Given the pace of Iran’s advances, its nuclear advances, we only have a handful of weeks left to get a deal — after which point it will unfortunately be no longer possible to return to the JCPOA and to recapture the nonproliferation benefits that the deal provided for us,” said the senior State Department official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss the talks using an acronym for the deal’s formal name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Some critics have said the U.S. should have called it quits long ago, with Iran enriching uranium up to 60% and enriching uranium metal, spinning more advanced centrifuges and more of them, and obstructing access for the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nuclear weapons-grade uranium is enriched at 90%, while the nuclear deal capped Iran’s enrichment at 3.67% for 15 years.

With those steps, Iran is now a matter of weeks away from having enough fissile material to build a nuclear bomb, the official said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and others have warned for a couple of weeks now that Iran is just a “few weeks” away from that critical threshold — although the senior State Department official said it would take some additional time to actually build a nuclear bomb, declining to provide a timeline for that.

“Do the math. There are many fewer weeks left now than there were when we first said it,” they added.

That puts the pressure on this new round of talks to reach a conclusion before time runs out. The Iranian delegation returned to Tehran after the eighth round broke up last Friday, just as chief U.S. negotiator Rob Malley returned to Washington.

Ahead of talks resuming, the senior State Department official said Biden remains ready to make that decision and return to compliance by lifting sanctions on Iran.

“Now is a time for political decisions. Now is the time to decide whether — for Iran to decide whether it’s prepared to make those decisions necessary for a mutual return to compliance,” they said.

But notably, they repeatedly took the occasion to bash the “prior administration’s catastrophic error” and “terrible mistake” of withdrawing from the deal — seeming to lay the groundwork for a blame game if talks blow up and Iran’s enrichment only grows.

Former President Donald Trump exited the deal in May 2019 and reimposed strong U.S. sanctions on Iran, driving down its oil exports and sparking tit-for-tat attacks across the Middle East region. His administration repeatedly said its campaign of “maximum pressure” would drive Iran to negotiate a new deal, but Iran refused to meet U.S. officials, even after Biden took office.

With talks expected to resume this week, according to Enrique Mora, the senior EU diplomat who coordinates the talks, one key sign to watch will be whether the U.S. and Iran finally engage directly. Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian expressed an openness to it last week if Iran sees a “good deal” in sight, but the senior State Department official said there’s no indication so far the Iranians will sit down. The U.S. has consistently said it’s prepared to meet directly, calling the indirect talks an impediment to reaching a deal so far.

If a deal isn’t reached soon, the U.S. is “ready” to “fortify our response, and that means more pressure — economic, diplomatic, and otherwise,” the senior official said, adding, “We will use the tools that we have to ensure that our interests are preserved and that Iran cannot acquire a nuclear weapon.”

Notably, the Biden administration has refused to say out loud whether that includes supporting the use of force, including by Israel — just that no option is off the table.

The one thing the U.S., European allies in the talks, France, the U.K., Germany, and even China and Russia seem to agree on is that time is running out. But while the senior State Department official called a deal a “big if,” Russia’s envoy was been more buoyant about a resolution.

“My instinct tells me that agreement will be reached soon after mid February,” Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov tweeted Friday as the talks ended.

That’s in stark contrast to the heavy pessimism in early December after talks finally resumed under Iran’s new government, with its much more hard-line approach.

But the Iranians now are “back in a serious, businesslike negotiation in which there are still significant gaps — so I don’t want to in any way understates those — but we are in a position where… we can see a path to a deal if those decisions are made and if it’s done quickly,” the senior State Department official said.

In the meantime, the U.S. continues to press for the release of four U.S. citizens detained by Iran on specious charges, including father and son Baquer and Siamak Namazi. At 84-years old, Baquer is in particularly vulnerable health and had emergency heart surgery in Tehran in October to clear a “life-threatening” blockage in his carotid artery, according to his lawyer Jared Genser. This month marks his sixth year in Iranian custody, while his son Siamak has been held since October 2015.

“We are negotiating on the release of the detainees separately from the JCPOA, but as we’ve said, it is very hard for us to imagine a return to the JCPOA while four innocent Americans are behind bars or are detained in Iran,” the senior State Department official said.

In addition to the Namazi’s, Iran has detained conservationist Morad Tahbaz and businessman Emad Shargi. All four men are dual U.S.-Iranian citizens whose detentions have been called “hostage diplomacy” by Tehran.

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(NEW YORK) — The remains of two American women who went missing after their plane crashed off the coast of Panama a month ago have been recovered, officials said.

Debra Ann Velleman, 70, of Waukesha, Wisconsin, and Sue Borries, 57, of Teutopolis, Illinois, both retired public school teachers, were part of a community of snowbirds and expats living in the area of Chame, Panama.

The two friends were traveling home after spending New Year’s Eve weekend at a bed and breakfast on the Panamanian island Isla Contadora on Jan. 3 when their small plane, piloted by the B&B owner, suffered an engine failure and crashed off the coast of Chame, according to friends and family.

