attack

Jan. 9 (UPI) — A shark attacked and killed a Minnesota woman while she swam in waters along Dorsch Beach in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, on Thursday afternoon.

The Virgin Islands Police Department received an emergency call reporting the shark attack at 4:28 p.m. local time, and marine units and fire and emergency medical services personnel responded.

They found a woman who lost an arm in the attack and searched for a possible second victim, but found no one else.

The woman later was identified as Arlene Lillis, 56, of Minnesota, and she eventually died from her injuries.

“Our hearts are with the family and loved ones of the victim, and with everyone who witnessed this tragedy,” Virgin Islands Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. said in a statement.

“We have been briefed on the information known at this time,” Bryan said. “We are grateful to the bystanders who acted immediately to render aid and to the first responders who worked urgently and bravely in an effort to save her life.”

The type of shark was not identified, and the attack remains under investigation.

It is the second fatal shark attack that was confirmed in the United States and its territories in recent weeks.

Erica Fox, 55, died when a shark attacked her in California’s Monterey Bay in December.

She initially was reported missing, but her body eventually was found.

A coroner said Fox died from “sharp and blunt-force injuries and submersion in water due to a shark attack.”

A second example of Russia’s Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) has been fired against Ukraine. Moscow claimed the overnight strike was in retaliation for a supposed attempted Ukrainian drone attack on President Vladimir Putin’s residence late last month — an allegation Kyiv and Washington have said is false. Ukrainian authorities described Moscow’s justification for the latest Oreshnik strike, part of a massive overnight missile and drone barrage, as “absurd.”

The Oreshnik (Russian for hazel tree) missile first emerged in public after it was used in what was then an unprecedented attack on Ukraine in November of 2024. The Pentagon states that the Oreshnik is based on the RS-26, a mysterious strategic weapon system, the development of which was supposedly halted in 2018. There was also an unverified report of a failed Oreshnik launch directed at Ukraine in February 2025, but this was subsequently refuted by Ukrainian authorities.

Late last month, the Oreshnik was in the news again, after Belarus announced the deployment of the missile on its territory, which you can read more about here. On this latest occasion, however, it appears that the IRBM was launched from the Kapustin Yar test range in Russia.

Ukraine confirmed the overnight Oreshnik strike, saying it took place in the west of the country, close to the Polish border. Videos posted to social media confirm that the Oreshnik’s target was in the Lviv region; the footage included the telltale signs of glowing reentry vehicles plunging toward the ground.

Unverified social media reports suggested the target may have been a large underground gas storage facility, something that at least one Ukrainian official denied, saying the missile struck a residential area. However, the local governor of the Lviv region confirmed that Russian strikes had damaged a critical infrastructure facility there.

Ukraine’s foreign minister said the use of an Oreshnik missile so close to the EU and NATO border posed a “grave threat” to European security and called on partners to increase pressure on Moscow.

Initial reports suggest that the Oreshnik used in last night’s strike may have carried inert warheads, as was apparently the case with the example fired in November 2024. On that occasion, Ukrainian authorities said that the missile carried six warheads, each containing six more sub-payloads, but that these contained no explosives.

It’s possible the missile was used in an attempt to penetrate the underground storage facility and damage it without the use of a large explosive warhead, instead having the reentry vehicles burrow deep into the ground upon impact at very high-speed.

While the Oreshnik is nuclear-capable, the potential value of a conventionally armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which some countries may be looking at fielding if they haven’t already, is something that we discussed in detail in this previous story.

Dmitry Stefanovich, a research fellow at the Russian Center for International Security, IMEMO RAS, noted that the latest Oreshnik strike differed from the first in that it was combined with a large number of other ground- and sea-launched long-range weapons, and said that it was still unclear whether the United States was notified of the attack in advance, via the Nuclear Risk Reduction Center (NRRC), as was the case when it was first employed.

Other nuclear analysts suggest that the United States did receive prior notification. We have approached U.S. authorities for clarification on that point.

As for the claim that the IRBM strike was in retaliation for an attempted drone strike against Putin himself, Stefanovich was less convinced:

“In general, the question remains that if Russia is engaged in the demilitarization of Ukraine and has been conducting a special military operation for many years, why link massive strikes to ‘terrorist attacks’? Of course, it takes time to accumulate weapons and find targets, but such rhetoric does not look very solid.”

Putin has repeatedly invoked the Oreshnik in recent months as a threat against Ukraine and the West, especially since its range — estimated at up to 3,400 miles — is enough to reach every NATO capital city in Europe from within Russian territory.

Putin has made some extravagant claims about the Oreshnik in the past, pointing to its supposed invulnerability to interception.

The Russian leader has described the Oreshnik as “a ballistic missile equipped with non-nuclear hypersonic technology” capable of reaching a peak speed of Mach 10. “The kinetic impact is powerful, like a meteorite falling,” the Russian president has also said.

As we have discussed in the past, Russian claims of hypersonic performance for the Oreshnik are factual, but also a bit misleading in a modern context. There is no evidence of true hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, for example, but larger ballistic missiles, even ones with traditional designs, do reach hypersonic speeds, typically defined as anything above Mach 5, in the terminal stage of their flight.

As for the claimed attempted Ukrainian attack on Putin’s residence, while this is now being used to frame the latest use of the Oreshnik, Ukraine and U.S. national security officials have denied that attempted attack. Furthermore, a CIA assessment also found no evidence of it having happened.

More significant is likely the fact that the latest Oreshnik strike came just days after Ukraine’s European allies agreed on key elements of postwar security guarantees, which would come into play in the event of a ceasefire with Russia. The agreement included a declaration that some of these allies would be ready to deploy troops to Ukraine after a peace deal.

This very significant new commitment regarding troops has been under discussion for months. The Kremlin has repeatedly said it will categorically oppose any NATO soldiers being based on Ukrainian soil.

Overall, the use of a single Oreshnik against Ukraine overnight appears to be more of a symbolic sideshow, engineered to create alarm in the West (as well as in Ukraine), rather than deliver a specific effect on a high-priority target.

After all, the IRBM was just one part of a much larger barrage launched against targets across the country last night. This is said to have involved 242 drones, 13 other ballistic missiles, and 22 cruise missiles, based on Ukrainian Air Force figures.

Russian forces carried out particularly heavy strikes on Kyiv, hitting several districts of the Ukrainian capital.

According to Ukrainian authorities, at least four people were killed in the region, and another 19 were injured. Meanwhile, at least five rescue workers were injured while responding to the attacks, Ukraine’s security service said.

The Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said half of the capital’s apartment blocks were left without heating after the Russian strikes.

Qatar’s Embassy in Kyiv was damaged during an overnight Russian missile-drone strike.

Russian strikes left around half a million households without power amid emergency outages. pic.twitter.com/XAJfzn94uP

— Clash Report (@clashreport) January 9, 2026

Overall, the use of a single Oreshnik IRBM without warheads and the possibility that nothing of military value was hit, suggests that the missile was primarily used as an instrument of intimidation. It’s also unclear how many of these expensive IRBMs have actually been manufactured at this point, and whether Russia would even be able to fire multiple examples in any kind of sustained campaign. According to an assessment from the U.K. Ministry of Defense, Russia currently has only a handful of Oreshniks.

That said, the Kremlin clearly has reasons enough to lash out at Ukraine and its allies at this point, and has opted for this type of missile-based signaling. At this stage, it remains very much questionable whether it will have the desired coercive effect.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Who knew that by “America First,” President Trump meant all of the Americas?

In puzzling over that question at least, I’ve got company in Marjorie Taylor Greene, the now-former congresswoman from Georgia and onetime Trump devotee who remains stalwart in his America First movement. Greene tweeted on Saturday, just ahead of Trump’s triumphal news conference about the United States’ decapitation of Venezuela’s government by the military’s middle-of-the-night nabbing of Nicolás Maduro and his wife: “This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end. Boy were we wrong.”

Wrong indeed. Nearly a year into his second term, Trump has done nothing but exacerbate the domestic problems that Greene identified as America First priorities — bringing down the “increasing cost of living, housing, healthcare” within the 50 states — even as he’s pursued the “never ending military aggression” and foreign adventurism that America Firsters scorn, or at least used to. Another Trump con. Another lie.

Here’s a stunning stat, thanks to Military Times: In 2025, Trump ordered 626 missile strikes worldwide, 71 more than President Biden did in his entire four-year term. Targets, so far, have included Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Nigeria, Iran and the waters off Venezuela and Colombia. Lately he’s threatened to hit Iran again if it kills demonstrators who have been marching in Tehran’s streets to protest the country’s woeful economic conditions. (“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump posted Friday.)

The president doesn’t like “forever wars,” he’s said many times, but he sure loves quick booms and cinematic secret ops. Leave aside, for now, the attacks in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. It’s Trump’s new claim to “run” Venezuela that has signaled the beginning of his mind-boggling bid for U.S. hegemony over the Western Hemisphere. Any such ambition raises the potential for quick actions to become quagmires.

As Stephen Miller, perhaps Trump’s closest and most like-minded (read: unhinged) advisor, described the administration’s worldview on Monday to CNN’s Jake Tapper: “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

You know, that old, amoral iron law: “Might makes right.” Music to Vladimir Putin’s and Xi Jinping’s ears as they seek hegemonic expansion of their own, confident that the United States has given up the moral high ground from which to object.

