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(LONDON) — Queen Elizabeth has marked the eve of her Platinum Jubilee with a request that her daughter-in-law Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, be known as queen consort when her son Charles succeeds her as king.

“And when, in the fullness of time, my son Charles becomes King, I know you will give him and his wife Camilla the same support that you have given me,” she wrote in the statement to mark her 70 years on the throne, “and it is my sincere wish that, when that time comes, Camilla will be known as Queen Consort as she continues her own loyal service.”

This is the first time the queen has publicly addressed her daughter-in-law’s role in the future monarchy.

In response to the queen’s remarks, a spokesman for Prince Charles and Camilla told ABC News they are “touched and honoured by Her Majesty’s words,” adding that the Prince of Wales will issue his own statement congratulating the queen on her milestone Sunday.

“This really is an important moment for the queen using this historic milestone of the 70th anniversary of her reign to give Camilla, her daughter-in-law, her blessing, that she wants her to be the queen consort when the moment comes,” explained ABC News Royal Contributor Robert Jobson.

“It’s the first time really she’s spoken about the succession in such detail and she’s really saying when Prince Charles becomes king he deserves to have the support and love of a consort like she did with Prince Philip,” Jobson added.

There have been indications that this was the queen’s intention, and that she is grateful to her daughter-in-law for the support she gives her son. Most recently, the queen gave the Duchess of Cornwall a significant honor, appointing her to the Order of the Garter late last year.

“The Duchess of Cornwall has been an exemplary supporter of the queen and the monarchy,” Ailsa Anderson, the queen’s former press secretary and ABC News royal contributor, said.

“She has demonstrated her commitment in so many causes, including women’s rights and literacy. As a nation we should welcome and embrace this announcement. I believe she will support the Prince of Wales in the years ahead,” Anderson added.

On Feb. 6, Queen Elizabeth will be the first British monarch to reach the milestone of a Platinum Jubilee. Traditionally, the queen spends the day quietly at Sandringham, her Norfolk estate, as she remembers her father George VI who died there 70 years ago.

The queen was on tour in Kenya when she found out her father had died and she was queen, making her the first monarch in 200 years to accede to the throne when overseas.

She left the country a princess and returned a queen, leading the nation in mourning her father. The solemn anniversary makes Feb. 6 a day of mixed emotion for Queen Elizabeth. “The queen normally marks her ascension anniversary privately. It’s obviously a moment of reflection because it’s also the anniversary of her father’s death,” said Victoria Murphy, ABC News royal contributor.

But this year, as it was such a major milestone, the queen hosted a reception at Sandringham on Saturday. Television pictures showed her cutting a cake to mark the occasion. This was her first public appearance since she was hospitalized last October.

In Saturday’s statement she also took the opportunity to thank her people for their support: “I remain eternally grateful for, and humbled by, the loyalty and affection that you continue to give me.”

“As we mark this anniversary, it gives me pleasure to renew to you the pledge I gave in 1947 that my life will always be devoted to your service,” she wrote.

She also paid tribute to her late husband, Prince Philip, who died last April.

“I was blessed that in Prince Philip I had a partner willing to carry out the role of consort and unselfishly make the sacrifices that go with it,” she wrote.

Jobson argued that the queen wants Charles to have similar support from Camilla when he becomes king, and that this announcement will make the transition to his kingship easier.

“She realizes she’s not going to live for much longer. She’s 96 in April and she wants everything sorted out, so there’s continuity and a smooth succession; and there’s no controversy over whether or not Camilla should be queen,” Jobson said.

Jobson said Camilla’s future role is purely as companion and adviser.

“The reality is she will never reign as queen; she’s there as a supporter to the Prince of Wales,” he said. “There have been enough dramas in the royal family in the last year or so, to last a lifetime. So what the queen wants is a calm and smooth succession.”

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(IGHRAN, Morocco) — A 5-year-old boy who had been trapped 32 meters underground in a well in Morocco for four days was found dead on Saturday following a lengthy rescue attempt that had captivated the Arab world.

