World

LONDON — The “Make America Great Again” roadshow arrived in Europe this week with events in two nations where American conservatives see prime opportunities for a new transatlantic political culture — one molded by President Donald Trump’s right-wing populism and imbued with grand “clash of civilizations” rhetoric.

The Conservative Political Action Conference — CPAC — opened its week of European events on Tuesday in Jasionka, Poland, where Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was among the speakers, urging Poles to vote for right-wing presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki in this weekend’s runoff election.

Noem eschewed the diplomatic norm of non-alignment in elections in allied nations, as have other administration officials including Vice President JD Vance. “You will be the leaders that will turn Europe back to conservative values,” she told attendees in Jasionka.

“We need you to elect the right leader,” Noem said, dismissing Nawrocki’s rival — liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski — as “an absolute train wreck of a leader.”

“Donald Trump is a strong leader for us, but you have an opportunity that you have just as strong of a leader in Karol if you make him the leader of this country,” Noem said.

CPAC’s next stop will be in Budapest, Hungary, on Thursday, hosted by populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban — a totem of the European anti-establishment right wing who has long enjoyed cozy relations with Trump.

Peter Kreko, the director of the Political Capital Institute in Budapest, said Orban is positioning himself as “another recipient of the MAGA soft power export.”

“Orban is still positioning himself as someone who is exporting his campaign tactics, who can help others in terms of campaign consultancy and provide help from the United States,” Kreko said. “He’s trading off of his good partnership with Donald Trump.”

On the web page promoting CPAC’s Hungary event, the organization hit out at “corrupt elites” who it said “betray all that once made us great: patriotic virtue has been replaced by internationalism, common sense by bureaucracy and tradition by woke madness.”

“People on both sides of the Atlantic have risen up against this repackaged version of socialism, but success can only be complete when the tides of change converge and the age of patriotism begins at both poles of the West,” CPAC wrote.

Internationalism is front and center in the CPAC event agendas. Among the speakers in Budapest will be American conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, Yair Netanyahu — the son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Santiago Abascal, the leader of Spain’s far-right Vox party.

Also attending will be a host of other European conservative politicians from Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, France, Estonia and Greece — among others.

“With the triumph of Donald Trump and the rise of the European Right, the Age of the Patriots of Western Civilization has begun — CPAC Hungary 2025 will be the hub of this movement,” the organizing website said.

But the CPAC events come at a moment of peril for transatlantic relations. Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs threaten to touch off a costly trade war with the European Union.

Trump has made no secret of his disdain for the bloc. “Now we’re going to charge the European Union,” Trump said when unveiling his tariff plans in April. “They’re very tough. Very, very tough traders. You know, you think of the European Union, very friendly. They rip us off. It’s so sad to see. It’s so pathetic.”

Trump announced last weekend that his planned 50% tariffs on EU goods would be delayed into July. But the bloc remains on a collision course with the Trump administration.

The economic and political aspirations of all EU leaders rely heavily on the bloc’s own fortunes, even for those populist leaders like Orban who so often define themselves in opposition to the grand European project.

The president’s European offensive could yet sour budding ties between the MAGA movement and its foreign allies, if the latter’s “core interests appear directly threatened by Trumpism,” Celia Belin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and head of its Paris office, told ABC News.

Kati Piri, Hungarian-born member of the Dutch parliament and the Labour Party’s spokesperson for foreign affairs, migration and asylum, told ABC News in a statement that “Trump’s unilateralist policies are designed to hurt all Europeans, and that so-called allies will not be spared.”

“Trump’s continued threats of tariffs on EU products and global trade wars are making him an unpopular friend to have — and this is fragmenting the unity of the global right,” Piri suggested.

The glitz and glamour of CPAC’s Budapest event will be welcome for Orban, Kreko said, as the prime minister grapples with his own domestic challenges — not least the meteoric rise of liberal opposition leader Peter Magyar.

Around 10,000 people rallied in Budapest earlier this month to protest government plans to restrict the rights of independent media organizations — the latest in a wave of large protests against Orban and his Fidesz party government.