But it was Trump, the branding maven, who gave the White House worldview its name — his own, of course: the Donroe Doctrine. And it was Trump who spelled out what that might mean in practice for the Americas, in a chest-thumping, war-mongering performance on Sunday returning to Washington aboard Air Force One. The wannabe U.S. king turns out to be a wannabe emperor of an entire hemisphere.

“We’re in charge,” Trump said of Venezuela to reporters. “We’re gonna run it. Fix it. We’ll have elections at the right time.” He added, “If they don’t behave, we’ll do a second strike.” He went on, suggestively, ominously: “Colombia is very sick too,” and “Cuba is ready to fall.” Looking northward, he coveted more: “We need Greenland from a national security situation.”

Separately, Trump recently has said that Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro “does have to watch his ass,” and that, given Trump’s unhappiness with the ungenuflecting Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, “Something’s going to have to be done with Mexico.” In their cases as well as Maduro’s, Trump’s ostensible complaints have been that each has been complacent or complicit with drug cartels.

And yet, just last month Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in a U.S. court and given a 45-year sentence for his central role in “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.” Hernández helped traffickers ship 400 tons of cocaine into the United States — to “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses.” And Trump pardoned him after less than two years in prison.

So it’s implausible that a few weeks later, the U.S. president truly believes in taking a hard line against leaders he suspects of abetting the drug trade. Maybe Trump’s real motivation is something other than drug-running?

In his appearance after the Maduro arrest, Trump used the word “oil” 21 times. On Tuesday, he announced, in a social media post, of course, that he was taking control of the proceeds from up to 50 barrels of Venezuelan oil. (Not that he cares, but that would violate the Constitution, which gives Congress power to appropriate money that comes into the U.S. Treasury.)

Or perhaps, in line with the Monroe Doctrine, our current president has a retro urge to dominate half the world.

Lately his focus has been on Venezuela and South America, but North America is also in his sights. Trump has long said he might target Mexico to hit cartels and that the United States’ other North American neighbor, Canada, should become the 51st state. But it’s a third part of North America — Greenland — that he’s most intent on.

The icy island has fewer than 60,000 people but mineral wealth that’s increasingly accessible given the climate warming that Trump calls a hoax. For him to lay claim isn’t just a problem for the Americas. It’s an existential threat to NATO given that Greenland is an autonomous part of NATO ally Denmark — as Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned.

Not in 80 years did anyone imagine that NATO — bound by its tenet that an attack on one member is an attack on all — would be attacked from within, least of all from the United States. In a remarkable statement on Tuesday, U.S. allies rallied around Denmark: “It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”

Trump’s insistence that controlling Greenland is essential to U.S. national security is nuts. The United States has had military bases there since World War II, and all of NATO sees Greenland as critical to defend against Russian and Chinese encroachment in the Arctic. Still, Trump hasn’t ruled out the use of force to take the island.

He imagines himself to be the emperor of the Americas — all of it. Americas First.

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WASHINGTON — Five years ago outside the White House, outgoing President Trump told a crowd of supporters to head to the Capitol — “and I’ll be there with you” — in protest as Congress was affirming the 2020 election victory for Democrat Joe Biden.

A short time later, the world watched as the seat of U.S. power descended into chaos, and democracy hung in the balance.

On the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6, 2021, there is no official event to memorialize what happened that day, when the mob made its way down Pennsylvania Avenue, battled police at the Capitol barricades and stormed inside, as lawmakers fled. The political parties refuse to agree to a shared history of the events, which were broadcast around the globe. And the official plaque honoring the police who defended the Capitol has never been hung.

Instead, the day displayed the divisions that still define Washington, and the country, and the White House itself issued a glossy new report with its revised history of what happened

Trump, during a lengthy morning speech to House Republicans convening away from the Capitol at the rebranded Kennedy Center now carrying his own name, shifted blame for Jan. 6 onto the rioters themselves.

The president said he had intended only for his supporters to go “peacefully and patriotically” to confront Congress as it certified Biden’s win. He blamed the media for focusing on other parts of his speech that day.

At the same time, Democrats held their own morning meeting at the Capitol, reconvening members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack for a panel discussion. Recalling the history of the day is important, they said, in order to prevent what Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., warned was the GOP’s “Orwellian project of forgetting.”

And the former leader of the militant Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, summoned people for a midday march and they began retracing the rioters’ steps from the White House to the Capitol, this time to honor Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt and others who died in the Jan. 6 siege and its aftermath. About 100 people gathered, including Babbitt’s mother.

Tarrio is among those putting pressure on the Trump administration to seek retribution against those who prosecuted the Jan. 6 rioters, and the White House in its new report highlighted the work the president has done to free those charged and turned the blame on Democrats for certifying Biden’s election victory.

“They should be fired and prosecuted,” Tarrio told the rally crowd Tuesday.

He was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy for orchestrating the Jan. 6 attack, and he is among more than 1,500 defendants who saw their charges dropped when Trump issued a sweeping pardon on his return to the White House last year.

Echoes of 5 years ago

This milestone anniversary carried echoes of the differences that erupted that day.

But it unfolds while attention is focused elsewhere, particularly after the U.S. military’s stunning capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and Trump’s plans to take over the country and prop up its vast oil industry, a striking new era of American expansionism.

“These people in the administration, they want to lecture the world about democracy when they’re undermining the rule of law at home, as we all will be powerfully reminded,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said on the eve of the anniversary.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, responding to requests for comment about the delay in hanging the plaque honoring the police at the Capitol, as required by law, said in a statement that the statute “is not implementable,” and proposed alternatives “also do not comply with the statute.”

Democrats revive an old committee, Republicans lead a new one

At the morning hearing at the Capitol, lawmakers heard from a number of witnesses and others — including former U.S. Capitol Police officer Winston Pingeon, who said he thought he was going to die that day and if it hadn’t been for Jan. 6, he would still be on the force, as well as a Pamela Hemphill, a rioter who refused Trump’s pardon, and silenced the room as she blamed the president for the violence and apologized to the officer, stifling tears.

“I can’t allow them not be recognized, to be lied about,” Hemphill said about law enforcement.

“Until I can see that plaque up there,” she won’t be done, Hemphill said.

Pingeon implored the country not to forget what happened, and said, “I believe the vast majority of Americans have so much more in common than what separates us.”

Among those testifying were former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who along with former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming were the two Republicans on the panel that investigated Trump’s efforts to overturn Biden’s win. Cheney, who lost her own reelection bid to a Trump-backed challenger, did not appear. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi urged the country to turn away from the culture of violent threats on lawmakers and the police.

Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, who has been tapped by Johnson to lead a new committee to probe other theories about what happened on Jan. 6, rejected Tuesday’s session as a “partisan exercise” designed to hurt Trump and his allies.

Many Republicans reject the narrative that Trump sparked the Jan. 6 attack, and Johnson, before he became the House speaker, had led challenges to the 2020 election. He was among some 130 GOP lawmakers voting that day to reject the presidential results from some states.

Instead, they have focused on security lapses at the Capitol — including the time it took for the National Guard to arrive and the failure of the police canine units to discover the pipe bombs found that day outside Republican and Democratic party headquarters. The FBI arrested a Virginia man suspected of placing the pipe bombs, and he told investigators last month he believed someone needed to speak up for those who believed the 2020 election was stolen, authorities say.

“The Capitol Complex is no more secure today than it was on January 6,” Loudermilk said in a social media post. “My Select Subcommittee remains committed to transparency and accountability and ensuring the security failures that occurred on January 6 and the partisan investigation that followed never happens again.”

The aftermath of Jan. 6

Five people died in the Capitol siege and its aftermath, including Babbitt, who was shot and killed by police while trying to climb through the window of a door near the House chamber, and Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died later after battling the mob. Several law enforcement personnel died later, some by suicide.

The Justice Department indicted Trump on four counts in a conspiracy to defraud voters with his claims of a rigged election in the run-up to the Jan. 6 attack.

Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers last month that the riot at the Capitol “does not happen” without Trump. He ended up abandoning the case once Trump was reelected president, adhering to department guidelines against prosecuting a sitting president.

Trump, who never made it to the Capitol that day as he hunkered down at the White House, was impeached by the House on the sole charge of having incited the insurrection. The Senate acquitted him after top GOP senators said they believed the matter was best left to the courts.

Ahead of the 2024 election, the Supreme Court ruled ex-presidents have broad immunity from prosecution.

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Will Weissert, Joey Cappelletti and Gary Fields contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Approaching the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the official plaque honoring the police who defended democracy that day is nowhere to be found.

It’s not on display at the Capitol, as is required by law. Its whereabouts aren’t publicly known, though it’s believed to be in storage.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has yet to formally unveil the plaque. And the Trump administration’s Department of Justice is seeking to dismiss a police officers’ lawsuit asking that it be displayed as intended. The Architect of the Capitol, which was responsible for obtaining and displaying the plaque, said in light of the federal litigation, it cannot comment.

Determined to preserve the nation’s history, some 100 members of Congress, mostly Democrats, have taken it upon themselves to memorialize the moment. For months, they’ve mounted poster board-style replicas of the Jan. 6 plaque outside their office doors, resulting in a Capitol complex awash with makeshift remembrances.

“On behalf of a grateful Congress, this plaque honors the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended this symbol of democracy on Jan. 6, 2021,” reads the faux bronze stand-in for the real thing. “Their heroism will never be forgotten.”