In an official statement carried by state television, Morocco’s King Mohamed VI offered his condolences to the parents of the boy, identified as Rayan, as the meticulous relief operation came to a heart-wrenching end.

Relentless digging by bulldozers parallel to the well reached the full depth of 32 meters before rescuers embarked on a horizontal dig to reach the boy.

In the last stretch, which took longer than expected, rescuers resorted to manual digging in fear of possible landslides that would put Rayan’s life at risk. They also inserted pipes as a shelter from rock collapses, television footage showed.

After the pathway leading to Rayan was cleared, paramedics rushed to the tunnel to attend to him. His parents stood by anxiously, with security personnel forming a barrier in front of a crowd of onlookers as the sound of prayers blared through a loudspeaker.

The security guards then formed a cordon around an ambulance as Rayan’s body was moved out on a stretcher, with his mother appearing to be weeping.

Rayan reportedly fell through a narrow opening of the well while playing in the village of Ighran in Morocco’s Chefchaouen province on Tuesday evening.

A “Save Rayan” Arabic hashtag trended in several Arab countries, including in neighboring Algeria as well as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan as thousands of users took to social media to offer their prayers.

“I prayed to God and begged him to get him out of the well alive and safe. Please God, ease my pain. I hope the authorities and rescuers manage to save my son,” Rayan’s mother, Wassima Kharchich, told France24 earlier on Saturday.

Many likened his story to that of Prophet Yunis, commonly referred to as Jonah in the Bible, who was swallowed up by a whale for three days before the giant fish spat him out.

“Please God, protect him just like you protected Yunis in the belly of the whale,” read a caption on a widely shared drawing of a boy playing with toys while being trapped in a deep well.

Several Moroccan media outlets livestreamed the rescue operation to hundreds of thousands of viewers, leading to an outpouring of sympathy. A CCTV camera lowered into the well to track Rayan showed him alive on Thursday, albeit he appeared to be suffering from head injuries. Oxygen, food and water were also lowered into the well.

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(LONDON) — Prince Andrew has agreed to a deposition date of March 10 in connection with the civil lawsuit filed against him by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, according to an attorney for Giuffre and a source close to the prince.

Lawyers for Giuffre are expected to travel to London to question the prince. The specific location for the deposition has not yet been determined.

Sigrid McCawley, a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner, the firm that represents Giuffre, on Saturday confirmed to ABC News that the date has been set. The news of the agreed-upon date was first reported by The Telegraph.

A source close to the prince told ABC News that Prince Andrew’s legal team has agreed to “voluntarily produce” him for the deposition on that date. Giuffre has yet to commit to a date for her deposition “despite repeated requests,” the source close to the prince said.

The news comes following Prince Andrew’s failed attempt to have a lawsuit from Giuffre, an alleged Jeffrey Epstein victim, dismissed at this stage in the proceeding. A federal judge in New York rejected his arguments in January.

Giuffre alleges Jeffrey Epstein trafficked her to Prince Andrew who she claims took advantage and sexually abused her when she was under 18.

Prince Andrew has repeatedly denied the allegation and attacked Giuffre’s credibility and motives.

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(KYIV, Ukraine) — TikTok isn’t just for dance memes — it’s now being used by amateur investigators to track the Russian military buildup along Ukraine’s borders.

Among those researchers is the Conflict Intelligence Team, or CIT, a tight-knit collection of investigators based between Russia and Ukraine.

CIT practices open-source intelligence, a method of gathering and analyzing information that, as its name suggests, draws on publicly available data like social media posts and satellite imagery.

“It’s basically a bunch of independent bloggers slash researchers slash military equipment enthusiasts,” said Kirill Mikhailov, one of a handful of the group’s core members. Mikhailov, 33, is from Russia but currently lives in Kyiv, Ukraine.

The group came together in 2014, he said, during the early days of fighting in eastern Ukraine between that country’s military and pro-Russian separatists. Mikhailov said the group’s audience is primarily “people in Russia who need to be informed about this stuff,” but the group’s work is also translated into English for Western audiences.

