Category: News

KYIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelensky replaced the head of Ukraine’s security service Monday, continuing a top-level reshuffle ahead of a trip to Paris where he hoped to finalize agreements with allies on how to ensure that Russia doesn’t repeat its invasion if a peace agreement is signed.

Zelensky is trying to revamp his administration as the grinding war of attrition with Russia marks its fourth anniversary next month. He is keen to keep up the momentum of U.S.-led peace talks as well as sharpen Ukraine’s focus on defense if those efforts collapse.

The Paris talks are expected to include the leaders of about 30 countries, dubbed the “coalition of the willing,” which are ready to provide security guarantees to keep Ukraine safe in the future.

Key issues include whether countries are prepared to deploy troops inside or close to Ukraine and what the remit of any force overseeing a ceasefire might be. Russia has said it won’t accept troops from NATO countries on Ukrainian soil.

Zelensky’s changes at the top

Zelensky also announced the appointment of Canada’s former Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland as Ukraine’s economic development adviser, describing her as an expert on the issues with “significant experience in attracting investment and carrying out economic transformations.”

Amid Ukraine’s biggest top-level reshuffle in about six months, Lt. Gen. Vasyl Maliuk, the head of the Security Service, or SBU, announced his resignation on the agency’s website.

Zelensky published a decree on the presidential website appointing Ievhen Khmara, former head of the “A” Special Operations Center of the Security Service, as the agency’s acting head.

Under Maliuk, the SBU produced some stunning successes against Russia, including Operation Spiderweb, which Ukraine said damaged or destroyed 41 Russian military aircraft in coordinated strikes on four air bases.

On Friday, Zelensky appointed the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence as his new chief of staff.

Announcing the appointment of Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, Zelensky said Ukraine needs to focus on security issues, developing its defense and security forces, and peace talks — areas that are overseen by the office of the president.

New adviser has been a staunch critic of Putin

Zelensky also is looking to strengthen the war-battered economy, including through projects in partnership with the U.S. and other countries. Freeland, who is of Ukrainian heritage and is a strong critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is a former journalist and Canadian lawmaker.

Besides being a former deputy prime minister, she also served as Canada’s minister of international trade, foreign minister, and finance minister, and helped negotiate trade agreements with both Europe and the U.S.

The Harvard University graduate has served as Canada’s special representative for the reconstruction of Ukraine — a position outside the Cabinet — in addition to her responsibilities as a lawmaker.

Freeland and U.S. President Donald Trump have had a sometimes-fraught relationship that could work against Ukraine. In Trump’s first term, Freeland played a key role in negotiating the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement, and occasionally frustrated Trump aides with her tactics.

During Trump’s first meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in the Oval Office, the president recalled his own antipathy for Freeland. “She was terrible, actually — she was a terrible person,” Trump said.

When Freeland left former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Cabinet, Trump said on social media that “her behavior was totally toxic.”

One opposition lawmaker in Canada argued that Freeland could not be a member of the country’s parliament and at the same time work as an adviser to a foreign government.

Ukraine seeks to counter size of Russian forces

In his New Year’s address, Zelensky said a proposed U.S.-brokered peace deal was “90% ready” but warned that the remaining 10%, believed to include issues such as the future of disputed territory, would determine the outcome of the push for peace.

Moscow hasn’t been forthcoming about details of the negotiations. Officials have, however, restated Russia’s demands and insist there can be no ceasefire until a comprehensive settlement is agreed.

The fighting has not subsided along the roughly 600-mile front line that snakes along southern and eastern Ukraine.

Zelensky said he met with Budanov on Monday to look at ways to reduce Russia’s edge in larger armed forces.

“Russia has one significant advantage in this war, namely the ability to put pressure on Ukraine with the scale of strikes, the scale of assaults,” he said on social media. “We have and must respond with more active use of technology, faster development of new types of weapons, new tactics.”

An overnight Russian drone strike at a private clinic in Kyiv’s Obolon district killed a 30-year-old old patient and injured three others, the capital’s prosecutor’s office said Monday.

Energy workers and repair crews worked across the country after Russian drones damaged energy infrastructure, causing more power disruptions for civilians in the bitter winter, Zelensky said. Russia fired nine ballistic missiles and 165 long-range drones at Ukraine overnight, the air force said Monday.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone sparked a fire at an industrial facility in Yelets, in Russia’s western Lipetsk region, according to regional Gov. Igor Artamonov. There were no casualties, he said.

The Russian airports of Ivanovo, Nizhny Novgorod, and Yaroslavl briefly suspended flights because of Ukrainian drone attacks, authorities said.The Russian Defense Ministry reported downing another 50 Ukrainian drones later Monday over the Belgorod, Kursk and Lipetsk regions.

NEW YORK — A defiant Nicolás Maduro declared himself “the president of my country” as he protested his capture and pleaded not guilty Monday to federal drug trafficking charges that the Trump administration used to justify removing him from power in Venezuela.

“I was captured,” Maduro said in Spanish as translated by a courtroom reporter before being cut off by the judge. Asked later for his plea to the charges, he stated: “I’m innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the president of my country.”

The courtroom appearance, Maduro’s first since he and his wife were seized from their home in a stunning middle-of-the-night military operation, kicked off the U.S. government’s most consequential prosecution in decades of a foreign head of state. The criminal case in Manhattan is unfolding against a broader diplomatic backdrop of an audacious U.S.-engineered regime change that President Donald Trump has said will enable his administration to “run” the South American country.

Maduro was led into court along with his co-defendant wife just before noon for the brief legal proceeding. Both put on headsets to hear the English-language proceeding as it was translated into Spanish.