Jan. 6 void in the Capitol

In Washington, a capital city lined with monuments to the nation’s history, the plaque was intended to become a simple but permanent marker, situated near the Capitol’s west front, where some of the most violent fighting took place as rioters breached the building.

But in its absence, the missing plaque makes way for something else entirely — a culture of forgetting.

Visitors can pass through the Capitol without any formal reminder of what happened that day, when a mob of President Trump’s supporters stormed the building trying to overturn the Republican’s 2020 reelection defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. With memory left unchecked, it allows new narratives to swirl and revised histories to take hold.

Five years ago, the jarring scene watched the world over was declared an “insurrection” by the then-GOP leader of the Senate, while the House GOP leader at the time called it his “saddest day” in Congress. But those condemnations have faded.

Trump calls it a “day of love.” And Johnson, who was among those lawmakers challenging the 2020 election results, is now the House speaker.

“The question of January 6 remains – democracy was on the guillotine — how important is that event in the overall sweep of 21st century U.S. history,” said Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University and noted scholar.

“Will January 6 be seen as the seminal moment when democracy was in peril?” he asked. Or will it be remembered as “kind of a weird one-off?”

“There’s not as much consensus on that as one would have thought on the fifth anniversary,” he said.

Memories shift, but violent legacy lingers

At least five people died in the riot and its aftermath, including Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot by police while trying to climb through a window toward the House chamber. More than 140 law enforcement officers were wounded, some gravely, and several died later, some by suicide.

All told, some 1,500 people were charged in the Capitol attack, among the largest federal prosecutions in the nation’s history. When Trump returned to power in January 2025, he pardoned all of them within hours of taking office.

Unlike the twin light beams that commemorated the Sept. 11, 2001, attack or the stand-alone chairs at the Oklahoma City bombing site memorial, the failure to recognize Jan. 6 has left a gap not only in memory but in helping to stitch the country back together.

“That’s why you put up a plaque,” said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa. “You respect the memory and the service of the people involved.”

Police sue over Jan. 6 plaque, DOJ seeks to dismiss

The speaker’s office over the years has suggested it was working on installing the plaque, but it declined to respond to a request for further comment.

Lawmakers approved the plaque in March 2022 as part of a broader government funding package. The resolution said the U.S. “owes its deepest gratitude to those officers,” and it set out instructions for an honorific plaque listing the names of officers “who responded to the violence that occurred.” It gave a one-year deadline for installation at the Capitol.

This summer, two officers who fought the mob that day sued over the delay.

“By refusing to follow the law and honor officers as it is required to do, Congress encourages this rewriting of history,” said the claim by officers Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges. “It suggests that the officers are not worthy of being recognized, because Congress refuses to recognize them.”

The Justice Department is seeking to have the case dismissed. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and others argued Congress “already has publicly recognized the service of law enforcement personnel” by approving the plaque and displaying it wouldn’t alleviate the problems they claim to face from their work.

“It is implausible,” the Justice Department attorneys wrote, to suggest installation of the plaque “would stop the alleged death threats they claim to have been receiving.”

The department also said the plaque is required to include the names of “all law enforcement officers” involved in the response that day — some 3,600 people.

Makeshift memorials emerge

Lawmakers who’ve installed replicas of the plaque outside their offices said it’s important for the public to know what happened.

“There are new generations of people who are just growing up now who don’t understand how close we came to losing our democracy on Jan 6, 2021,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the Jan. 6 committee, which was opposed by GOP leadership but nevertheless issued a nearly 1,000-page report investigating the run-up to the attack and the attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

Raskin envisions the Capitol one day holding tours around what happened. “People need to study that as an essential part of American history,” he said.

“Think about the dates in American history that we know only by the dates: There’s the 4th of July. There’s December 7th. There’s 9/11. And there’s January 6th,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-calif., who also served on the committee and has a plaque outside her office.

“They really saved my life, and they saved the democracy and they deserve to be thanked for it,” she said.

But as time passes, there are no longer bipartisan memorial services for Jan. 6. On Tuesday, the Democrats will reconvene members from the Jan. 6 committee for a hearing to “examine ongoing threats to free and fair elections,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York announced. It’s unlikely Republicans will participate.

The Republicans under Johnson have tapped Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia to stand up their own special committee to uncover what the speaker calls the “full truth” of what happened. They’re planning a hearing this month.

“We should stop this silliness of trying to whitewash history — it’s not going to happen,” said Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., who helped lead the effort to display the replica plaques.

“I was here that day so I’ll never forget,” he said. “I think that Americans will not forget what happened.”

The number of makeshift plaques that fill the halls is a testimony to that remembrance, he said.

Instead of one plaque, he said, they’ve “now got 100.”

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press.

Russia’s Defence Ministry had published a video of a downed drone it said Ukraine had launched at Putin’s residence, which Kyiv rejected.

United States President Donald Trump has dismissed claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence had been attacked by Ukraine as the war grinds on, saying he did not “believe that strike happened”, after having initially accepted the Kremlin’s version of events at face value.

On Sunday night, Trump, on board Air Force One, told reporters that “nobody knew at that moment” whether a report about the alleged incident was accurate. He added that “something” happened near Putin’s residence, but after US officials reviewed the evidence, they did not believe Ukraine targeted it.

Ukraine immediately denied its involvement, accusing Russia of a false-flag type operation to undermine peace negotiations. Moscow promptly said the incident would harden its peace talks stance.

Reports of the attack emerged last week after Russia’s Ministry of Defence published a video of a downed drone it said Kyiv had launched at Putin’s residence in the Novgorod region.

According to the ministry, the residence was not damaged, and Putin was elsewhere at the time.

Alongside Ukraine, its Western allies also heavily disputed that the attack had occurred at all.

The claim of the attack came as Russia and Ukraine work towards agreeing to a ceasefire deal to end the nearly four-year-long war.

European leaders are expected to meet in France on Tuesday for further talks on a US-backed ceasefire plan, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said was “90 percent ready”. Territorial issues over ceding land conquered in war or not remain at the heart of the matter.

First civilian deaths in Kyiv in 2026

Ukraine’s authorities reported on Monday morning that an overnight Russian attack on the Kyiv region had killed two people, in the first casualties in the capital in 2026.

According to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, the Russian attack set a medical facility in the Obolonskyi district in Kyiv’s northern sector, where an inpatient ward was operating, on fire.

The service said once the fire was extinguished, a body was found inside. A woman was also injured, and 25 people were evacuated, the service added on Telegram.

Towns and villages across the Kyiv region were also damaged and critical infrastructure hit, leading to the killing of a man in his 70s in the Fastiv district, southwest of the capital, Governor Mykola Kalashnyk said on Telegram.

Kalashnyk added that small parts of the region were left without power.

Russia has not commented on the overnight strike yet.

Israel claims the drone attack on a car targeted a Hezbollah member.

An Israeli drone attack on a car has killed two people in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Ministry of Health has said.

Al Jazeera’s Ihab al-Aqdi, reporting from Lebanon, said the attack took place on Sunday in the Ayn al-Mizrab area north of the town of Bint Jbeil. He added that the targeted car was destroyed and that nearby buildings were damaged.

The Israeli military said the attack targeted a Hezbollah member, accusing the Lebanese group of not adhering to a ceasefire that began in November 2024.

Israel has repeatedly struck Lebanon since the ceasefire, despite the agreement, which ended a yearlong conflict that devastated Lebanon as well as Hezbollah’s leadership. Israel also continues to occupy five sites on the Lebanese side of the border.

Israeli attacks have killed more than 300 people in Lebanon since the ceasefire, including at least 127 civilians.

Israel, backed by the United States, expects Hezbollah to disarm. The Lebanese group has refused, however, leaving the Lebanese government and army in the difficult position of attempting to placate Israel and the US, while also avoiding a military confrontation with Hezbollah, which remains powerful despite the losses it has sustained at the hands of Israel.

The losses include the killing of its longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in September 2024, in an Israeli attack on Beirut.

The Lebanese government is expected to meet on Tuesday to discuss the army’s progress in disarming Hezbollah, beginning in southern Lebanon. It had previously set a deadline for the end of 2025 to do so, before continuing the disarmament process in the rest of the country. However, the plan has been dismissed by Hezbollah.

A ceasefire monitoring committee, including peacekeepers from Lebanon, Israel, France, the United States and the United Nations, is also set to meet in the upcoming week.

Highlighting Israel’s uncompromising position, the country’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said that the Lebanese government’s efforts to disarm Hezbollah were “far from sufficient”, and that the group was aiming to rearm “with Iranian support”.

Venezuelan officials say US air strikes killed at least 40 people, destroyed parts of the capital and violated their national sovereignty with the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro. Venezuelans are divided between fear of ongoing US intervention and celebrating his removal.

In a move that stunned the world, the United States bombed Venezuela and toppled President Nicolas Maduro amid condemnation and plaudits.

In a news conference on Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, President Donald Trump praised the operation to seize Maduro as one of the “most stunning, effective and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history”.

It was the riskiest and most high-profile military operation sanctioned by Washington since the US Navy’s SEAL team killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a safe house in Pakistan’s Abbottabad in 2011.

News of the 63-year-old Maduro being abducted took over the global news cycle.

After months of escalation and threats over Maduro’s alleged involvement in shipping drugs to the US, the Trump administration had increased pressure on Caracas with a military build-up in the Caribbean and a series of deadly missile attacks on alleged drug-running boats that had killed more than 100 people and whose legality has been heavily questioned by the United Nations and legal experts.