Debra Ann Velleman’s husband, Anthony Velleman, another passenger and the pilot were rescued by Panamanian search and rescue teams. Their families believed the women were still in the unrecovered plane wreckage, and as the search stretched on for days and then weeks, they pleaded with the U.S. government for help they said never came.

Tuesday morning, Velleman and Borries were recovered from inside the plane, according to Albert Lewitinn, a representative for the Velleman family.

A Panamanian search and rescue team helped recover the bodies after more than 690 hours of searching, authorities said.

The Panamanian government had requested that the U.S. deploy assets including Navy salvage divers and sonar to aid in the search effort and locate the wreckage in the days after the crash, but the request was denied due to a lack of assets and jurisdiction, according to a statement from the Velleman and Borries families.

The families continued to plead with the U.S. government to send equipment and personnel to aid in the search and recovery effort. As the effort wore on, they enlisted the help of the Wisconsin-based volunteer search and recovery organization Bruce’s Legacy and set up a GoFundMe to help defray the costs of bringing the nonprofit to Panama.

The plane was located with the help of Bruce’s Legacy, as well as a local family whose boats were used in the mission, Lewitinn said.

The families are now working on having the womens’ remains brought back to the U.S., he said.

“It is our intention — almost exactly one month following this tragic accident — to give proper thanks to all those who supported our families during this difficult time, as well as to have many outstanding questions answered by way of a swift and thorough investigation,” the families said in a joint statement. “For now, however, this finally marks the beginning of our grieving process and provides us with a path to closure.”

The Velleman family had been in touch with several Wisconsin and Illinois representatives as they sought assistance from the U.S. government in the search and recovery effort.

According to Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s office, the U.S. Coast Guard provided Panamanian authorities with technical modeling to support the search for the aircraft.

ABC News had previously reached out to the U.S. Embassy in Panama for comment but did not receive a response.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. and Russia are moving ahead with their diplomatic engagements over Russia menacing Ukraine, according to senior State Department officials, after the two countries’ top diplomats spoke Tuesday.

But as talks continue to proceed, there have been no results yet — with more than 100,000 Russian troops still massed on Ukraine’s borders, including increasingly in its northern neighbor Belarus.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin said the U.S. has “ignored” Russia’s key demands that NATO bar Ukraine from joining and pull back allied troops from Eastern European countries — his first comments on the crisis in over a month.

But his government is still analyzing the U.S. response to Russia, laid out in a formal proposal hand-delivered by the U.S. ambassador in Moscow last week, he said.

During a critical call, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “did agree that the ideas on both sides that have been exchanged did form the basis for the potential for serious discussion on a range of issues,” said a senior State Department official.

Those ideas include issues like arms control and greater transparency in military exercises, they added, expressing some hope that Russia’s continued engagement could lay the groundwork for real negotiations.

But for now, Russia is still formulating its response to those U.S. ideas, senior State Department officials said Lavrov told Blinken. Once they are finalized, they will be sent to Putin for approval and then sent to the U.S. After that, Blinken and Lavrov will speak again, the senior officials said.

“I do think they agree that ideas in that non-paper could be the basis for a constructive conversation about how he enhance security in Europe,” said a second senior State Department official. The “non-paper” is what U.S. officials have called the U.S. response to Russia’s original demands.

But Lavrov didn’t outright say that during the call, they conceded. Later on Tuesday, Putin seemed more dismissive of the U.S. proposal, saying, “It is already clear that Russia’s fundamental concerns have been ignored.”

Pressed on whether the Russians may be buying time or stalling before a renewed attack on Ukraine, the second senior State Department official said, “Because we don’t President Putin has made a decision [on whether to further invade Ukraine], we think it’s important to keep the diplomatic option on the table — so to the extent that Russia wants to engage in that diplomatic track, we are also open to having that continued diplomatic engagement.”

Blinken and Lavrov didn’t agree on when or how those talks would continue, but the U.S. has called for them to include one-on-one meetings, as well as negotiations between NATO and Russia and dialogue at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a Cold War-era forum that includes the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine.

On Monday, Moscow sent the U.S., as well as several NATO allies and OSCE members, a similar letter seeking clarification about security principles enshrined in one of the OSCE’s key documents, the Helsinki Final Act, according to U.S. and Russian officials. The letter was not Russia’s response to the U.S. proposal, but seems to be part of its effort to formulate one.

“NATO refers to the right of countries to choose freely, but you can not strengthen someone’s security at the expense of others,” Putin said Tuesday during a press conference with Hungary’s autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

As the U.S. and NATO wait for that formal response, Blinken again urged Russia to deescalate tensions by pulling back troops, heavy weaponry, and equipment from Ukraine’s borders. But Lavrov gave no indication during the call that Russia would do so, the senior officials said.

“All of the actions that we are seeing on the ground do not suggest escalation. We continue to see in fact more Russian troops coming not only to Russia’s border with Ukraine, but as you know, also to Belarus for these supposed exercises,” the second senior State Department official said.