Kreko said Orban’s popularity is flagging after 15 years of uninterrupted power, even as he positions himself at the forefront of the nascent right-wing “illiberal international.”

“Orban is nowhere as popular as he was, let’s say in 2022, when he won the last elections,” Kreko said. “His popularity is waning, he is having a hard time getting it back and he also uses increasingly authoritarian tools to be able to keep power.”

“He has a hard time at home persuading his own constituency that the regime he is promoting all over the world is as powerful, as beautiful, as successful as it is seen by the MAGA camp in the United States,” Kreko added.

Trump’s America has become the center of gravity of the global right-wing movement — with the weight of the federal government and the broader national conservative movement behind it.

This week Samuel Samson — a senior advisor for the State Department’s Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor — gave an indication of the prevailing winds in American transatlantic policy, publishing an article setting out “the need for civilizational allies in Europe.”

Claiming the existence of “an aggressive campaign against Western civilization itself,” Samson accused European governments of having “devolved into a hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance.”

Opening the CPAC event in Poland on Tuesday, chairman Matt Schlapp told attendees, “The globalists intend to take each one of us out one by one — to shame us, to silence us, to bankrupt us, to ruin us, to make our kids turn against us.”

That is why, he said, it was important to “win all these elections, including in Poland, that are so important to the freedom of people everywhere.”

For now, Kreko suggested the transatlantic MAGA project is incomplete, as did recent election results in Romania, Portugal and the first round of Poland’s presidential vote in which conservative and far-right candidates did not win power.

“What is common between Trump, Orban and many others in central and eastern Europe is that they really want to build this illiberal international,” Kreko said.

“But at the same time, we also have to be careful about overestimating its impact,” he said.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(GAZA) — As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to unfold, video showed children sitting in lines waiting for food on the side of the road on Tuesday.

Two million people in the Gaza Strip face “extreme hunger and famine without immediate action,” the World Food Programme said last week.

The children gathered by a community kitchen, waiting with their empty pots, according to the video verified by ABC News.

In the scramble for hot food, a child was scalded after hot soup was spilled on him, the video shows. The child is seen crying in pain as someone pours water on him. Another video showed a child scooping up flour spilled on the ground mixed with dirt.

“The children of Gaza need protection,” UNICEF, the U.N. agency for children, said in a statement on Tuesday. “They need food, water, and medicine. They need a ceasefire. But more than anything, they need immediate, collective action to stop this once and for all.”

Last week, more than a dozen World Food Programme trucks were looted in southern Gaza while en route to WFP supported bakeries.

“These trucks were transporting critical food supplies for hungry populations waiting anxiously for assistance. Hunger, desperation, and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming, is contributing to rising insecurity,” the WFP said in a statement.

The Israeli government had been implementing a blockade on all humanitarian aid being sent into Gaza since March 2. The blockade was instituted to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages, Israel said.

Humanitarian groups and the United Nations have distanced themselves from the new plan to distribute aid into Gaza that began last week. Aid trucks started slowly re-entering Gaza last week, according to the U.N. and the Gaza Government Media Office.

“WFP cannot safely operate under a distribution system that limits the number of bakeries and sites where Gaza’s population can access food. WFP and its partners must also be allowed to distribute food parcels directly to families — the most effective way to prevent widespread starvation,” the WFP said last week.

The Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip has caused widespread malnutrition and conditions likely to lead to famine, according to the U.N. and other international aid organizations.

One in five people in Gaza, about 500,000 people, faces starvation, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification platform said on May 12, according to the U.N. Of those, 71,000 children need treatment for acute malnutrition, according to the report.

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, an American physician who volunteered in Gaza in 2024 and last month, spoke at the U.N. on Wednesday, describing the day Israel broke the ceasefire in March as the day he “witnessed the most extreme casualty event of my career.” He said he had 221 trauma patients in his care.

Sidhwa also criticized the controversial new aid plan for Gaza, which he said constitutes a “weaponization and politicization of aid.”