The US had also previously offered a $50m reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest.

But while the military was conducting operations in the Caribbean, US intelligence had been gathering information about Maduro, his eating habits, and special forces covertly rehearsed a plan to remove him from power forcibly.

Here’s everything we know about how Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were “captured”.

How was Maduro abducted?

The operation, named “Absolute Resolve”, was carefully rehearsed for months, according to General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who spoke at Trump’s news conference.

Trump also told Fox News that US forces had practised their extraction of Maduro on a replica building.

“They actually built a house which was identical to the one they went into with all the same, all that steel all over the place,” Trump said.

At 11:46pm local time on Friday (03:46 GMT on Saturday), Trump gave the green light.

On Friday night, Caine said, “the weather broke just enough, clearing a path that only the most skilled aviators in the world could move through”, with about 150 aircraft involved in the operation, taking off from 20 different airbases across the Western Hemisphere.

As part of the operation, US forces disabled Venezuela’s air defence systems, with Trump saying the “lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have”, without elaborating.

Several deafening explosions rang out across the capital, with Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, describing it as part of a “massive joint military and law enforcement raid” that lasted less than 30 minutes.

US helicopters then touched down at Maduro’s compound in the capital at 2:01am (06:01 GMT) on Saturday, with the president and his wife then taken into custody.

There has been no readout on whether there was an exchange of fire, in a chaotic scramble, or if they were taken without a struggle.

At 4:29am (08:29 GMT), just two and a half hours later, Maduro was put on board a US aircraft carrier, en route to New York. Trump later posted a photograph of the Venezuelan leader on his Truth Social social media platform, blindfolded, wearing a grey tracksuit.

After departing the USS Iwo Jima, US forces escorted Maduro on a flight, touching down in New York’s Stewart Air National Guard Base at about 4:30pm (21:30 GMT).

How many people were killed in the US strikes on Venezuela?

The US strikes hit Caracas as well as the states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira, according to the Venezuelan government.

To Linda Unamumo, a public worker, the US attacks caused an explosion that was so strong it destroyed the roof of her house.

“Even up until a little while ago, I was still crying … I was crying because I was so scared … I had to leave my house with my daughter, with my family, and go to another house, a neighbour’s house. It was really traumatic. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, really,” she told the AFP news agency.

While official casualty counts have yet to be released, an official told The New York Times newspaper on condition of anonymity that at least 40 people had been killed in the attacks.

According to Trump, a few US members were injured in the operation, but he believed no one was killed.

What’s next for Venezuela?

During his news conference on Saturday, Trump announced that the US would “run” the country until a new leader was chosen.

“We’re going to make sure that country is run properly. We’re not doing this in vain,” he said. “This is a very dangerous attack. This is an attack that could have gone very, very badly.”

The president did not rule out deploying US troops in the country and said he was “not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to”.

Trump also, somewhat surprisingly, ruled out working with opposition figure and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, who had dedicated her prize, which he so wanted to win himself, to the US president.

“She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country,” he said.

The Constitutional Chamber of Venezuela’s Supreme Court ordered Vice President Delcy Rodriguez to serve as acting president following the US’s abduction of Maduro.

The court ruled that Rodriguez will assume “the office of President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in order to guarantee administrative continuity and the comprehensive defence of the Nation”.

The court also said it would work to “determine the applicable legal framework to guarantee the continuity of the State, the administration of government, and the defense of sovereignty in the face of the forced absence of the President of the Republic”.

Trump had said earlier on Saturday that the US would not occupy Venezuela, provided Rodriguez “does what we want”.

Protesters have rallied worldwide after Donald Trump announced the US would ‘run’ Venezuela following the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Demonstrators from Paris to Sao Paulo are denouncing what they call US aggression and imperialism.

US President Donald Trump and his allies have defended the US attacks on Venezuela and the removal of President Nicolas Maduro from power amid widespread condemnation that the actions violate international law.

Trump told reporters on Saturday that Maduro was “captured” after US military strikes on the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, for carrying out a purported “campaign of deadly narco-terrorism against the United States”.

He said the US government would “run” the South American country during a political transition, promising the Venezuelan people that they would become “rich, independent and safe”.

But Claire Finkelstein, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, has rejected the Trump administration’s arguments in defence of the attacks and removal of Maduro, as well as its plans to exert control over Venezuela.

“I don’t think there’s any basis under international law for the action that occurred overnight by the US government,” Finkelstein told Al Jazeera, describing the attacks as an “illegal use of force [and] a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty”.

“Maduro has personal jurisdiction rights, so not only is it a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty, but it’s a violation of his personal, international rights,” she said.

Numerous statutes of international law – including the UN Charter – prohibit states from attacking another country without provocation.

“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations,” the UN Charter says.

The US actions came amid a months-long pressure campaign against Maduro, whom the Trump administration accused, without evidence, of being linked to drug traffickers.

Washington had carried out deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean, seized vessels carrying oil off the Venezuelan coast, sanctioned members of Maduro’s family, and threatened to launch attacks on the country’s soil.

“Nicolas Maduro wasn’t just an illegitimate dictator, he also ran a vast drug-trafficking operation,” US Congressman Tom Cotton, a top Trump ally, wrote on social media on Saturday, welcoming the moves against the Venezuelan leader.

Before he was seized, Maduro had said he was open to dialogue with the US on drug trafficking. He also had accused the Trump administration of seeking to depose him and seize control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

‘No imminent threat’

Democratic Party lawmakers in the US had been demanding answers from the Trump administration about its aims in Venezuela, accusing the Republican president of seeking to unlawfully carry out acts of war without congressional oversight.

Under the US Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war.

But that authority has been weakened over the last several decades, with the US carrying out military strikes around the world during its so-called “war on terror” based on loosely-interpreted congressional authorisations.

On Saturday, Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said that, despite the Trump administration’s claims, “there was no imminent threat to the United States” from Venezuela, “certainly not one that justified military action without congressional authorization”.

“These actions violate both US and international law and, by Trump’s own admission, this is not a limited operation,” Meeks said in a statement shared on social media.

This was echoed by the University of Pennsylvania’s Finkelstein, who said there was no “immediate threat” to the US that would justify the executive branch carrying out attacks without notifying Congress.

“It was an act of war against Venezuela, and we did not have the kind of self-defence justification that would normally justify bypassing Congress,” she told Al Jazeera.

“Even if you believe the US is at grave danger because of drug trafficking, there isn’t the kind of imminence there that would justify the president moving unilaterally and not turning to Congress and trying to get them on board.”

Finkelstein also rejected Trump’s plans for the US to “run” Venezuela as “incredibly illegal”.

“States have sovereignty rights, and you cannot just invade them and take them over,” she said.

“Even if Maduro were to fall of his own accord and we had not brought that about, we don’t have the right to go in and start running their government,” Finkelstein said.

“Democracy is premised on the idea that the people are sovereign and the people choose their own leaders, and that’s something we should be promoting in Latin and South America, not trying to undermine.”

WASHINGTON — An audacious overnight raid by elite U.S. forces that seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from his bedroom in Caracas plunged the country into turmoil on Saturday, prompting international concern about Venezuela’s future and President Trump’s decision to take control of a sovereign nation.

Trump justified the stunning attack by accusing Maduro of sending “monsters” into the United States from Venezuelan prisons and claiming his involvement in the drug trade. But Trump focused more on Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, accusing the Venezuelan government of stealing U.S. oil infrastructure in the country decades prior and vowing that, under new U.S. government control, output would increase going forward.

The president spoke little about democracy in Venezuela, dismissing a potential role for its longstanding democratic opposition in running the country in the immediate aftermath of the operation. Instead, Trump said his team was in touch with Maduro’s hand-picked vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, whom he called “very gracious” and said was “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to Make Venezuela Great Again.”

“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said. “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure and start making money for the country.”

“We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” he added.

President Trump, alongside Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaks to the media on Saturday following U.S. military actions in Venezuela.

(Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images)

The president did not offer a timeline for how long a transition would take, or which Venezuelan factions he would support to assume leadership.

Maria Corina Machado, a leader of the Venezuelan opposition and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, said Saturday that she and her team were prepared to assume control of Venezuela.

“The hour of freedom has arrived,” she wrote on social media. “We are prepared to assert our mandate and take power.”

But in a surprising statement, Trump told reporters on Saturday that he did not believe Machado had the “respect” needed to run the country.

Trump instead focused on how the United States intends to run Venezuela in the immediate aftermath, saying American oil companies are ready to descend on the oil-rich country and begin “taking out tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.”

“That wealth is going to the people of Venezuela and people from outside of Venezuela that used to be in Venezuela, and it goes to the United States of America, in the form of reimbursement for the damages caused to us by that country,” Trump said.

The operation began with explosions throughout Caracas, as more than 150 U.S. aircraft, including F-35 fighter jets, B-1 bombers and remotely piloted drones, cleared away Venezuelan air defenses to make way for the interdiction team, which included U.S. law enforcement officers. Electricity was cut throughout much of the city as the assault unfolded, Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.

A Delta Force unit penetrated Maduro’s heavily fortified compound at 2:01 a.m. local time, capturing him and his wife as they attempted to escape into a safe room, U.S. officials said. Only one helicopter in the U.S. fleet was hit by Venezuelan fire, but was able to continue flying through the mission. No U.S. personnel were killed, Caine said.