CIT’s research has been cited widely in recent months, including in a January 15 analysis of Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine by two experts from the nonprofit CNA, a think tank that advises the US military.

The group’s work has also appeared in recent publications by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.

Thomas Bullock, an analyst at the private intelligence firm Jane’s, pointed to CIT as one of the best outfits currently tracking Russia’s military buildup.

Gathering data amid Russia-Ukraine tensions

The Biden administration has warned that Russia may fabricate a pretext to invade Ukraine, a charge Russia denies. The government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has downplayed the likelihood of a Russian invasion.

Amid this tension, which is spanning across the globe, Mikhailov explained one way how CIT gathers some of its data.

“Ideally, every train in Russia is logged in some central database,” Mikhailov said.

A train’s departure is checked against social media images — certain Russian-language TikTok hashtags abound with videos of trains carrying multiple launch rocket systems, troop carriers, and tanks — which researchers match visually to stations along the trains’ routes.

The type of hardware on a train, Mikhailov said, can in some cases be matched to specific military formations. CIT and other researchers have spotted in social media videos equipment allegedly used by units of Russia’s storied 76th Guards Air Assault paratrooper division, for example, due to the specific vehicles being used, their distinctive paint jobs, or unit markings.

This kind of information can be cross-referenced against the known home base of a military unit.

Researchers also supplement their findings with satellite data or, in some cases, social media comments.

“If a TikTok goes viral — like, super viral — then we can get lucky,” Mikhailov said, as the videos attract comments from soldiers’ relatives.

These comments can contain useful nuggets of information, Mikhailov said, like suggestions that a loved one’s military deployment will be longer than the routine exercises publicly announced by Russia’s military.

“There is no hiding” in today’s global military landscape, according to Robert Abrams an ABC News contributor and the former commander of U.S. forces in Korea.

Open-source intelligence is more pervasive than ever now; everyone has a cellphone and satellite images are cheaper to obtain.

“From a military perspective, you have to really think through how you are going to protect your position and your movements and what your capabilities are,” said Abrams. “You don’t have to just worry about aircraft flying with side or forward looking infrared radar, you now have to worry about Joe Schmoe on the street corner with a cellphone.”

Verifying gathered information

When the U.S. military makes decisions based on publicly available information — the kind used by CIT — that data is cross-referenced with other forms of intelligence, like human sources or intercepted communications, Abrams said.

“You don’t make decisions and assessments on one report or one source of intelligence. As a general rule, you want to cross-cue with another form of intelligence,” Abrams said.

To avoid disinformation, Mikhailov said CIT’s researchers aim to collect social media posts from genuine eyewitnesses.

Satellite imagery also helps verify the data CIT collects, Mikhailov said.

But one method used by CIT of validating their findings has recently become trickier, after, Mikhailov said, an intervention by Russia’s authorities.

Eight-digit numbers on the side of a train car can aid CIT in isolating a specific train and obtaining a history of its movements. That data is now harder to come by, Mikhailov said.

“They’ve been blocking our accounts, they’ve been limiting some specific types of requests, like you could request to see all trains that are currently at a station. It’s not available at this point,” Mikhailov said.

The most significant recent change, Mikhailov said, was the removal of data about journeys by trains carrying military cargo.

This wasn’t the first time a new roadblock has been thrown up for open-source researchers. In 2019, Russian lawmakers approved a bill blocking troops there from using smartphones while on duty and from posting personal details online.

Mikhailov said researchers are adapting to the latest setbacks.

“We have found some workarounds and loopholes they haven’t plugged yet,” he said.

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(WASHINGTON) — The attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport last August that killed 13 U.S. service members and at least 170 Afghans was the result of a single explosive device detonated by an ISIS-K terrorist, a months-long military investigation has found, it was announced Friday.

The Pentagon had originally described the attack as “complex,” with multiple ISIS-K fighters firing on the crowd as well after the explosion.