Russia and Belarus have said those forces are preparing for military exercises to improve their readiness. But the U.S. said Monday it has evidence that more than 30,000 Russian troops will mass in Belarus in the coming days, citing declassified U.S. intelligence — a concerning move that puts them within two hours of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv.

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(LONDON) — U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is apologizing again after initial findings of an investigation found that he and his staff showed “failures of leadership and judgment” for allegedly hosting parties during lockdown.

Johnson and his staff have been under fire in recent weeks for holding a number of parties last year — including a Christmas gathering as the country was sent back into lockdown — in alleged breaches of his own government’s lockdown rules.

The extent to which the report would lay blame at the feet of Johnson had been the subject of intense speculation, with the prime minister facing down a barrage of calls to resign from opposition lawmakers and even disgruntled members of his own party.

In a statement following the publication of the report, authored by Sue Gray, a civil servant appointed to lead the investigation, Johnson said he “accepted the general findings in full.” He apologized “for the things we simply didn’t get right… [and] the way this matter has been handled.”

Responding to criticisms in the report about accountability measures in different government departments, Johnson said, “I get it, and I will fix it,” prompting jeers from opposition lawmakers in the House of Commons.

The scandal has dominated British politics in recent weeks. The intervention of the Metropolitan Police, which is now carrying out a criminal investigation into at least eight of the gatherings, meant the report has not been published in full, which some critics have said granted the prime minister a short-term reprieve.

Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, who has called for the prime minister to resign since the beginning of the crisis, described the interim report as “damning.”

Gray said she was only able to “make minimal reference” to the gatherings under police investigation. At the time of these alleged get-togethers, breaches of lockdown rules were punishable by fixed penalty fines. Restrictions were also in place at the time on hospital and care home visits and funerals, prompting fury from victims and the bereaved, represented by organizations such as the COVID Bereaved Families for Justice.

Johnson apologized in the House of Commons earlier this month but denied breaching any rules. At a gathering in the Downing Street gardens in May of last year, which Johnson himself attended and over 100 staffers were invited to despite social distancing rules, Johnson said he believed it was a “work event.”

While the interim report is lacking in detail over what exactly took place at the gatherings in question — which reports in the U.K. media said included leaving parties for departing staff — the update was critical of numerous “failures of leadership” at various levels of the government.

“Some of the events should not have been allowed to take place,” Gray wrote. “Other events should not have been allowed to develop as they did.”

Meanwhile, Gray said “steps needed to be taken” to ensure that government departments had clearer policies covering the drinking of alcohol.

“The excessive consumption of alcohol is not appropriate in a professional workplace at any time,” she said in the report.“Against the backdrop of the pandemic, when the government was asking citizens to accept far-reaching restrictions on their lives, some of the behavior surrounding these gatherings is difficult to justify.”

The full report may not be published until after the Metropolitan Police have completed their investigation.

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(NEW YORK) — After months of tensions over Russia’s massive troop buildup on Ukraine’s borders, the United Nations Security Council met Monday to discuss the situation for the first time — adjourning after over two hours of open debate.

The meeting didn’t yield any action or even a joint statement, but ambassadors from the U.S. and Russia sparred in dueling remarks, trading blame for escalating the crisis.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin has amassed over 100,000 troops and heavy equipment and weaponry on three sides of Ukraine, including in Russian-annexed Crimea and in Belarus, Kyiv’s northern neighbor and a close Kremlin ally.

At first, Russia, backed by China, tried to block the session from moving forward by calling a vote among Security Council’s 15 member states. Russia and China opposed it, three countries abstained, but ten voted to move ahead with it.

“You heard from our Russian colleagues that we’re calling for this meeting to make you all feel uncomfortable. Imagine how uncomfortable you would be if you had 100,000 troops sitting on your border in the way that these troops are sitting on the border with Ukraine,” said U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield. “This is not about antics. It’s not about rhetoric. It’s not about ‘U.S. and Russia.’ What this is about is the peace and security of one of our member states.”

In her remarks, she accused Russia of “the largest — hear me clearly — mobilization of troops in Europe in decades” and threatening military action should its concerns about Ukraine joining NATO and NATO’s troop deployments in Eastern European member states not be addressed.

“If Russia further invades Ukraine, none of us will be able to say we didn’t see it coming, and the consequences will be horrific,” she added.

But Russia’s envoy again denied that the Kremlin is planning to attack its neighbor, a former Soviet state and now a growing democracy — telling the Security Council there is “no proof confirming such a serious accusation whatsoever,” defending troop movements within Russia’s borders as a domestic issue, and then denying there are 100,000 as U.S. and other Western officials have said.

“They themselves are whipping up tensions and rhetoric and are provoking escalation,” Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said of the U.S. and its NATO allies. “The discussions about a threat of war is provocative in and of itself. You are almost calling for this. You want it to happen. You’re waiting for it to happen.”

Thomas-Greenfield requested to speak again to respond, saying, “I cannot let the false equivalency go unchecked, so I feel I must respond. … The threats of aggression on the border of Ukraine — yes on its border — is provocative. Our recognition of the facts on the ground is not provocative.”