“If this continues, there will be no Palestinian doctors left — no one to care for the sick and wounded,” Sidwha said. “No Palestinians left to rebuild the health care system. We are losing a generation before our eyes, condemning patients to die from hunger, disease and despair — deaths that could have been prevented.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — A top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that President Donald Trump “is not getting enough information” about Moscow’s war on Ukraine, after Trump criticized Putin for his apparent reluctance to pursue a peace deal and warned that the Kremlin was “playing with fire.”

“There is a lot that Trump says, we read it all, track it, but in many ways we come to the conclusion that Trump is not getting enough information about what is really happening in the context of the Ukrainian-Russian confrontation,” Yuri Ushakov said in an interview with Russian propagandist Pavel Zarubin published on Wednesday.

“In particular, he is not being informed enough about what massive terrorist attacks are being carried out by Ukraine against peaceful Russian cities,” Ushakov said. “Trump only knows what countermeasures we are taking, and he does not fully understand that we are attacking military institutions or military industrial complexes.”

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday that he was “disappointed” by Russia’s barrage of strikes in recent days.

Asked if he believed the Russians are being disrespectful and if Putin actually wants to end the war, Trump responded, “I can’t tell you that. But I’ll let you know in about two weeks.”

“Within two weeks. We’re going to find out very soon,” he continued. “We’re going to find out whether or not he’s tapping us along or not. And if he is, we’ll respond a little bit differently. But it will take about a week and a half, two weeks.”

He said he hasn’t imposed new sanctions on Russia because “I think I’m close to getting a deal.”

“I don’t want to screw it up by doing that,” he said. “This isn’t my war. This is Biden’s war, Zelenskyy’s war and Putin’s war. This isn’t Trump’s war. I’m only here for one thing to see if I can end it.”

The comments came after hundreds of Ukrainian drones crossed into Russia overnight into Wednesday morning, dozens of which targeted Moscow and again caused disruption to flights in and out of the capital, according to officials there.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 296 Ukrainian drones over 12 regions — including the capital Moscow — during the latest round of long-range strikes.

Moscow Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said on Telegram that at least 42 drones were downed over the region. Vorobyov reported damage to three homes in the town of Chekhov around 40 miles south of the capital.

Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport — one of four international airports in the capital — also warned travelers of delays due to flight restrictions imposed during the latest drone attack. Recent weeks have seen regular disruptions to Moscow’s airports during such strikes.

Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Counter-Disinformation Center operating as part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said on Telegram there were “some pretty good hits” during Tuesday night’s attack.

Among the targets were the Dubna Machine-Building Plant — involved in the production of aviation, missile and drone technology, Kovalenko said — in the city of Dubna, around 70 miles north of Moscow.

Kovalenko said the Technopark ELMA-Zelenograd facility — which hosts the development of microelectronics, IT, robotics and medical equipment — was also targeted. The facility “is one of the centers where import substitution of critical components previously imported from the West takes place,” Kovalenko said.

ABC News could not immediately verify Kovalenko’s claim of successful strikes on the facilities.

Russia continued its own long-range attacks on Ukraine overnight. Ukraine’s air force said Moscow launched six missiles and 88 strike drones into the country, of which 71 drones were shot down or otherwise neutralized. The air force said it recorded impacts in eight locations.

The intensity of strikes by both sides has only increased since Trump’s return to office in January, the president having promised to end Russia’s war on its neighbor in 24 hours. Trump has not delivered on that promise, and his frustration appears to have been building in recent weeks with the continued failure of U.S.-led ceasefire efforts.

Trump called Putin “absolutely crazy” in a Sunday social media post, then on Tuesday said Putin doesn’t realize “that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!”

The U.S. and Ukraine are now waiting for Russia to deliver its peace memorandum — a document promised by Putin to Trump during a phone call between the two leaders earlier this month.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday that Russia is ready to present its memorandum to Ukraine and proposed holding a second round of talks with Kyiv in Istanbul on June 2.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier Wednesday floated the idea of a trilateral meeting with Putin and Trump.

“If Putin is uncomfortable with a bilateral meeting, or if everyone wants it to be a trilateral meeting — I don’t care. I’m ready for any format,” he said.