The top U.S. commander for the Middle East said the evidence gathered in the investigation — including analysis by medical examiners and explosive experts, as well as interviews with more than 130 people — shows his initial assessment was wrong.

“The fact that this investigation has contradicted our first impression demonstrates to me that the team would enter this investigation with an open mind in search of the truth,” said Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command.

During the briefing defense officials narrated what they called “the only known footage of the blast itself,” which they said appears to show a “single individual dressed in all black” stepping forward from the crowd.

The blast seems to emanate from this individual, they said.

The investigators found that several misapprehensions on the day of the attack led to the error.

For instance, witnesses heard gunfire, and saw what appeared to be gunshot wounds on victims.

But investigators found warning shots fired by friendly forces to disperse crowds after the explosion echoed and created the illusion of a firefight, and the apparent gunshot wounds were caused by five-millimeter ball bearings that were propelled from the suicide bomb by 20 pounds of military-grade explosives, tearing through the densely-packed crowd at the airport’s Abbey Gate.

Adding to the confusion, Marines helping process Afghan civilians at the gate close to the explosion were disoriented by the large blast, and some were tear gassed when the ball bearings from the bomb punctured CS canisters worn on their own equipment, officials said.

“The battlefield is a confusing and contradictory place, and it gets more confusing the closer you are to the actual action,” McKenzie said.

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(CAIRO) — Rescuers intensified their efforts on Friday to recover a five-year-old boy trapped in a 32-meter-deep well in a Northern Moroccan province for almost three days in a relief operation that kept people in the Arab world on tenterhooks.

The boy, identified by Moroccan media as Rayan, reportedly fell through a narrow opening of the well while playing in the village of Ighran in Morocco’s Chefchaouen province on Tuesday evening.

A “Save Rayan” Arabic hashtag trended in several Arab countries, including in neighboring Algeria as well as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan as thousands of users took to social media to offer their prayers.

Many likened his story to that of Prophet Yunis, commonly referred to as Jonah in the Bible, who was swallowed up by a whale for three days before the giant fish spat him out.

“Please God, protect him just like you protected Yunis in the belly of the whale,” read a caption on a widely shared drawing of a boy playing with toys while being trapped in a deep well.

Several Moroccan media outlets live-streamed the rescue operation to hundreds of thousands of users, leading to an outpouring of sympathy. A CCTV camera lowered into the well to track Rayan showed him alive on Thursday, albeit he appeared to be suffering from head injuries. Oxygen, food and water were also sent down.

“Still can’t sleep Till he is free fully I’m literally been depressed all day, I’m lying on my bed and I feel so exhausted imagine this little poor baby what he feels,” one Twitter user said.

Moroccan state news agency MAP said parallel digging carried out by bulldozers had reached a depth of 28 meters, reviving hopes that the rescue efforts can bear fruit soon. Horizontal drilling will start once a depth of 32 meters is reached, an informed source told MAP.

However, the source urged caution in fear of possible landslides. Footage showed parts of the soil collapsing during the digging work.

“The excavation work stopped from time to time, in order to take the necessary measures, as the rescue operation has reached a complex stage, and perform the necessary interventions to avoid a ground collapse,” the source told MAP.

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(LONDON) — Queen Elizabeth will set yet another milestone on Feb. 6, when she becomes the first British monarch to reach a Platinum Jubilee — 70 years on the throne.

The 95-year-old queen ascended to the throne 70 years ago following the death of her father, King George VI, on Feb. 6, 1952.

Queen Elizabeth will spend the anniversary of her father’s death at her Norfolk estate, Sandringham, where King George died in his sleep.

While there, the queen will be staying at Wood Farm, where her late husband, Prince Philip, who died last April, spent much of his time after retirement.

Queen Elizabeth, who marks Feb. 6 as a day of remembrance for her father, will celebrate her Platinum Jubilee in June with a series of public celebrations.

Here is a look back at seven of the queen’s most memorable moments from 70 years on the throne.