Ukraine — which is not a member of the Security Council, but was invited to participate — urged Russia to respect its “sovereign right” to choose which countries it partners with.

“Ukraine will not bow to threats aimed at weakening Ukraine, undermining its economic and financial stability, and inciting public frustration. This will not happen. And the Kremlin must remember that Ukraine is ready to defend itself,” Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya told the council.

In a sign of their increasing alignment, China was the only country to back Russia’s effort to squash the public meeting. Its ambassador Zhang Jun said they oppose “microphone diplomacy of public confrontation” and believed the open discussion of the issue would add “fuel to the tension.”

While the session didn’t yield any results, it marks the start of another week of diplomacy between Russia and the U.S. and its allies over Ukraine.

“Russia heard clearly a united position from the vast majority of the council, and I hope that that will lead to a diplomatic solution,” Thomas-Greenfield, a member of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet, told reporters after the meeting.

Biden himself hailed the meeting as “a critical step in rallying the world to speak out in one voice: rejecting the use of force, calling for military de-escalation, supporting diplomacy as the best path forward.”

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken will speak with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the State Department and Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed Monday — the first conversation after the U.S. responding in writing last week to Russia’s demands about Ukraine and NATO.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to speak to Putin this week, days after the U.K. said it could deploy troops to protect NATO allies if Russia invaded Ukraine. Biden announced a similar position last week, putting 8,500 U.S. troops on “heightened alert” and adding Friday he could do so in the “near” future.

In a potential positive sign for diplomacy, Russia said some of its forces had pulled back from the border areas after a “preparedness check,” according to the Russian Armed Forces’ Southern Military District.

But it’s not yet clear if the U.S. had confirmed any troops were withdrawn from the border region, and Thomas-Greenfield warned the U.S. has evidence Russia intends to expand its presence in Belarus to more than 30,000 troops — putting them less than two hours north of Kyiv. Those deployments include short-range ballistic missiles, special forces, and anti-aircraft batteries, she added — all of which Russia and Belarus have said are for military exercises.

ABC News’s Zoha Qamar contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield warned on Sunday that Russia’s menacing military troop buildup on Ukraine’s borders signals the Kremlin’s “intentions to use them,” noting that Russia still has a chance to “find a diplomatic way out.”

Thomas-Greenfield’s comment to ABC’s This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos came on the eve of an open U.N. Security Council meeting she requested to discuss Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine and what to do about it.

Stephanopoulos pressed Thomas-Greenfield, asking, “Does the U.S. believe an invasion is imminent?”

“You don’t amass 100,000 troops if you don’t have intentions to use them,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

She said Monday’s U.N. Security Council meeting “is one more opportunity to find a diplomatic way out for the Russians.” She added that Ukrainian officials have also asked for the meeting, which is expected to be heard in open session.

“We’ve made clear that we’re prepared to address our concerns, Ukrainian concerns and Russian concerns at the diplomatic table, but it cannot be done on the battlefield,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

Russia has maintained that it has no intentions to invade Ukraine and has objected to Monday’s U.N. Security Council meeting, threatening to move to try to block the gathering. Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy permanent representative at the United Nations, posted on Twitter that the meeting was a “clear PR stunt shameful for the reputation of UN Security Council.”

“Can Russia block it?” Stephanopoulos asked Thomas-Greenfield of the U.S. Security Council meeting. “If not, what do you hope to achieve?”

“They know that they cannot block the meeting and I expect that, knowing what we’re dealing with, that they will make an attempt,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “But the Security Council is unified, our voices are unified in calling for the Russians to explain themselves. We’re going to go into the room prepared to listen to them, but we’re not going to be distracted by their propaganda and we’re going to be prepared to respond to any disinformation that they attempt to spread during this meeting.”

While Russia’s official line has been that it has no plans to invade, it has demanded promises that Ukraine will never be allowed to join NATO and that the Western alliance will pull its troops out of Eastern Europe. Both requests have been rejected by the United States and its Western allies.

Stephanopoulos noted that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team have “expressed some irritation, even alarm” that the U.S. and its allies are exaggerating the threat for political reasons.

“How do you respond to that?” Stephanopoulos asked Thomas-Greenfield.

She said the United States has engaged very closely with the Ukrainians, citing the call Biden had last week with Zelensky, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent trip to Ukraine and her meetings on a regular basis with the Ukrainian ambassador in New York.

“We’ve also been working with the Ukrainians on building up their defenses in the event of an attack,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “And … since 2014, we’ve provided close to $5 billion in support to them, $200 million of that was just provided in the past week.”

“We’ve seen the Russian playbook before,” she added. “They are using disinformation. They’re encouraging Ukrainians not to worry about an attack. But we know an attack is possible.”

Stephanopoulos pressed Thomas-Greenfield on what a diplomatic settlement would look like.