Trump, meanwhile, said Wednesday he would sit down with Putin and Zelenskyy “if it’s necessary.”

“At this point, we’re working on President Putin, and we’ll see where we are,” he told reporters.

Zelenskyy has cast doubt on the Russian proposal. “They’ve already spent over a week on this,” he wrote on social media on Tuesday. “They talk a lot about diplomacy. But when, in the midst of all that, there are constant Russian strikes, constant killings, relentless assaults, and even preparations for new offensives.”

On Wednesday, Andriy Yermak — the head of Zelenskyy’s presidential office — wrote on Telegram, “Russians are masters of empty words.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — Israel launched airstrikes on Sana’a International Airport in the Yemeni capital on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, warning of the possibility of further attacks on the Iran-backed Houthi movement that controls the area.

“We work according to a simple rule: Whoever harms us, we harm them,” Netanyahu said in a statement posted to X by his office. “Whoever does not understand this with force, will now understand it with greater force.”

“But, as I have said more than once: The Houthis are only the symptom. The main driving force behind them is Iran, which is responsible for the aggression emanating from Yemen,” Netanyahu continued.

The Houthis have been attacking regional shipping and launching drones and missiles toward Israel since Hamas’ deadly surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The Houthis say their attacks are a protest of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

In response, the Israel Defense Forces have attacked a range of targets in Houthi-controlled Yemen. The IDF has previously bombed the airport in Sana’a in December 2024 and earlier this month.

The IDF said in a Wednesday statement that the latest attack targeted “the central airport in Sana’a and an aircraft belonging to the Houthi terrorist organization.”

“The aircraft that were attacked were used by the Houthi terrorist regime to transport terrorists who promoted terrorist acts against the state of Israel,” the IDF said.

“The IDF is determined to continue to act and strike with force anyone who poses a threat to the residents of the state of Israel, at whatever distance is required,” the IDF said.

Yemenia Airlines condemned the strike.

“Another Yemenia Airlines plane was directly and cowardly targeted this morning, just moments before the scheduled boarding of pilgrims,” the airline said in a statement Wednesday. “The plane had received all necessary permits for landing, operation, and takeoff from all relevant authorities.”

“Accordingly, we announce to the Yemeni and international public opinion the complete (temporary) suspension of Yemenia Airlines flights from Sana’a International Airport until further notice,” the statement continued. “This is a result of this cowardly terrorist act that targeted a Yemeni civilian aircraft, belonging to a national company that has distanced itself from all conflicts and is fully dedicated to serving all our noble people without discrimination.”

Last month, the Houthis agreed to end attacks on American commercial shipping in the region in exchange for an end to the intense U.S. airstrikes against them, a campaign President Donald Trump began in March.

The Houthis have said that the agreement does not include stopping its attacks on Israel, and have since launched multiple drones and ballistic missiles toward the country.

ABC News’ Guy Davies contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday pushed for Karol Nawrocki to be president of Poland while speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Warsaw, decrying his opponent as a “train wreck.”

It is an extraordinary move for a sitting member of the U.S. Cabinet to advocate for a political candidate in a foreign country.

Noem spoke for more than 20 minutes at CPAC, an American group that seeks to spread conservative ideas and held its first conference in Poland on Tuesday.

She claimed there is no time for “nice words,” saying, “We do not have time to dance around the dangers that threaten our societies.”

“It matters who’s in charge,” Noem told the crowd. “I have watched over the years as socialists and people that are just like this mayor out of Warsaw that is an absolute train wreck of a leader have destroyed our countries because they have led by fear.

“They have used fear to control people, and they’ve used fear to promote an agenda that is not what liberty is about, that is not what freedom is about,” she said.

The Polish runoff election for president is on Sunday, June 1, with Nawrocki as the conservative choice and Rafal Trzaskowski for the Civic Platform party.

Nawrocki visited President Donald Trump earlier this year.

“He needs to be the next president of Poland,” Noem said of Nawrocki. “Do you understand me?”