1. A history-making coronation

Queen Elizabeth’s coronation on June 2, 1953, was the first to be televised.

The nearly three-hour service in Westminster Abbey was watched on TV by 27 million people in the United Kingdom alone, according to the royal family.

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s oldest child, Prince Charles, attended the coronation, becoming the first child to witness his mother’s coronation.

Following the service, the queen and Prince Philip joined a 16,000-person strong procession from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace.

Among the thousands of journalists covering the queen’s coronation was Jacqueline Bouvier, who at the time worked for the Washington Times-Herald and would go on to become first lady of the United States alongside her husband, President John F. Kennedy, according to the royal family.

2. The first royal ‘walkabout’ to greet fans

While royal watchers are used to seeing royals including Prince William and Duchess Kate greet fans at each stop they make, a practice called the “walkabout,” that was not the case before Queen Elizabeth.

The queen upended royal tradition while on a tour of Australia and New Zealand with Prince Philip in 1970. Instead of waving to crowds from a protected distance, Queen Elizabeth walked out and greeted people in-person, the first royal “walkabout.”

3. Meeting 13 sitting U.S. presidents

Queen Elizabeth has met with every U.S. president during her 70 years on the throne, except for Lyndon B. Johnson.

She met with President Joe Biden last June at Windsor Castle, marking her 13th meeting with a sitting U.S. president.

Queen Elizabeth has hosted just three presidents for an official state visit — Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

4. Celebrating jubilees in a history-making reign as queen

In 1977, Queen Elizabeth celebrated her Silver Jubilee, 25 years on the throne, with a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral, where she repeated her pledge to a life of service.

More than two decades later, in 2002 — the same year both her mother and sister passed away — Queen Elizabeth celebrated 50 years on the throne, her Golden Jubilee.

The queen was escorted through the streets of London in a four-ton golden coach, previously used only when she was crowned and at her Silver Jubilee. In a ceremony that dates back almost 800 years, she touched a sword handed to her by the Lord Mayor of London, symbolizing the supreme power of the monarch.

In June 2012, Queen Elizabeth celebrated 60 years on the throne, her Diamond Jubilee, with a parade down the Thames and a concert outside Buckingham Palace.

Three years later, in 2015, Queen Elizabeth made history, becoming Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, at 63 years.

5. ‘Parachuting’ into the London Olympics with James Bond

The same year as her Diamond Jubilee, in 2012, Queen Elizabeth memorably starred alongside actor Daniel Craig in a clip that aired during the opening ceremony for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

The queen portrayed herself in the clip, which featured Craig, as James Bond, picking her up at Buckingham Palace. Stunt actors then portrayed the two helicoptering across London and parachuting into the Olympics venue, while Queen Elizabeth herself arrived at her seat, accompanied by Prince Philip.

6. Serving as matriarch of a growing royal family

Queen Elizabeth has been an omnipresent force not just on the world stage, but also within her own family.

The queen, a mother of four, is the matriarch of an ever-growing family, which now includes eight grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

She has been present for weddings, as well as divorces that made headlines.

She has also guided her family through scandal and discord, most recently amid a lawsuit against her son Prince Andrew, as well as the exit of her grandson Prince Harry and his wife, Duchess Meghan, from their senior royal roles.

7. Saying goodbye to her husband of 73 years

Queen Elizabeth faced a deeply personal and sad moment in her reign last April when she said goodbye to her husband , Prince Philip, following his death at age 99.

Due to restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic, the queen sat alone during the April 17, 2021, funeral service for Philip, her husband of 73 years.

Known as one of the hardest-working members of the royal family, Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, was also a stalwart supporter of his wife.

“He is someone who doesn’t take easily to compliments, but he has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years,” Queen Elizabeth said in 1997, paying tribute to her husband on their golden wedding anniversary. “And I, and his whole family, and this and many other countries, owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim, or we shall ever know.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Human rights groups and U.S. officials are concerned about the safety of Olympic athletes in China if they speak out on political issues at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing following a warning from a Chinese official about “punishment” for competitors should they do so.