“You know, at first it would mean Russia making the decision to de-escalate, to pull their troops back and to come to the diplomatic table and to talk with the United States, with the Ukrainians and our NATO allies about their security concerns,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

Turning to concerns over seven ballistic missile tests North Korea has conducted this month alone — more than all it conducted in 2021, including Sunday’s launch of the longest-range missile it has tested since 2017 — Stephanopoulos asked about how the U.S. will respond.

“It is provocative and it is something that we have very very strongly condemned in the Security Council,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

She said the United States has imposed unilateral sanctions in the last few weeks against North Korea and has pushed for sanctions within the U.N. Security Council.

“I will be engaging with our allies, the (South) Koreans as well as the Japanese, who are also threatened by this, to look at other options for responding,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

Stephanopoulos followed: “Is it time for President Biden to engage personally with (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-un?”

“You know, we have been clear on that from the beginning: We are open to having diplomatic discussions,” Thomas-Greenfield replied. “We’ve offered this over and over to the DPRK, and they’ve not accepted it.”

“But we’re absolutely open to a diplomatic engagement without pre-conditions,” she added. “Our goal is to end the threatening actions that the DPRK is taking against their neighbors.”

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(LONDON) — Thousands of feet in the air, Willem Briers-Louw, a wildlife biologist, surveys the Zambeze Delta in Mozambique via helicopter — seeking the animal populations he helps to conserve and maintain in the bushland.

Cheetahs, one of Briers-Louw’s subjects and the fastest land animal in the world, could get a boost to its population if a new conservation method researchers are practicing in Africa is successful.

Biologists in Mozambique released a group of wild cheetahs in a “massive” protected area in the Zambeze Delta in August as part of a reintroduction project they believe is “crucial” to conserve the species, Briers-Louw, a wildlife biologist working on the project with the Cabela Family Foundation, the organization that funded the reintroduction project, told ABC News.

From the two-seat Robinson R22 helicopter, Briers-Louw can track the animals wherever they go and monitor their behavior — what they’re eating, whether they’re mating, when a litter of cubs is born. It’s one of the perks of the job, Briers-Louw said.

“Watching them at full speed chasing down [cleft-back] antelope is truly incredible to see,” he said.

The project was suggested by the foundation’s wildlife trust coordinators after a similar reintroduction for lions in the Zambeze Delta was successful, Briers-Louw said. In addition to the ample space and limited poaching in the preserve, the cheetahs are not prey for lions and have plenty of food sources to sustain a decent population.

Biologists found historical evidence that cheetahs occupied the area in the past after finding a book from 1914 described the animals, which was imperative for the reintroduction to be successful, Briers-Louw said.

Eleven cheetahs from South Africa and one from Malawi were transported to Mozambique over the summer. The big cats were stationed in a fenced area for months to get acclimated before the gates were opened to their new home, Briers-Louw said.

Two additional females, described as “valuable additions to the founder population,” were released in December. The researchers hope to maintain an interconnected conservation project where different countries work together to maintain as healthy a cheetah population as possible, Briers-Louw said.

What makes the project “novel” is the cheetahs were released into a sizable, unfenced area that could possibly support up to 100 cheetahs in the future, he added. In fenced preserves, a male cheetah looking to explore and find females is likely to hit an electric fence and turn around, Tamar Kendon, another wildlife biologist with the Cabela Family Foundation, told ABC News.

“It’s totally open, and they’re not constricted or not confined to a fenced area, so they can move pretty much wherever they want to,” Briers-Louw said. “And so we’ve seen quite a lot of exploratory movement within the first four or five months.”

The cheetahs’ newfound ability to wander causes “a bit of stress” for the researchers and presents a possibility for the need to collect them and bring them back, Kendon said.

Conservationists have been introducing cheetahs in small, fenced preserves since 1999, Briers-Louw said. Once cubs are born, they need new homes because those preserves can’t support larger populations.

“So Africa, at that time, was the only country with a growing cheetah population,” until biologists began practicing similar efforts around the world, Briers-Louw added.

All of the cheetahs seem to be thriving in their new habitat and seem to have started fixed movement areas, Briers-Louw said. The researchers track them on the ground, aerially via helicopter and through satellite imagery, which allows them to ensure they’re thriving and monitor other behaviors, such as mating, Briers-Louw said. Each cheetah is also outfitted with a GPS collar in case they move outside of the preserve, Kendon said.

Briers-Louw emphasized that it’s “not all sunshine and roses” for the health of cheetah populations around the world, and they were “strongly” on the way to extinction for the better part of two decades.

Cheetahs are currently listed as vulnerable, with their populations deceasing, on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species. There are currently about 6,700 mature cheetahs in the world, according to the IUCN.

They only have about 9% of their historic range, and of that population, 30% are in protected reserves, Briers-Louw said. The main threats facing cheetahs are habitat loss, fragmentation of habitat and poaching, but they are also at risk of becoming trapped in snares placed for bushmeat, Kendon said.

The Zambeze Delta historically contained thousands of animals, but years of armed conflict and poaching led to a sharp decline of wildlife in the area, Briers-Louw said. While the Zambeze Delta has experienced a massive resurgence in animal populations in recent years, poaching still remains the biggest threat to carnivores in the region.