Noem then took aim at “weak” European leaders who have allowed in migrants and “destroyed their civilizations.”

“You have enforced your borders. You have protected who comes into your country, enforced your visa programs. You’ve done good work to make sure that this country has a different story,” she told the crowd.

“But you have much more to do, and you are threatened with a leader who is on the ballot who would take all of that protection away from you, who would open you up to much of the experiences that America had to live through under our last president, Joe Biden,” she added, offering pointed criticisms at Biden and her predecessor, Alejandro Mayorkas.

She argued America “lived through four years of hell” and that the public made a choice in electing Trump in November.

“Thousands and thousands of dangerous criminals came into our country, hundreds of known terrorists infiltrated our country and our communities,” she said. “And our families were murdered and raped and victimized, arrested, released again by his administration to continue the fear agenda that he was trying to promote and to allow political power to be in his hands but not in the people any longer.”

Noem praised Trump as making the United States “safer” for the public.

“Donald Trump is a strong leader for us, but you have an opportunity to have just as strong of a leader in Karol if you make him the leader of this country,” she said.

“You can be that shining city on a hill that the rest of Europe and the world will watch and know how strong you are, how free you are because you’ve elected the right leader that will protect it and defend it and ensure that every individual is treated the same and has equal rights as afforded to them,” she added.

Noem also said that if the Polish elect the right person, the country will continue to have the backing of the U.S.

“If you have elected a leader that will work with President Donald J. Trump, the Polish people will have an ally strong that will ensure that you will be able to fight off enemies that do not share your values,” she said. “You will have strong borders and protect your communities and keep them safe and ensure that your citizens are respected every single day. You will continue to have a U.S. presence here, a military presence, for Trump, that we can work together for the security of both of our nations.”

CPAC will go to Hungary later this week, but it is unclear if Noem or any other U.S. officials will speak at the conference.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(GAZA) — After 11 weeks of a total blockade of aid into Gaza, two United States-backed food distribution centers opened in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Tuesday, sparking chaos as thousands descended on the area in search of food.

Palestinians were seen flooding into sites in hopes of getting much-needed aid since Israel enforced a total humanitarian blockade on March 2.

The sheer volume of people, however, led to the centers in Rafah being overrun, gunfire erupting and staff being evacuated to safety.

Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that troops fired “warning shots” in the area of the distribution site as people flooded in, but said no aerial fire was launched toward the site.

“Control over the situation was established, food distribution operations are expected to continue as planned,” the IDF said.

Operated by the U.S.-led Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), two distribution sites located in Rafah’s Tal al-Sultan neighborhood and the Morag Corridor began distributing food to thousands of families on Tuesday.

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement that aid operations by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation “have succeeded,” but acknowledged, “it’s not surprising that there might be a few issues involved.”

Bruce said 8,000 food boxes have been distributed so far, totaling 462,000 meals delivered to Palestinians in need.

Bruce said the aid distribution was a triumph over Hamas, which she said restricted humanitarian aid flow at an earlier date by breaking the ceasefire with Israel.

“This process managed to overcome that dynamic, and the dynamic has changed,” the press secretary said.

The U.S.-led humanitarian plan, however, faced widespread criticism from established aid organizations that have been operating inside Gaza for the past 19 months, including criticism about whether the GHF has enough experience to mount a large-scale humanitarian operation.

On Tuesday, United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement that the scene in Rafah is “heartbreaking, to say the least.”

Dujarric said no fuel is currently available in southern Gaza and only one-third of the required supply was received last week.

Dujarric called for the “opening of all crossing points for humanitarian aid and commercial goods,” adding that the U.N. and its humanitarian partners “stand ready to deliver at scale.”

“International law must be respected and humanitarian operations must be enabled without any further delay,” Dujarric added.

The Israeli blockade of humanitarian aid entering Gaza has caused widespread malnutrition and conditions likely to lead to famine, according to the U.N. and other international aid organizations.

One in five people in Gaza, about 500,000 people, face starvation, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification platform said on May 12, according to the U.N.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the distribution sites were set up in a way to prevent looting by Hamas.