Yang Shu, the deputy director of international relations for the Beijing organizing committee, said any speech against the Olympic spirit or Chinese laws would be “subject to certain punishment” during a press conference on Jan. 18. Shu did nothing to ease concerns at a press conference on Tuesday, saying that International Olympic Committee Rule 50 does include some speech regulations.

“At the medal ceremonies, they cannot make their opinions but in press conferences or interviews, athletes are free to express their opinions,” Shu said Tuesday. “But athletes need to be responsible for what they say.”

Shu’s comments spurred human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and U.S. officials to warn athletes about speaking out and to call on the IOC to guarantee freedom of speech at the Games.

“Athletes are also being obliged to compete in this environment by an International Olympic Committee, that … seems completely unwilling or unable to actually follow through on those obligations,” Sophie Richardson, the China director at Human Rights Watch, said in an interview with ABC News.

In response to the comments during Yang’s press conference, a group of representatives from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Chairman Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., released a statement calling on the IOC to “immediately clarify that free speech by athletes is absolutely guaranteed at the Olympics.”

When reached for comment about free speech at the Olympics, the IOC told ABC News Thursday that “the Games are governed by the IOC Rules. They will be applied at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 like at any other edition of the Games before.”

Despite the concern expressed by some about possible repercussions if athletes speak out, Carl Minzner, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, doesn’t see a high chance of the Chinese government taking strong action.

“It’s hard for me to imagine Beijing doing something really extreme, such as actually detaining or imprisoning a foreign athlete … Doing so would likely just generate more unwanted attention,” Minzner said in an interview with ABC News.

Some lawmakers in the U.S. aren’t counting on the Chinese to hang back. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China held a hearing Thursday on the Beijing Olympics with panelists who work to address human rights issues in China and protect those affected.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, released a letter on Jan. 31 asking the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee what their plans were for protecting athletes, highlighting freedom of expression concerns and data privacy worries.

“We write with urgency about the safety and protection of U.S. athletes who are headed to Beijing, China, especially given the recent statement by a Chinese official about ‘punishment’ of athletes who exercise freedom of expression,” their letter said. “We share with you our concerns on the risks to freedom of expression, data privacy and exposure to products made by forced labor.”

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., held a press conference on Jan. 24 to discuss human rights abuses in China and the need for increased security measures for American athletes.

“I can’t tell you how worried I am about the athletes competing in Beijing. Look at what communist China did to silence and disappear, silence and disappear, Peng Shuai,” Scott said.

Enes (Kanter) Freedom, the NBA player who has called for athletes to boycott the Olympics in recent weeks, joined the Senator by phone.

Peng Shuai, a Chinese tennis player, went absent from public view last November after accusing former Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli of coercing her into having sex in a since-deleted post on the Chinese social media app, Weibo.

Two weeks later, Peng appeared in a video where she denied having been sexually assaulted, a move the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) called “insufficient” in verifying Peng’s safety. Following the incident, the WTA announced a suspension on all events in China, citing “serious doubts that she [Peng] is free, safe and not subject to censorship, coercion and intimidation.”

In a press conference on Feb. 3, IOC President Thomas Bach indicated that a meeting with Peng would occur when COVID protocols allow it to happen.

“I am very happy and very grateful to Peng Shuai. She will enter the closed-loop to have the meeting that she also wants,” he said.

Although there were no known incidents of athletes facing repercussions from the Chinese government when the Olympics took place in the same host city 14 years ago, the role athletes play in the broader political discussion and how they use their platform has changed significantly since 2008, according to Richardson.

“We didn’t have Colin Kaepernick, we didn’t have, you know, [tennis star] Andy Murray saying he’s not gonna go compete in Saudi, it’s a different ballgame,” Richardson said.

Free speech has been a subject of controversy in China in recent years as freedom of expression and press have come into question. Article 35 in the Chinese Constitution states that “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China shall enjoy freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, procession and demonstration.”