But the conservationists believe they are at a turning point where wildlife can once again thrive.

“Even though poaching is the biggest threat to the carnivores, we are at the point where it’s fairly controlled and limited to the point where it shouldn’t have any effect on the population,” he said.

ABC News’ Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.

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(HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M.) — Thousands of miles away from her native Afghanistan, Laila finds relief in small comforts like a warm meal inside a makeshift tent camp in a desert in New Mexico.

Laila, whose name has been changed for safety concerns, is among thousands of Afghan refugees who have found a temporary home cycling through the “Aman Omid Village” on Holloman Air Force Base, one of several military installations in the U.S. designated to provide housing to Afghan refugees while they transition into more permanent homes. The camp’s name which is in Dari — an Afghan dialect — expresses what they are searching for in the United States: peace and hope.

Watch the full story on “Nightline” TONIGHT at 12 p.m. ET on ABC.

“The first very important thing about the camp that I and everyone else here likes is the safety that they are giving us,” Laila told ABC News “Nightline” co-anchor Juju Chang in a recent interview. “Safety is something that we didn’t have for years in Afghanistan.”

Laila is one of the tens of thousands who were forced to flee her native country last summer, leaving behind family and friends, as the U.S. ended its longest war the same way it started: under Taliban rule.

She says it feels like only weeks ago that she fled the swift takeover.

“I was in the bank waiting to withdraw some money. I heard gunshots,” Laila recalled.

“Everyone was like, Taliban are in here, and we were hiding under the desks after I got out,” she said. “Everyone was, like, panicking.”

President Joe Biden, who has long opposed the war in Afghanistan, inherited a deal with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. forces as the U.S. approached the 20-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, despite pressure from lawmakers and other allied nations to extend the mission. As his August deadline neared, the Taliban seized power and overtook the presidential palace in Kabul, signaling the collapse of the Afghan government and igniting chaos.

“Every time that there is a knock on the door, I think they are coming for me because I have worked with international agencies,” Laila told ABC News in a video diary at the time.

In many respects, she was exactly what the Taliban feared: A college-educated woman who flourished with the freedom gained during the 20 years of U.S. intervention.

Struggle to flee

Laila was a young girl when the Taliban last came to power and said she remembers being taught to hide her education from the group that governs the country under a strict interpretation of Shariah, or Islamic law.

“My mother and a friend of my mom would teach us how to read and write, like we would hide our books and notebooks inside the Quran. And then we would go to my mother’s friend’s house and then learn how to read and write there,” she told ABC News.

She said she was given no reason to believe this reign would be different — so she and her husband, Yusuf, whose name has been changed for safety concerns, escaped with some 76,000 other Afghans, many of whom worked for American or Western allies that the U.S. evacuated under the Biden’s administration’s mission, “Operation Allies Welcome.”

Though she said she suspected she might be pregnant at the time, Laila left her home with nothing but a small backpack.

When she landed at a U.S. base in Doha, Qatar, she was given a pregnancy test which confirmed that she was pregnant. She later learned she’ll be having twins — which made her all the more grateful to have escaped. Tens of thousands of Afghans, who also had valid paperwork, were left behind in the chaos — and to a new order of power.

“In Afghanistan, it was scary because I didn’t want to have a baby in that situation, especially with the Taliban,” she said.

Human Rights Watch, an international human rights advocacy organization, estimates that the Taliban have already killed over 100 Afghans at the top of their list for revenge for helping Americans.

Military base offers peace, hope

“Aman Omid Village,” the massive refugee camp at Holloman Air Force Base, was just months ago a barren desert. Rows of tents spanning 50-acres were erected in the final days of the fall of Kabul as officials prepared for refugees like Laila.

The commune operates as a de facto American boot camp for new arrivals and offers resources to prepare refugees for their new lives in the U.S. Residents can participate in classes from English to sewing and receive training on how to pay taxes and avoid spam calls, for instance.

At least half of the refugees there are children who often take advantage of the open area for games and recreation.

“This is sort of that shining place for them to come to,” Air Force Brigadier Gen. Daniel Gabrielli, who heads operations at the camp, told ABC News.

Gabrielli, a commercial pilot who volunteered to deploy as part of his National Guard Service, completed three tours of duty in Afghanistan. In his 33-year military career, he said helping Afghan refugees at the base has been the most gratifying experience.

“I think it is because we’re taking care of people who’ve taken care of us, right?” he said. “What they have sacrificed for our security which is a large amount.”

“My grandfather came over after World War I from Italy, so there’s no difference in this migration, and that migration,” Gabrielli said, when asked about any resistance to their arrivals. “It is just the latest in the Great American story.”

To the general and many others, the compound in New Mexico has transformed into a modern-day Ellis Island, with people like Laila among its first immigrants — but many will never find the same refuge.

More than 3.5 million people have been displaced by conflict inside Afghanistan, including 700,000 from 2021 alone, while the war-torn country continues to face conflict, famine and COVID-19.