“The idea is basically to take away the humanitarian looting as a tool of war of Hamas to give it to the population,” he said.

Netanyahu said that by giving people boxes of food rather than bags of flour, it’s “very hard for Hamas to steal it, especially because we guard these positions.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The State Department is ramping up efforts to dissuade Americans from traveling to Venezuela after revealing on Tuesday that the country is unjustly imprisoning more Americans than any other country.

“There are more U.S. citizens being held in prisons in Venezuela than any other country,” said Adam Boehler, the Trump administration’s special presidential envoy for hostage recovery.

“And these are not people that did anything wrong,” he continued. “Their only issue is that they are American. Venezuela takes more Americans than any other country for that sole reason.”

While the State Department has not revealed exactly how many U.S. citizens are behind bars in Venezuela, at least eight Americans are known to be detained in the country.

The State Department has classified Venezuela under its most severe travel advisory, “Level 4: Do Not Travel,” since February 2019. But on Tuesday, the U.S. embassies in Colombia, Guyana, Brazil and Aruba and the State Department’s Venezuela Affairs Unit reissued the warning in an attempt to reach more Americans.

“There is no safe way for Americans to travel to Venezuela,” a State Department spokesperson said. “U.S. citizens, dual nationals, and lawful permanent residents should avoid travel to Venezuela at all costs. No trip is worth the price of freedom.”

Americans often travel to Venezuela with loved ones or partners’ families or to see them. However, these loved ones face similar risks as their American contacts.

“Family members and partners of U.S. nationals are often detained alongside the American traveler. Visiting Venezuela puts other people at risk,” the official added.

The State Department is also warning U.S. nationals that in some cases, even close proximity to the Venezuelan border has led to detention by the country’s government.

That’s what happened to Lucas Hunter, a 37-year-old dual American and French citizen who was captured by the Venezuelan government in January while on a windsurfing trip in Colombia.

Hunter’s family said he never intended to visit Venezuela but that he was coerced across the border by the country’s border guards.

Although Hunter remains in Venezuelan custody, the Trump administration has successfully negotiated the release of seven other Americans.

In January, the Trump administration’s Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions Richard Grenell made an usually high-profile trip to Venezuela, where he met with the country’s authoritarian president, Nicolas Maduro, face to face.

At the end of the visit, Grenell returned to the U.S. with six freed Americans.

Last week, Grenell announced in a post on X that another American detained in Venezuela, U.S. Air Force veteran Joseph St. Clair, had been released. The Trump administration has said it has offered no concessions to the Maduro regime in exchange for freeing U.S. nationals.

“That should continue. It needs to continue,” Boehler said of the releases during an interview with ABC News. “Every country in the world needs to know you can have no relationship with the United States if you are holding U.S. citizens.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — Hundreds of Ukrainian drones crossed into Russia overnight into Wednesday morning, dozens of which targeted Moscow and again caused disruption to flights in and out of the capital, according to officials there.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 296 Ukrainian drones over 12 regions — including the capital Moscow — during the latest round of long-range strikes.

Moscow Governor Andrei Vorobyov said on Telegram that at least 42 drones were downed over the region. Vorobyov reported damage to three homes in the town of Chekhov around 40 miles south of the capital.

Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport — one of four international airports in the capital — also warned travelers of delays due to flight restrictions imposed during the latest drone attack. Recent weeks have seen regular disruptions to Moscow’s airports during such strikes.

Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Counter-Disinformation Center operating as part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said on Telegram there were “some pretty good hits” during Tuesday night’s attack.

Among the targets were the Dubna Machine-Building Plant — involved in the production of aviation, missile and drone technology, Kovalenko said — in the city of Dubna, around 70 miles north of Moscow.

Kovalenko said the Technopark ELMA-Zelenograd facility — which hosts the development of microelectronics, IT, robotics and medical equipment — was also targeted. The facility “is one of the centers where import substitution of critical components previously imported from the West takes place,” Kovalenko said.

ABC News could not immediately verify Kovalenko’s claim of successful strikes on the facilities.