Trump, who had ordered the CIA to begin monitoring Maduro’s movements months ago, watched as the operation unfolded from a room at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, “literally like I was watching a television show,” the president said in an interview with Fox News on Saturday morning.

From there, Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were taken to the USS Iwo Jima, stationed in the Caribbean alongside a third of the U.S. naval fleet, before the ship set course for New York, where Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said Maduro will face “the full wrath of American justice” over his alleged ties to illicit drug trafficking.

“If you would’ve seen the speed, the violence,” Trump told Fox. “Amazing job.”

In Caracas on Saturday, the mood was tense. Long lines formed at supermarkets and pharmacies as shoppers, fearful of uncertainty, stocked up on essentials.

Maduro’s supporters gathered throughout the city, many bearing arms, but seemed unsure of what to do next. Across Latin America, reaction to the U.S. operation was mixed. Right-leaning allies of Trump including Argentina’s Javier Milei and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa backed the U.S. attack, while leftists broadly condemned it.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro criticized an “aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and Latin America” and said he was ordering the deployment of the Colombian armed forces along his nation’s 1,300-mile-long border with Venezuela.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said that the U.S. “crossed an unacceptable line” and compared the action to remove Maduro to “the darkest moments of [U.S.] interference in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Trump, meanwhile, boasted that the U.S. operation in Venezuela would help reassert U.S. dominance in Latin America.

“American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” he said. “We are reasserting American power in a very powerful way in our home region.”

CARACAS, Venezuela — The United States hit Venezuela with a “large-scale strike” early Saturday and said its president, Nicolás Maduro, had been captured and flown out of the country after months of stepped-up pressure by Washington — an extraordinary nighttime operation announced by President Trump on social media hours after the attack.

Multiple explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through Caracas, the capital, as Maduro’s government immediately accused the United States of attacking civilian and military installations. The Venezuelan government called it an “imperialist attack” and urged citizens to take to the streets.

It was not immediately clear who was running the country, and Maduro’s whereabouts were not immediately known. Trump announced the developments on Truth Social shortly after 4:30 a.m. ET. Under Venezuelan law the vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, would take power. There was no confirmation that had happened, though she did issue a statement after the strike.

“We do not know the whereabouts of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores,” Rodriguez said. “We demand proof of life.”

Maduro, Trump said, “has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow.” He set a news conference for later Saturday morning.

The legal implications of the strike under U.S. law were not immediately clear. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) posted on X that he had spoken with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who briefed him on the strike. Rubio told Lee that Maduro “has been arrested by U.S. personnel to stand trial on criminal charges in the United States.”

The White House did not immediately respond to queries on where Maduro and his wife were being flown to. Maduro was indicted in March 2020 on “narco-terrorism” conspiracy charges in the Southern District of New York.

Maduro last appeared on state television Friday while meeting with a delegation of Chinese officials in Caracas.

The explosions in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, early on the third day of 2026 — at least seven blasts — sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report hearing and seeing the explosions. It was not immediately clear if there were casualties on either side. The attack itself lasted less than 30 minutes and it was unclear if more actions lay ahead, though Trump said in his post that the strikes were carried out “successfully.”

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ban on U.S. commercial flights in Venezuelan airspace because of “ongoing military activity” ahead of the explosions.

The strike came after the Trump administration spent months escalating pressure on Maduro. The CIA was behind a drone strike last week at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels — the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. began strikes in September.

For months, Trump had threatened that he could soon order strikes on targets on Venezuelan land following months of attacks on boats accused of carrying drugs. Maduro has decried the U.S. military operations as a thinly veiled effort to oust him from power.

Some streets in Caracas fill up

Armed individuals and uniformed members of a civilian militia took to the streets of a Caracas neighborhood long considered a stronghold of the ruling party. But in other areas of the city, the streets remained empty hours after the attack. Parts of the city remained without power, but vehicles moved freely.

Video obtained from Caracas and an unidentified coastal city showed tracers and smoke clouding the landscape sky as repeated muted explosions illuminated the night sky. Other footage showed an urban landscape with cars passing on a highway as blasts illuminated the hills behind them. Unintelligible conversation could be heard in the background. The videos were verified by The Associated Press.

Smoke could be seen rising from the hangar of a military base in Caracas, while another military installation in the capital was without power.

“The whole ground shook. This is horrible. We heard explosions and planes,” said Carmen Hidalgo, a 21-year-old office worker, her voice trembling. She was walking briskly with two relatives, returning from a birthday party. “We felt like the air was hitting us.”

Venezuela’s government responded to the attack with a call to action. “People to the streets!” it said in a statement. “The Bolivarian Government calls on all social and political forces in the country to activate mobilization plans and repudiate this imperialist attack.”

The statement added that Maduro had “ordered all national defense plans to be implemented” and declared “a state of external disturbance.” That state of emergency gives him the power to suspend people’s rights and expand the role of the armed forces.

The website of the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela, a post that has been closed since 2019, issued a warning to American citizens in the country, saying it was “aware of reports of explosions in and around Caracas.”

“U.S. citizens in Venezuela should shelter in place,” the warning said.

Reaction emerges slowly

Inquiries to the Pentagon and U.S. Southern Command since Trump’s social media post went unanswered. The FAA warned all commercial and private U.S. pilots that the airspace over Venezuela and the small island nation of Curacao, just off the coast of the country to the north, was off limits “due to safety-of-flight risks associated with ongoing military activity.”

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted his potential concerns, reflecting a view from the right flank in the Congress. “I look forward to learning what, if anything, might constitutionally justify this action in the absence of a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force,” Lee said on X.

It was not clear if the U.S. Congress had been officially notified of the strikes.

The Armed Services committees in both houses of Congress, which have jurisdiction over military matters, have not been notified by the administration of any actions, according to a person familiar with the matter and granted anonymity to discuss it.

Lawmakers from both political parties in Congress have raised deep reservations and flat out objections to the U.S. attacks on boats suspected of drug smuggling on boats near the Venezuelan coast and the Congress has not specifically approved an authorization for the use of military force for such operations in the region.

Regional reaction was not immediately forthcoming in the early hours of Saturday. Cuba, however, a supporter of the Maduro government and a longtime adversary of the United States, called for the international community to respond to what president Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez called “the criminal attack.” “Our zone of peace is being brutally assaulted,” he said on X. Iran’s Foreign Ministry also condemned the strikes.

President Javier Milei of Argentina praised the claim by his close ally, Trump, that Maduro had been captured with a political slogan he often deploys to celebrate right-wing advances: “Long live freedom, dammit!”

The U.S. military has been attacking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean since early September. As of Friday, the number of known boat strikes is 35 and the number of people killed is at least 115, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.

They followed a major buildup of American forces in the waters off South America, including the arrival in November of the nation’s most advanced aircraft carrier, which added thousands more troops to what was already the largest military presence in the region in generations.

Trump has justified the boat strikes as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the U.S. and asserted that the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.

Cano and Toropin write for the Associated Press. Toropin and AP journalist Lisa Mascaro reported from Washington.

Federal authorities in the United States have accused an 18-year-old of plotting to carry out a “potential terrorist attack” on New Year’s Eve in the suburban town of Mint Hill, North Carolina, outside Charlotte.

On Friday, officials from the US Attorney’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified the suspect as Mint Hill resident Christian Sturdivant, a US citizen. The targets of Sturdivant’s alleged plans were a grocery store and a fast-food restaurant in Mint Hill.

“ Countless lives were saved here,” US Attorney Russ Ferguson said at a news conference.

“On New Year’s Eve, everyone is at the grocery store. We’re all buying the things we need to celebrate. And we could have had a significant, significant loss of life, a significant injury here.”

Ferguson explained that Sturdivant was arrested on New Year’s Eve, the day of his planned attack. The 18-year-old has been charged with “attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organisation”, and he made his first court appearance on Friday.

Sturdivant faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, according to Ferguson.

But during his news conference, Ferguson, an appointee of President Donald Trump, appeared to voice frustration with the court system for failing to approve an earlier effort to detain Sturdivant on mental health grounds.

“ I think it is notable that, as part of their efforts, the FBI took Mr Sturdivant to a state magistrate judge to try to have him involuntarily committed,” Ferguson said.

“And that was because he had threatened not only other people’s lives, but in the process said that he planned to die by a policeman shooting him. So he had threatened other people’s lives and self-harm, but the state magistrate judge denied involuntary commitment.”

Authorities later specified that the hearing with the magistrate judge took place on Monday, days before his arrest. Sturdivant, they said, turned 18 last month.

Authorities detail arrest

During Friday’s news conference, officials said this week’s arrest was part of a multiyear effort to investigate Sturdivant, whom they described as a “prolific social media user”.

The suspect had previously been an employee at a local Burger King in North Carolina.

James Barnacle, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s North Carolina field office, said the suspect first came to the bureau’s attention in 2022, after he tried to contact the armed group ISIL (ISIS) through social media.

The US considers ISIL a foreign terrorist organisation and has conducted numerous military operations in the Middle East — and one recently in Nigeria — on the premise of combating the group.

Barnacle alleged that Sturdivant received instructions to knock on doors and attack people with hammers, but his initial attempts were thwarted by his family. He was about 14 years old at the time.

“ No charges were filed at that time,” Barnacle said. “He underwent psychological care, of which I don’t know the details.”