Writing her own American dream

The resettlement agency handling Laila’s case told her that her new home would be in South Carolina.

Organizations tasked with helping Afghans arriving in the U.S. have said they are scrambling to ramp up operations following years of downsizing due to the Trump administration’s slashed refugee program. Despite some delays to her own move, Laila expressed to ABC News her excitement at the potential.

“I don’t care if it’s South Carolina or if it’s New York, it is just a new country, a new culture, a new land, a new people,” she said.

At least, for her time there, she made the refugee camp feel like home. In the cafeteria on base, she would eat regularly with young ladies she fondly calls the “three musketeers.”

“When I came here, I was kind of like, you know, depressed from all that happened, and they were the ones that really helped me,” she said. “Every day, they would come to me and because they knew I was having twins, they would take good care of me.”

Finally, after months of waiting at Holloman Air Force Base, Laila and Yusef got permanently resettled in South Carolina in January.

Now 24 weeks pregnant, Laila says she is grateful to embark on a new life on American soil, but part of her heart will always be back home, especially with the women and girls of Afghanistan.

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(LONDON) — Two men were arrested in England on Wednesday morning as part of an ongoing investigation into a hostage-taking incident at a synagogue in the United States, British authorities said.

Counterterrorism officers detained both men in Manchester. The pair “remain in custody for questioning,” according to a statement from the Greater Manchester Police.

Two other men were arrested in connection with the probe in Manchester and Birmingham, about 85 miles south of Manchester, on Jan. 20. They “remain in custody and officers have been granted an extension of custody to continue to question them further,” the Greater Manchester Police said.

Assistant Chief Constable Dominic Scally of the Greater Manchester Police has said that counterterrorism officers are assisting their U.S. counterparts in the investigation of an hourslong standoff between American authorities and a hostage-taker at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, about 27 miles northwest of Dallas.

An armed man claiming to have planted bombs in the synagogue interrupted Shabbat services on Jan. 15 just before 11 a.m. local time, taking a rabbi and three other people hostage, according to Colleyville Police Chief Michael Miller.

One hostage was released uninjured at around 5 p.m. CT, Miller told a press conference later that night. An elite hostage rescue team from the Federal Bureau of Investigation then breached the synagogue at about 9 p.m. CT, after hearing the hostage-taker say he had guns and bombs and was “not afraid to pull the strings,” according to a joint intelligence bulletin issued on Jan. 19 and obtained by ABC News.

“As a tactical team approached to make entry to the synagogue, the hostages escaped and were secured by tactical elements,” the bulletin said. “The assault team quickly breached the facility at a separate point of entry, and the subject was killed.”

No hostages were injured during the incident, according to Miller.

The slain suspect, identified by the FBI as 44-year-old British citizen Malik Faisal Akram, was from the Blackburn area of England’s Lancashire county, about 20 miles northwest of Manchester, according to Scally.

A motive for the Jan. 15 siege is under investigation. Matthew DeSarno, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Dallas field office, said during a press briefing on Jan. 21 that the agency is treating the incident as an act of terrorism and a hate crime.

During the negotiations with authorities, Akram “spoke repeatedly about a convicted terrorist who is serving an 86-year prison sentence in the United States on terrorisms charges,” according to the FBI.

Multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News that the hostage-taker was demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, who is incarcerated at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth, about 16 miles southwest of Colleyville. Siddiqui, who has alleged ties to al-Qaida, was sentenced to 86 years in prison after being convicted of assault as well as attempted murder of an American soldier in 2010.

Two teenagers were arrested in southern Manchester on Jan. 16 in connection with the synagogue attack. They were questioned and later released without being charged, Greater Manchester Police said in a statement on Jan. 18. Multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News that the teens are Akram’s children.

Akram has ancestral ties to Jandeela, a village in Pakistan’s Punjab province, the local police chief told ABC News. He visited Pakistan in 2020 and stayed for five months, the police chief said, a duration that may have been necessitated by COVID-19 restrictions.

Akram has been separated from his wife for two years and has five children, according to the police chief.

Law enforcement sources told ABC News that British authorities investigated Akram about a year ago and concluded he posed no threat that would have prohibited his travel from the United Kingdom to the U.S.

After arriving in the U.S. last month via a flight from London to New York City, Akram stayed at homeless shelters at various points and may have portrayed himself as experiencing homelessness in order to gain access to the Texas synagogue during Shabbat services, multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News.

U.S. President Joe Biden, who called the hostage-taking incident “an act of terror,” told reporters on Jan. 16 that investigators suspect Akram purchased a gun on the street. While Akram is alleged to have claimed he had bombs, investigators have found no evidence that he was in possession of explosives, according to Biden.

ABC News’ Luke Barr, Aaron Katersky, Habibullah Khan, Josh Margolin and Joseph Simonetti contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — As the U.S. continues to warn that the threat of a Russian attack on Ukraine remains “imminent,” there is one dissenting voice that has grown stronger — Ukraine’s.