Regardless, political comments deemed inappropriate have been addressed inconsistently, experts said.

“If people say or publish views or otherwise express views that authorities don’t like, they are subject to prosecution under a variety of broad laws that are often arbitrarily interpreted, “said Richardson.

The Biden administration announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Olympics in December over China’s record on human rights, particularly its treatment of ethnic Uyghurs, which the United States has previously declared a genocide. The decision will prevent United States government officials from attending any events in Beijing, but will not impact the participation of any American athletes.

The 2022 Winter Olympics will take place from Feb. 4 – 20. The American Olympic team has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.

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(BEIJING) — With the Beijing Olympics set to begin, a group of international scientists is once more calling for a “comprehensive international investigation” into the origins of COVID-19.

It’s the latest in a series of strongly worded letters demanding more transparency from the Chinese government, once again stoking a contentious debate that’s been ongoing throughout the pandemic’s many months.

The letter — signed by 20 scientists from the U.S., U.K., Germany, New Zealand, France, Australia, India and Japan — echoes what have become broad international calls for a more thorough examination, unfettered by geopolitics, into where COVID-19 came from. It also underscores continued criticism from both the U.S. and international bodies over the Chinese government’s lack of cooperation.

“The Olympic Charter states that ‘The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity,'” wrote the scientist group, co-organized by Jamie Metzl, a former WHO adviser and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “Unfortunately, as athletes from across the globe gather together today for the start of the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games, this noble aspiration is being undermined through the ongoing efforts of the host government to prevent a comprehensive international investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Increased and united scrutiny into COVID-19’s origins is “a true representation of the ideals underlying the Olympic movement,” the letter said, and would “promote openness and mutual trust,” especially at a time when the world’s athletes convene upon Beijing.

Failing to understand how the virus — which is now responsible for claiming the lives of more than 5.7 million people worldwide — leaves “everyone on earth and future generations … at heightened and unnecessary risk of future pandemics,” the letter said.

No firm conclusion has yet been made as to where COVID-19 came from, with international health and U.S. intelligence bodies stalled between two theories: whether the virus emerged from natural animal spillover, or whether it came from an accidental lab experiment leak in Wuhan, China.

Following President Joe Biden’s 90-day push this summer for his intel agencies to “redouble their efforts” in uncovering a more definitive conclusion on COVID-19’s origins, the intelligence community has remained “divided” on its most likely origins. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in its report, underscored the barriers to finding any concrete answers — namely, unhelpful noncooperation from the Chinese government, which is “likely to impede investigation.”

A World Health Organization-led team also emphasized that there must be more sharing of records, samples and raw data for any real progress to take place.

The WHO’s first phase study into COVID-19’s origins, which deemed a lab leak “extremely unlikely,” faced a barrage of questions on issues of access and transparency. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there was more work to be done and the assessment had not been “extensive enough.”

Months later, Tedros acknowledged it had been “premature” to rule out the lab leak theory so soon and stressed that they needed China’s cooperation with raw data from their labs to help rule out the lab leak theory.

The UN health agency has formed a new team of scientists for a new phase of investigation that included lab audits — which the Chinese government rejected, saying they could not accept needless “repetitive research” when “clear conclusions” had already been reached.

Without a fresh flow of that robust information, the debate over COVID-19’s origins has remained shrouded in a haze of circumstantial evidence.

“The fact is that they’re just not, they’re just not being transparent,” Biden said of China at his news conference earlier this month, adding that he “made it clear” to President Xi Jinping during their November summit that “China had an obligation to be more forthcoming on exactly what the source of the virus was.”

Meanwhile, Beijing has vehemently denied the virus could have come from one of its labs, pressing for the investigation to look outside China. Chinese authorities have suggested, without evidence, that the virus was already spreading in the United States prior to late 2019 — attempting to move the sharp focus on Wuhan’s early viral clusters to a conspiracy theory that COVID-19 came from a U.S. Army lab.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian tweeted in March 2020 that “it might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan,” claiming that American military athletes who attended the World Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019 could have been responsible for bringing COVID-19 into China.