Then, in December, Barnacle said the FBI discovered that Sturdivant had returned to social media and posted threatening messages.

He had also allegedly made contact with two undercover officers: one from the New York Police Department and the second a covert agent with the FBI.

“Within just a few days, Sturdivant direct-messaged the online covert employee with a picture of two hammers and a knife,” Barnacle said. “The message was significant since in recent years an ISIS propaganda magazine promoted the use of knives to conduct terrorist attacks in Western countries.”

Barnacle added that later messages contained a loyalty oath to ISIL and a request for help obtaining firearms.

“The JTTF [Joint Terrorism Task Force] collected evidence showing he turned his back on his country and his fellow citizens by pledging allegiance to ISIS with the intent of becoming a martyr,” Barnacle said of the 18-year-old.

“We allege Sturdivant was willing to sacrifice himself by committing a terrorist attack, using knives and a hammer to support the murder, torture and extreme violence that ISIS represents.”

An FBI search of his home reportedly recovered hammers and knives hidden under Sturdivant’s bed, as well as notes allegedly detailing his attack plans.

“I could tell you the FBI had 24/7 surveillance on this subject, all hours of night, Christmas Day, Christmas Eve,” Barnacle said. He described the suspect’s targets as “Jews, Christians and LGBTQ individuals”.

FBI Director Kash Patel quickly promoted Sturdivant’s arrest on social media, praising his bureau and its partners for “undoubtedly saving lives”.

The arrest comes one year after a pickup truck driver intentionally rammed his vehicle down Bourbon Street, New Orleans’s famed entertainment district, in a deadly New Year’s Day attack.

Fourteen people were killed, and authorities recovered an ISIL flag in the truck.

But critics have questioned the use of undercover agents to make “terrorism-related” arrests with some defence lawyers arguing that agents have encouraged suspects to make incriminating statements or take actions they otherwise would not have.

Lawyers for the 18-year-old have yet to publicly comment.

Venezuela leader strikes conciliatory tone while renewing claim US wants to topple government to access vast oil reserves.

Venezuela is open to negotiating a deal with the United States to combat drug trafficking, President Nicolas Maduro has said, even as he remained silent on a reported CIA-led strike on his country last week.

The latest statement, made during an interview that aired on Thursday, comes as Maduro has struck a more conciliatory tone towards the US amid Washington’s months-long sanctions and military pressure campaign.

That included, on Thursday, the release of more than 80 prisoners accused of protesting his disputed victory in the 2024 election, the second such release in recent days.

“Wherever they want and whenever they want,” Maduro told Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet of the idea of dialogue with the US on drug trafficking, oil and migration in an interview on state TV.

He stressed that it is time for both nations to “start talking seriously, with data in hand”.

“The US government knows, because we’ve told many of their spokespeople, that if they want to seriously discuss an agreement to combat drug trafficking, we’re ready,” he said.

Still, Maduro renewed his allegations that the US is trying to topple his government and gain access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves through Washington’s months-long sanctions and military pressure campaign.

“If they want oil, Venezuela is ready for US investment, like with Chevron,” he added, referring to the US oil giant, which is the only major oil company exporting Venezuelan crude to the US.

Asked point-blank by Ramonet if he confirmed or denied a US attack on Venezuelan soil, Maduro said: “This could be something we talk about in a few days.”

To date, Maduro has not confirmed a US land attack on a docking facility that allegedly targeted drug boats.

For months, the US has launched numerous strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats originating from Venezuela, in what rights groups have decried as extrajudicial killings. The Trump administration has also imposed a blockade on sanctioned oil tankers entering and exiting Venezuela’s coast.

Tensions further escalated after Trump revealed earlier this week a strike on a docking area for alleged Venezuelan drug boats, in the first known attack on Venezuelan territory of the US campaign.

Trump has not confirmed widespread reports in US media that the attack was a CIA operation or where it occurred, saying only it was “along the shore”.

“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” he told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

“So we hit all the boats and now we hit the area, it’s the implementation area, that’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.”

The US president has repeatedly threatened ground strikes on drug cartels in the region, which he has labelled “narcoterrorists”. He has claimed, without providing evidence, that Maduro leads a trafficking organisation that aims to destabilise the US by flooding it with drugs.

However, regional experts have noted that Venezuela is not known to be involved in the illicit fentanyl trade, which far and away accounts for the highest number of overdose deaths in the US. Trump has labelled the drug a “weapon of mass destruction”.

Maduro has said the Trump administration’s approach makes it “clear” that the US “seek to impose themselves” on Venezuela through “threats, intimidation and force”.

Maduro’s interview was taped on New Year’s Eve, the same day the US military struck five alleged drug-smuggling boats, killing at least five people.

The latest attacks bring the total number of known boat strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific to 35 and the number of people killed to at least 115, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.

Venezuelans and Colombians have been among the victims.

Local officials say the death toll could rise as seven people are missing following the attack on New Year’s Eve.

At least three people have been killed and seven remain missing following an attack on an informal mine in northern Peru, according to local officials.

In a video shared by the Peruvian news outlet Canal N on Thursday, Pataz Mayor Aldo Marino said the attack took place about an hour before midnight on New Year’s Eve.

“According to information I received from the police, three people were killed at a mine entrance, and seven are missing,” Marino said, noting that the final death toll could be as high as 15 as more bodies are recovered.

Details of the incident are still emerging, but informal mining operations are a frequent source of conflict in South America, as criminal groups jockey for control.

The latest incident took place near the town of Vijus, in the department of La Libertad in northwestern Peru.

Police reported that 13 miners had been killed in the same region last May. That incident prompted a stern response from local authorities, including the 30-day suspension of mining activities and a night-time curfew.

The region is known for its gold mines, including one of the largest in the world, Lagunas Norte.

But informal mines have also cropped up, as rural residents and criminal gangs try to carve a fortune from the mountains of Pataz, the province where the recent bloodshed unfolded.

In the wake of Wednesday’s incident, police have arrested two people, and an investigation is under way.

The news agency Reuters cited local prosecutors as saying that 11 shell casings had been recovered at the scene of the attack.

A mining company, Poderosa, also told the media that its security personnel had heard the gunfire and, after approaching the crime scene, discovered that three people were dead.

Many informal miners operate using temporary permits issued by the government, known as REINFO permits.

Reuters reported that the government suspended the permits of about 50,000 small-scale miners in July as part of a formalisation process, allowing about 30,000 to continue operations.

Peru exported $15.5bn worth of gold in 2024, compared with $11bn the year before. The country’s financial watchdog has estimated that about 40 percent of the country’s gold comes from illicit enterprises.

Russia has accused Ukraine of killing at least 24 people, including a child, in a drone attack on a hotel and cafe where New Year celebrations were taking place in a Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region.

Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed governor of the region, first made the claim in a statement on Telegram before Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and senior politicians later accused ⁠Ukraine of carrying out “a terrorist attack”.

Saldo also published photos of what he wrote was the aftermath of the attack, which Al Jazeera has not been able to verify.

At least one person’s body was visible in the images beneath a white sheet.

The building showed signs that a fierce fire had raged, and there were what appeared to be bloodstains on the ground.

In the statement, ​Saldo said three Ukrainian drones had struck the site of New Year ‌celebrations in Khorly, a coastal village, in what he said was a “deliberate strike” against civilians. He said many people were burned alive.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said initial information indicated that 24 people had been killed, and that 50 people had been injured.

“There is ‌no doubt that the attack was planned in advance, with ⁠drones deliberately targeting areas where civilians had gathered to celebrate New Year’s Eve,” the ministry said in a statement, calling the attack “a war crime”.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Telegram that ‌Ukraine’s backers in the West were ultimately to blame.

Senior politicians, including the speakers of both houses of Russia’s parliament, condemned Kyiv.

Kherson is one of the four regions in Ukraine ‍that Russia claimed as its own in 2022, a move Kyiv and most Western countries denounced as an illegal land grab.

Ukraine’s ‍military ‍did not comment on Moscow’s claim, but it said it had hit Russia’s Ilsky ⁠oil refinery in ​the Krasnodar region overnight, ‍adding that the results of the attack ‍were still ⁠being confirmed.

In a statement on Telegram, the military also said it hit the ​Almetyevsk ‌oil facility in Russia’s Tatarstan region.

The Almetyevsk facility is ‌more than 965km (600 ‌miles) from ⁠the nearest part of Ukraine, and even further ‌from the nearest territory currently controlled by ‍Kyiv.

Russia releases video of ‘attack’ on Putin’s residence

On Tuesday, Moscow claimed that Ukraine launched a long-range drone attack against one of President Vladimir Putin’s official residences in northwestern Russia, which Kyiv has denounced as a “lie”.

Russia’s Defence Ministry released a video on Wednesday of a downed drone it said was involved in the attack.

The night-time clip showed a man in camouflage, a helmet and a Kevlar vest standing near a damaged drone lying in snow.

The man, with his face covered, talks about the drone. Neither the man nor the Defence Ministry provided any location or date.

The video and claims could not be independently verified.

Peace talks

Kyiv has called the allegations of an attack on Putin’s residence a ruse to derail ongoing peace negotiations, which have ramped up in recent weeks on both sides of the Atlantic.

In his New Year’s address, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a peace deal was “90 percent ready” but warned that the remaining 10 percent, believed to include key sticking points such as territory, would “determine the fate of peace, the fate of Ukraine and Europe, how people will live”.

Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Wednesday that he, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner had had a “productive call” with the national security advisers of the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Ukraine to discuss the “European peace process”.

“We focused on how to move the discussions forward in a practical way on behalf of [Trump’s] peace process, including strengthening security guarantees and developing effective deconfliction mechanisms to help end the war and ensure it does not restart,” Witkoff said in a post on X.

Lead Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov also reaffirmed that European and Ukrainian officials plan to meet on Saturday, while Zelenskyy is due to hold talks next week with European leaders.

Russia’s attacks on Ukraine

Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia attacked the Odesa region overnight, targeting civilian infrastructure in several waves of drone attacks, according to regional head Oleh Kiper.

In a post on Telegram, Kiper said a two-storey residential building was damaged and that a drone hit an apartment on the 17th floor of a high-rise building without detonating. No casualties were reported.

In its daily report, the air force said air defence forces had downed or suppressed 176 of 205 drones targeting Ukraine overnight.

It said 24 drone hits were recorded at 15 locations, and the attack was ongoing.

NEW ORLEANS, La. — A National Guard deployment in New Orleans authorized by President Trump will begin Tuesday as part of a heavy security presence for New Year’s celebrations a year after an attack on revelers on Bourbon Street killed 14 people, officials said Monday.

The deployment in New Orleans follows high-profile National Guard missions the Trump administration launched in other cities this year, including in Washington and Memphis, Tennessee. But the sight of National Guard troops is not unusual in New Orleans, where troops earlier this year also helped bolster security for the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras.

“It’s no different than what we’ve seen in the past,” New Orleans police spokesperson Reese Harper said.

The Guard is not the only federal law enforcement agency in the city. Since the start of the month, federal agents have been carrying out an immigration crackdown that has led to the arrest of at least several hundred people.

Harper stressed that the National Guard will not be engaging in immigration enforcement.

“This is for visibility and just really to keep our citizens safe,” Harper said. “It’s just another tool in the toolbox and another layer of security.”

The Guard is expected be confined to the French Quarter area popular with tourists and won’t be engaging in assisting in immigration enforcement, Harper said. Guardsmen will operate similar to earlier this year when they patrolled the area around Bourbon Street following the vehicle-ramming attack on Jan. 1.

The 350 Guard members will stay through Carnival season, when residents and tourists descend on the Big Easy to partake in costumed celebrations and massive parades before ending with Mardi Gras in mid-February.

Louisiana National Guard spokesperson Lt. Col. Noel Collins said in a written statement that the Guard will support local, state, and federal law enforcement “to enhance capabilities, stabilize the environment, assist in reducing crime, and restoring public trust.”

In total, more than 800 local, state and federal law enforcement officials will be deployed in New Orleans to close off Bourbon Street to vehicular traffic, patrol the area, conduct bag searches and redirect traffic, city officials said during a news conference Monday.

The extra aid for New Orleans has received the support of some Democrats, with Mayor LaToya Cantrell saying she is “welcoming of those added resources.”

The increased law enforcement presence comes a year after Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove around a police blockade in the early hours of Jan. 1 and raced down Bourbon Street, plowing into people celebrating New Year’s Day. The attacker, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran who had proclaimed his support for the Islamic State militant group on social media, was fatally shot by police after crashing. After an expansive search, law enforcement located multiple bombs in coolers placed around the French Quarter. None of the explosive devices detonated.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, 100 National Guard members were sent to the city.

In September, Gov. Jeff Landry asked Trump to send 1,000 troops to Louisiana cities, citing concerns about crime. Democrats pushed back, specifically leaders in New Orleans who said a deployment was unwarranted. They argued that the city has actually seen a dramatic decrease in violent crime rates in recent years.

Cline and Brook write for the Associated Press. Cline reported from Baton Rouge.

Russia has threatened to retaliate against Ukraine after alleging that nearly 100 drones had targeted one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residences.

The threat on Monday was made as United States President Donald Trump tries to broker a peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine, which will enter its fifth year in February.

What has Russia claimed?

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov alleged that Ukraine had launched the attack on the Valdai residence, one of Putin’s residences in the Novgorod region in northwestern Russia. The property is 360km (225 miles) north of Moscow.

Lavrov told reporters that Ukraine had launched 91 drones towards the residence. He added that air defence systems shot down the drones and no one was injured.

The Russian Ministry of Defence said 49 of the drones were shot down over the Bryansk region, one was shot down over the Smolensk region and 41 were shot down over the Novgorod region while en route.

“Such reckless actions will not go unanswered,” Lavrov said. “The targets for retaliatory strikes and the timing of their implementation by the Russian armed forces have been determined.”

Russian officials accused Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of carrying out the strike to derail the prospects of a peace agreement.

In an apparent reference to Zelenskyy, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev wrote on X: “The stinking Kiev b**tard is trying to derail the settlement of the conflict. He wants war. Well, now at least he’ll have to stay in hiding for the rest of his worthless life.”

Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said the strike took place on Sunday “practically immediately after” talks were held in Florida between Trump and Zelenskyy on ending Russia’s war on Ukraine.

After that meeting, Trump and Zelenskyy had voiced optimism, saying a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine was “close”.

Putin has not publicly commented on the attack yet. It is unclear where Putin was at the time of the attack, but he was holding meetings in the Kremlin on Saturday and Monday.

How has Ukraine responded?

Zelenskyy has strongly denied Russia’s allegation that Ukraine attacked one of Putin’s residences.

“Russia is at it again, using dangerous statements to undermine all achievements of our shared diplomatic efforts with President Trump’s team,” Zelenskyy wrote in an X post on Monday.

“This alleged ‘residence strike’ story is a complete fabrication intended to justify additional attacks against Ukraine, including Kyiv, as well as Russia’s own refusal to take necessary steps to end the war.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha also condemned Moscow’s claims, saying they were designed to undermine the negotiations.

In a post on X, Sybiha said the claim was intended “to create a pretext and false justification for Russia’s further attacks against Ukraine, as well as to undermine and impede the peace process”.

In another post on Tuesday, Sybiha wrote: “Almost a day passed and Russia still hasn’t provided any plausible evidence to its accusations of Ukraine’s alleged ‘attack on Putin’s residence.’ And they won’t. Because there’s none. No such attack happened.”

How has Trump reacted?

Trump appeared to accept the Russian version of events on Monday when he told reporters: “It’s one thing to be offensive. It’s another thing to attack his house. It’s not the right time to do any of that. And I learned about it from President Putin today. I was very angry about it.”

But when reporters asked Trump if US intelligence agencies had evidence of the alleged attack, Trump said: “We’ll find out.”

Congressman Don Bacon, a member of Trump’s Republican Party, criticised the president for accepting the Russian account of events without assessing the facts.

“President Trump and his team should get the facts first before assuming blame. Putin is a well known boldface liar,” Bacon wrote in an X post.

How have other world leaders reacted?

Like Trump, other leaders appeared to accept the Russian allegations.

In a statement released on Monday, the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote: “The United Arab Emirates has strongly condemned the attempt to target the residence of His Excellency Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, and denounced this deplorable attack and the threat it poses to security and stability.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote in an X post on Tuesday: “Deeply concerned by reports of the targeting of the residence of the President of the Russian Federation.”

Modi added that the ongoing diplomatic engagement being led by the US is the “most viable path” towards achieving peace. “We urge all concerned to remain focused on these efforts and to avoid any actions that could undermine them.”

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also condemned the alleged attack.

“Pakistan condemns the reported targeting of the residence of His Excellency Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation. Such a heinous act constitutes a grave threat to peace, security, and stability, particularly at a time when efforts aimed at peace are underway,” Sharif wrote on X.

“Pakistan expresses its solidarity with the President of the Russian Federation, and with the government and people of Russia.”

Have Putin’s residences previously been attacked?

Russia has made previous claims of Ukrainian attacks on Putin’s residences, including on the Kremlin, Putin’s official residence and main workplace.

In May 2023, Moscow alleged that Ukraine had deployed two drones to attack Putin’s residence in the Kremlin citadel but said its forces had disabled the drones. Kyiv denied any involvement.

On December 25, 2024, Russia alleged that it had intercepted and destroyed a Ukrainian drone also targeting the Kremlin. Kyiv again denied responsibility.

Conversely, Ukraine has alleged that Russia has attacked Kyiv and other government buildings in Ukraine.

In September, the Ukrainian military said a Russian drone attack damaged a government building in Kyiv that is home to Ukraine’s cabinet. Plumes of smoke were seen emerging from the building. Russia said it had targeted Ukrainian military infrastructure only.

What has Russia now threatened to do?

While Russia has not outright threatened to end the peace talks, Moscow said it would realign its position in the talks.

“The diplomatic consequence will be to toughen the negotiating position of the Russian Federation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova warned that Moscow’s response “would not be diplomatic”. Indeed, it has warned that it plans to hit back militarily but has given no details of how or when it might do this.

Will this derail the US-led peace talks?

Speaking to reporters after his “terrific” meeting with Zelenskyy on Sunday at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump told reporters that Moscow and Kyiv were “closer than ever” to a peace deal.

But Trump has made this claim several times before. In April, Trump said Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal” after Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin in Moscow.

On December 15, Trump also said Russia and Ukraine were “closer than ever” to a deal after talks in Berlin involving Zelenskyy and the leaders of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and NATO.