From President Volodymyr Zelenskyy down, the Ukrainian government has tried to urge calm, with senior officials making clear in recent days they don’t see the risks now as any more heightened than over the last eight years of Russian-stoked conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar, for example, said the number of Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s borders “are not enough for a full-scale invasion.” Instead, Russian leader Vladimir Putin is using the troop build-up “primarily to politically blackmail the West and pressure Ukraine,” she wrote in a Facebook post.

“Russia’s tactical goal is provoke integral divisions in our society, sow fear and panic, to destabilize the internal situation,” she added.

Ukrainian concern that fear and panic could spread, sending Ukraine’s economy spiraling or creating political turmoil, has started to create divisions between the U.S. and Ukraine — despite efforts on both sides to make clear they stand united against any Russian aggression.

“All is under control. There are no reasons to panic,” Zelenskyy said in a televised address to his country Monday night — but the speech spent more time on COVID-19 than Russia.

Some of the steps the U.S. has taken in recent days, some in Kyiv fear, are playing into Moscow’s playbook — stoking fear and panic.

That includes the State Department’s decision to draw down the U.S. embassy, ordering diplomats’ families to evacuate and authorizing non-emergency staff to depart if they choose.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price called it a “prudent precaution,” but his Ukrainian counterpart, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko criticized it as “a premature one and an instance of excessive caution.”

“The Russian Federation is currently taking active efforts to destabilize the situation in Ukraine. A large amount of misinformation, manipulation, and fakes are spreading in Ukrainian and international media in order to cause panic among Ukrainians and foreigners, intimidate business, and undermine the economic and financial stability of our state. In this situation, it is important to soberly assess the risks and stay calm,” Nikolenko added.

Just four countries have followed the U.S., to varying degrees — the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Germany.

“We cannot allow ourselves for that to happen – that our economy falls. If people cross into a state of panic, that is a dangerous situation for our country, and it will be far easier to then manipulate us, and that is Russia’s goal,” warned Aleksey Danilov, a top Ukrainian national security official.

Some economic damage is already apparent. Yields on Ukrainian sovereign Eurobonds in U.S. dollars suddenly shot up to 11-14% on Jan. 14 and have risen even higher since — losing Ukraine access to the international financial market, according to Anders Åslund, a senior fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum.

“Ukraine’s emerging economic problems are entirely due to the shadow cast by the threat of a dramatic escalation in Russian military aggression,” Åslund wrote for the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank.

The White House and State Department defended the administration’s decisions and rhetoric, denying that drawing down the embassy, putting 8,500 U.S. troops on alert, and warning of an “imminent” threat have escalated the situation.

“I will let others assess, but there are 100,000 troops — Russian troops — on the border of Ukraine and no clarity that the leader of Russia doesn’t intend to invade. That sounds pretty dangerous to me,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday.

But 100,000 is not enough for an invasion, according to Malyar and the top commander for Ukraine’s forces on the frontlines. Lt. Gen. Oleksander Pavlyuk told ABC News last week that Ukraine had assessed Russian had 127,000 troops in total, although the U.S. still says approximately 100,000. Either way, Ukraine’s own army is approximately 200,000 strong now, and many more Russian troops would be needed to invade a country the size of Texas.

The number of Russian troops is also “not increasing in the way that today many are representing,” Danilov, who serves as secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, told the BBC in an interview Tuesday. “Is it unpleasant for us? Yes, but for us, it’s not news. If for someone in the West that has become news, well, I’m sorry.”

Still, Psaki denied there was daylight between Washington and Kyiv, adding, “We are in constant contact with Ukrainians to reiterate our support, to convey updates on shipments of supplies, military equipment — something that’s been happening over the last several days.”

Nikolenko too highlighted that military cooperation, praising “its proactive diplomatic position and for strengthening Ukraine’s defense capabilities, including the provision of weapons and equipment.”

Asked about the differences, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine Kristina Kvien denied there were any. In an exclusive interview Tuesday where a shipment of U.S. Javelin anti-tank and other weapons was being unleaded, she told ABC News, “President Zelenskyy is taking the threat very seriously, and he is being careful to make preparations as needed.”

The Ukrainian people have “been living with Russian threats for a long time, so I would say that they are just a bit more ‘sang-froid’ as they say in French. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t take them seriously,” added Kvien, the embassy’s chargé d’affaires.

In Kyiv, there is calm, if at least more talk now about the threat of a Russian attack — whether across the border, in cyber space, or through continued efforts to destabilize Ukraine’s government and economy.

“This looks and feels different … It certainly has people a lot more alert, especially if you watch the news all the time,” said Reno Domenico, an American businessman who has lived in Ukraine for 15 years. But he said the cafes remain full, and people are out shopping because, “People don’t panic, and panic is a bad thing. You make bad decisions when you panic.”

After the U.S. Embassy urged Americans to consider departing immediately, Domenico said more people started talking about the possibility. While everyone should have a plan, he added, his is to stay put for now.

ABC News’s Patrick Reevell contributed to this report from Kyiv, Ukraine, and Desiree Adib from New York.

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