Russia continued its own long-range attacks on Ukraine overnight. Ukraine’s air force said Moscow launched six missiles and 88 strike drones into the country, of which 71 drones were shot down or otherwise neutralized. The air force said it recorded impacts in eight locations.

The intensity of strikes by both sides have only increased since President Donald Trump’s return to office in January, the president having promised to end Russia’s war on its neighbor war in 24 hours. Trump has not delivered on that promise, and his frustration appears to have been building in recent weeks with the continued failure of U.S.-led ceasefire efforts.

Trump called Putin “absolutely crazy” in a Sunday social media post, then on Tuesday said Putin “doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!”

The U.S. and Ukraine are now waiting for Russia to deliver its peace memorandum — a document promised by Putin to Trump during a phone call between the two leaders earlier this month. Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Tuesday that Moscow was still working on the document.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cast doubt on the Russian proposal. “They’ve already spent over a week on this,” he wrote on social media on Tuesday. “They talk a lot about diplomacy. But when, in the midst of all that, there are constant Russian strikes, constant killings, relentless assaults, and even preparations for new offensives.”

On Wednesday, Andriy Yermak — the head of Zelenskyy’s presidential office — wrote on Telegram, “Russians are masters of empty words.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LIVERPOOL, England) — The suspect accused of ramming a car into a crowd in Liverpool at a Premier League victory parade on Monday has been arrested for attempted murder, reckless driving and is believed to have been on drugs during the attack, officials said during a press conference on Tuesday.

Merseyside Police said on Tuesday that 65 people were injured from the attack, and 11 — all in stable condition — still remain in the hospital.

Officials said a robust traffic plan was in place for the parade, which included Water Street — where the attack occurred. But, the street was temporarily reopened for an ambulance to treat someone suffering a suspected heart attack, and the 53-year-old suspect followed the ambulance inside the crowd.

The attack is still not being treated as a terrorism and authorities are continuing their investigation. The suspect remains in custody and is being interviewed by officials.

Police said they will not speculate on the attack and encourage others to “refrain from sharing distressing content online.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — Ukrainian intelligence and open-source data show Russian President Vladimir Putin does not “plan to end the war,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily evening address Monday.

“There is currently no indication that they are seriously considering peace or diplomacy,” he added. “On the contrary, there is ample evidence that they are preparing new offensive operations.”

The address came after an overnight exchange of long-range cross-border drone attacks between Russia and Ukraine.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched a total of 364 “air attack vehicles” — nine cruise missiles and 355 attack drones — in the latest bombardment.

All missiles and 288 drones were shot down or neutralized in flight, Ukraine’s air force said. Impacts were reported in five regions and falling debris in 10 regions, it added.

Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces downed 128 Ukrainian drones over 12 regions from Sunday night into Monday morning.

Near-nightly cross-border strikes have become a prominent feature of Russia’s war on Ukraine, now more than three years old with little sign of an imminent ceasefire or peace deal. Recent months have seen the bombardments grow in size.

On Saturday night into Sunday, for example, Russia launched what Ukrainian officials described as its largest aerial attack of the war. The assault included 367 drones and missiles and killed at least 18 people, officials said.

The weekend attacks prompted Trump to rebuke both Putin and Zelenskyy on his social media platform on Monday.

“I’m not happy with what Putin is doing,” he wrote. “He’s killing a lot of people, and I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin. I’ve known him a long time. Always gotten along with him, but he’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all.”

“Likewise, President Zelenskyy is doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does,” he continued.

On Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia is “really grateful to the Americans and personally to President Trump for his assistance in organizing and launching this negotiation process. This is a very important achievement.”

However, Zelenskyy and his officials have cited Russia’s continued massed strikes as evidence that Moscow is not genuine in its public appeals for peace.

“Russia is counting on a prolonged war,” Zelenskyy remarked, when discussing the new intelligence that he said was analyzed in a meeting with his staff on Monday. “And on their part, this is a blatant disregard for all those around the world who seek peace and are trying to make diplomacy work.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.