However, observers and analysts said the issue of territorial concessions remains a major sticking point. Trump’s 28-point peace plan for Ukraine, which he unveiled in November, involved Ukraine ceding large amounts of land that Russia has occupied during nearly four years of war. Zelenskyy has stated on numerous occasions that this is a line Ukraine will not cross.

Most analysts are sceptical that any progress has been made on this point and said the latest accusations against Ukraine will probably have little effect. “I don’t think there is anything to derail at this point,” said Marina Miron, an analyst at King’s College London.

The peace process “is not going well due to disagreements on key issues between Ukraine and Russia”, she told Al Jazeera.

“Trump has repeatedly claimed that a peace deal is close without sustainable agreement,” Keir Giles, a Russian military expert at the London think tank Chatham House, told Al Jazeera this month.

Russia has occupied nearly 20 percent of eastern Ukraine and has been slowly gaining territory as Ukraine’s military has been weakened by desertions, casualties and dwindling military aid. Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

“It’s probably impossible that Ukrainians will voluntarily withdraw from these territories unless we will also see a withdrawal of Russian forces on the other side,” Nathalie Tocci, director at the Rome-based think tank Istituto Affari Internazionali (Institute of International Affairs), told Al Jazeera.

Giles said there are still parallel negotiation tracks, however – one involving the US and Ukraine and another between Ukraine and European nations. He added, however, that there is no clear evidence that these efforts are fully coordinated or aligned in terms of strategy.

Dec. 30 (UPI) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of lying over a large-scale drone attack on President Vladimir Putin’s state residence 300 miles northwest of Moscow, which it claims was carried out by Kyiv.

Monday’s alleged attack shortly after high-level U.S.-Ukraine talks at Mar-a-Lago ended was an excuse to attack Ukraine, most likely Kyiv and government buildings there, and keep the war going, Zelensky told reporters.

Zelensky said it was no accident that Moscow announced the attack after he and U.S. President Donald Trump said they had made good progress toward finalizing a peace agreement framework, as well as lengthy security guarantees, in talks Sunday at Trump’s resort in Palm Beach.

“It’s obvious that yesterday we had a meeting with President Trump, and it’s clear that when there is no scandal for the Russians, when there is progress, it is a failure for them. They do not want to end this war and are only capable of doing so under pressure. So they are looking for a pretext,” said Zelensky.

“Russia is at it again, using dangerous statements to undermine all achievements of our shared diplomatic efforts with President Trump’s team. We keep working together to bring peace closer. This alleged ‘residence strike’ story is a complete fabrication intended to justify additional attacks against Ukraine, including Kyiv, as well as Russia’s own refusal to take necessary steps to end the war. Typical Russian lies,” Zelensky wrote on X.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday that Moscow had already decided on when and which targets it would hit in retaliation for Kyiv’s targeting of Putin’s residence in the Novgorod region with 91 drones, which he described as a terrorist attack.

All the drones were downed by air defenses or electronic means and neither Putin or anyone else was hurt in the incident, according to Lavrov.

However, he warned Russia would revise its stance on the peace negotiations accordingly, “taking into account the Kyiv regime’s final transition to a policy of state terrorism,” but said Moscow would not be sharing details of its new tougher policy.

Speaking at a briefing on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov ruled out Moscow pulling the plug on the peace talks.

“Russia is not withdrawing from the negotiation process, and will certainly continue talks and dialogue, primarily with the Americans,” he said.

Speaking to journalists at Mar-a-Lago on Monday night, Trump said he was very angry about the attack, which he said he learned about directly from Putin, saying it was not the right time for offense when peace negotiations were in such a “delicate phase.”

“I don’t like it. It’s not good. I learned about it from President Putin today. I was very angry about it. It’s a delicate period of time. This is not the right time. It’s one thing to be offensive, because they’re offensive. It’s another thing to attack his house. It’s not the right time to do any of that.”

However, he acknowledged the attack may never have taken place and vowed that U.S. intelligence would get to the bottom of it.

According to the Kremlin, the attack in the early hours of Monday local time came “almost immediately” after the American and Ukrainian teams’ talks ended on Sunday evening.

Zelensky and Trump emerged from the talks to say they were at least 95% agreed on extendable 15-year security guarantees for Ukraine, but that the issues of territory and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant remained sticking points.

Alabama understands that stopping Indiana’s powerful offense in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day starts with containing Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza.

“[Mendoza] is operating at a really high level,” Alabama defensive coordinator Kane Wommack said. “When you watch the tape and the challenge, really the cry for our guys [is] to have to operate at a really consistent level, and you’re going to have to take away those windows that he’s wanting to get the ball through.”

During top-seeded Indiana’s undefeated season, Mendoza threw for 2,980 yards and 33 touchdowns for a team that ranked eighth in total offense (472.8 yards per game). Despite his impressive numbers, ninth-seeded Alabama isn’t showing signs of being intimidated by Mendoza heading into the College Football Playoff quarterfinal showdown.

“He’s a man, just like me,” Alabama defensive lineman Tim Keenan III said. “He put himself in a position to achieve the accolades, so we need to make sure we do what we need to, to play our game.”

Added Alabama safety Keon Sabb: “Congrats to him for winning [the Heisman], but we’ll play our game.”

Alabama is planning to put pressure on Mendoza in an effort to force potential turnovers and limit Indiana’s attack, cornerback Zabien Brown said.

“I want to stop quarterbacks whether they’ve won the Heisman Trophy or not,” Wommack added.

Ukraine is expanding its uncrewed surface vessel (USV) attacks to hit Russian targets on the Dnipro River and its tributaries. Kyiv’s USV campaign has previously hit enemy shipping, warships, and infrastructure in attacks made famous by the country’s State Security Service (SBU) and Defense Intelligence Directorate (GUR).

Meanwhile, as Russia begins to build out its own USV effort, Ukraine also said it struck a storage site for those vessels on Tuesday night in a preemptive effort to keep them from being deployed.

The 40th Coastal Defense Brigade of the 30th Marine Corps recently released a video showing the Barracuda USV it developed carrying out a mission in the Dnipro region. The video purports to show the Barracuda making its way through an inlet before hitting a small camouflaged Russian boat and outpost. The video then cuts to aerial drone views showing an explosion and resulting destruction.

“The unmanned boat ‘Barracuda’ carried out another successful mission,” the Corps stated on Telegram.

The Barracuda USV is operated by a special unit of the same name, according to the 30th Marine Corps.

“The eponymous special unit, subordinated to the 40th Marine Brigade, independently designed and launched a water drone, which is already defending the coasts of Ukraine,” the Corps explained. 

Unveiled earlier this year, the Barracuda was designed to carry out several missions, including one-way attack, strikes with grenades and first-person view (FPV) drones and resupply, according to the Corps.

This modular design is similar to the Sea Baby USVs produced by the SBU and the Magura line of USVs operated by GUR that have frequently staged attacks in the Black Sea. In addition to serving as one-way attack weapons, the USVs previously deployed by Ukraine have brought down jets and helicopters and launched attacks using aerial drones. This onslaught has already kept Russia’s Black Sea Fleet (BSF) at bay, forcing it to retreat from Crimea to Novorossiysk. Ukrainian USVs have also damaged enemy military facilities in occupied Crimea and the Kerch Bridge.

However, unlike Ukraine’s long-range USVs, the Barracuda is not equipped with satellite communications.

“Its range is therefore limited, making it suitable primarily for short-distance missions among the islands of the Dnipro River, which corresponds with the operating area of the 40th Coastal Defense Brigade,” the Ukrainian United24 media outlet noted.

The unit claims that the Barracuda is guided in part by artificial intelligence, but does not provide any details.

Overall, the Barracuda appears to be a bit cheaper and less complex design that is better optimized for lower priority targets in riverine and shallow littoral areas. The lack of a satellite communications system is interesting as control of the boat would have to be provided locally, within line of sight of the boat or at least within line of sight of a relay, such as a drone, flying overhead. The boat could also follow waypoint navigation autonomously, but making pinpoint attacks in complex waterways would be a challenge for such a concept of operations.

The Barracuda attacks are part of a fight taking place on the Dnipro, its inlets and islands since the Ukrainian’s recaptured Kherson City in November 2023. With neither side being able to launch a major cross-river attack due to the difficulty of crossing a body of water while under fire from drones and artillery, the two sides have been jockeying for position in this area on a much smaller scale.

The success of Ukraine’s USVs has not been lost on Russia. Earlier this year, Moscow carried out a drone boat attack on a Ukrainian Navy reconnaissance ship in the mouth of the Danube River. That incident marked Russia’s first confirmed use of these weapons. In addition to building its own drone boats, Russia also created dedicated units to operate them. You can read more about Russia’s USV development in our story here.

The following video shows the August Russian USV attack on the Ukrainian ship.

Though there have been no confirmed Russian USV attacks since August, Ukraine remains concerned about the potential for future strikes. 

“As part of a systematic reduction of the Russian aggressor’s military-economic potential, on the night of December 24, units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces carried out successful strikes on several enemy targets,” the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff claimed on Wednesday. “The storage and maintenance site for unmanned boats in the area of Mirny in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian Crimea was hit.”

The General Staff did not provide any visual evidence of the results of the attack and said that the extent of the damage is still being determined.

While Ukraine’s Barracuda USVs have not yet been carrying out attacks on high-value targets, the drone boats give Kyiv’s beleaguered forces another weapon they can use to help defend its internal waterways.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com