U.S. Department of Defense officials pushed firmly back on the accusation, calling it “misinformation and disinformation,” and Chad Sbragia, the then-Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China, called claims that the virus began with a U.S. Army service member “patently false and, frankly, unhelpful.”

Experts say it could take years to find COVID-19’s origins, even with full international cooperation and an intact trail of scientific evidence. It took scientists more than a decade to identify the bat population that was the home of a 2002 SARS epidemic.

Even so, they also underscore that understanding where and how this pandemic started may be crucial to preventing the next one.

“Understanding how this terrible crisis began is essential to preventing future pandemics,” the letter said, “and building a safer future for all.”

ABC News’ Sony Salzman contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The United States said Thursday it had intelligence that showed Russia is planning to create a video depicting a fake Ukrainian attack, that it could release in order to justify its own invasion of Ukraine.

One of a number of options Russia has been allegedly planning, U.S. officials said, was to “stage a fake attack” against Russia or Russian-speaking people.

“As part of this fake attack, we believe that Russia would produce a very graphic propaganda video, which would include corpses, and actors that would be depicting mourners, and images of destroyed locations as well as military equipment,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.

The United States took the rare step of making this intelligence public in order to dissuade Russia from moving forward or, if it did move forward, to make it more difficult for it to spread disinformation after the fact, according to Jon Finer, the principal deputy U.S. national security adviser.

“We don’t know definitively that this is the route they’re going to take,” Finer said in an interview with MSNBC.

“But we know that this is an option under consideration,” he continued, “that would involve, you know, actors playing mourners for people who are killed in an event that they would have created themselves, that would involve the deployment of corpses to represent bodies purportedly killed in — people reportedly killed in an incident like this.”

The U.K. said later Wednesday that it had conducted its “own analysis of the intelligence,” and that it had “high confidence that Russia is planning to engineer a pretext blaming Ukraine in order to justify a Russian incursion.”

“This is clear and shocking evidence of Russia’s unprovoked aggression and underhand activity to destabilize Ukraine,” Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said.

It is not the first time in recent weeks that the United States had accused Russia of “fabricating a pretext” to justify invading Ukraine.

The Kremlin on Wednesday denied the new allegations.

“This is not the first such promise,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to the Russian state news agency TASS “Earlier, similar things were also voiced. But nothing ever occurs.”

Last month, the White House said the U.S. had intelligence that Russia had prepositioned a group of operatives in eastern Ukraine in order to create a “false-flag operation” there. The administration said the group was trained in urban warfare and the use of explosives.

A spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council declined to say whether those the United States is accusing of being involved in creating a fake video were part of this same group.

The U.S. believes Russia has already recruited the people who’d be involved with the fake “attack” video and that “Russian intelligence is intimately involved in this effort,” according to the senior administration official.

The U.S. thinks that “the military equipment used in this fabricated attack will be made to look like it is Ukrainian or from allied nations” – and that it was “possible” that Bayraktar drones, which Ukraine has, would be used to make it look like Ukraine carried out the attack, according to the official.

U.S. officials have repeatedly said, as recently as Wednesday, that they do not believe Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had yet decided whether to invade Ukraine.

But if he did want to move forward, the senior administration official said, one trigger could be Russia recognizing separatist regions in Ukraine as independent, rather than as part of Ukraine. Russia’s parliament is advancing legislation that would do so.

The U.S. believes that if Russia formally recognized the regions as independent, Russia could then release the video showing a fake Ukrainian “attack” – that it could portray as in response to the independence recognition – or Russia could just invade without releasing the video, according to another administration official.

“In line with its previous interventions, Russia would portray its actions as defending ethnic Russians and coming at the request of a sovereign government for assistance,” the senior administration official said.

ABC News’ Matt Seyler, Patrick Reevell and Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.

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