The couple was transported to the Manhattan courthouse under armed guard early Monday from the Brooklyn jail where they’ve been detained since arriving in the U.S. on Saturday.

A legal fight begins

As a criminal defendant in the U.S. legal system, Maduro will have the same rights as any other person accused of a crime — including the right to a trial by a jury of regular New Yorkers. But he’ll also be nearly — but not quite — unique.

The stakes were made clear from the outset as Maduro, who took copious notes throughout the proceedings and wished a Happy New Year to reporters in court, repeatedly pressed his case that he had been unlawfully abducted.

“I am here kidnapped,” Maduro said. “I was captured at my home in Caracas.”

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a 92-year-old jurist who was appointed to the federal bench in 1998 by Bill Clinton, interrupted him, saying: “There will be time and place to go through all of this.” Hellerstein added that Maduro’s attorney could do so later.

“At this time, I just want to know if you are Nicolás Maduro Moros,” which Maduro confirmed that he was.

Maduro’s lawyers are expected to contest the legality of his arrest, arguing that he is immune from prosecution as a head of state. Barry Pollack, a prominent Washington lawyer whose clients have included WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, said Maduro is “head of a sovereign state and entitled to the privilege” that the status ensures. He also said the defense would raise “questions about the legality of his military abduction.”

Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega unsuccessfully tried the same immunity defense after the U.S. captured him in a similar military invasion in 1990. But the U.S. doesn’t recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state — particularly after a much-disputed 2024 reelection.

Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, also pleaded not guilty on Monday. She had bandages on her forehead and right temple, and her lawyer said had she suffered “significant injuries” during her capture.

A 25-page indictment accuses Maduro and others of working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. They could face life in prison if convicted.

Among other things, the indictment accuses Maduro and his wife of ordering kidnappings, beatings, and murders of those who owed them drug money or undermined their drug trafficking operation. That included a local drug boss’ killing in Caracas, the indictment said.

Outside the courthouse, police separated protesters of the U.S. military action from prointervention demonstrators. Inside the courtroom, as Maduro stood to leave with federal officers, a man in the audience stood and began speaking forcefully at him in Spanish, calling him an “illegitimate” president.

The man, 33-year-old Pedro Rojas, said later that he had been imprisoned by the Venezuelan regime. As deputy U.S. marshals led Maduro from the courtroom, the deposed leader looked directly at the man and shot back in Spanish: “I am a kidnapped president. I am a prisoner of war.”

Trump reiterates U.S. will ‘run it’

The U.S. seized Maduro and his wife in a military operation early Saturday, capturing them in their home on a military base. Trump said Saturday the U.S. would “run” Venezuela temporarily and reiterated Sunday night that “we’re in charge,” telling reporters aboard Air Force One that “we’re going to run it, fix it.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had tried to strike a more cautious tone on Sunday morning talk shows, saying the U.S. would not govern the country day to day other than enforcing an existing “oil quarantine.”

But on Monday, NBC’s Kristen Welker reported that in a phone interview Trump insisted that top administration officials, including Rubio, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller would be in charge of Venezuela.

When Welker asked who the top person in charge would be, Trump responded, “Me.”

Before his capture, Maduro and his allies claimed U.S. hostility was motivated by lust for Venezuela’s rich oil and mineral resources.

Trump has suggested that removing Maduro would enable more oil to flow out of Venezuela, but oil prices rose a bit more than 1% in Monday morning trading to roughly $58 a barrel. There are uncertainties about how fast oil production can be ramped up in Venezuela after years of neglect of the industry, as well as questions about governance and oversight of the sector.

Venezuela’s new interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, has demanded that the U.S. return Maduro, who long denied any involvement in drug trafficking — although late Sunday she also struck a more conciliatory tone in a social media post, inviting collaboration with Trump and “respectful relations” with the U.S.

Rodríguez was sworn in on Monday by her brother, National Assembly leader Jorge Rodríguez.

“I come with sorrow for the suffering inflicted upon the Venezuelan people following an illegitimate military aggression against our homeland,” she said with her right hand up. “I come with sorrow for the kidnapping of two heroes.”

Maduro’s son and Venezuelan congressman Nicolás Maduro Guerra warned on Monday that his father’s capture could set a dangerous precedent globally and demanded that his parents be returned.

“If we normalize the kidnapping of a head of state, no country is safe. Today it’s Venezuela. Tomorrow it could be any nation that refuses to submit. This is not a regional problem. It is a direct threat to global political stability,” Maduro Guerra said.

Hegseth, Rubio brief congressional leaders

Congressional leaders expected to hear more about the U.S. government’s plans for the future of Venezuela, as top officials from Trump’s administration headed to Capitol Hill to brief select lawmakers Monday evening.

Rubio, Hegseth, and other officials were to discuss Venezuela with House and Senate leadership, as well as top members of the intelligence committees and national security committees.

The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee say they should have been included.

The briefing Monday was for members of the “gang of eight,” which include the four congressional leaders and the heads of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. It also included leaders from the various national security committees.

But the Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department, is not among those committees, said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the committee. That is not all right, they say, because the administration has said this was a law enforcement operation involving key DOJ entities.

“There is no legitimate basis for excluding the Senate Judiciary Committee from this briefing,” Grassley and Durbin said in a joint statement. “The administration’s refusal to acknowledge our Committee’s indisputable jurisdiction in this matter is unacceptable and we are following up to ensure the Committee receives warranted information regarding Maduro’s arrest.”

UNITED NATIONS — Both allies and adversaries of the United States on Monday used an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to voice opposition to the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela that captured leader Nicolás Maduro.

Before the U.N.’s most powerful body, countries critiqued — if sometimes obliquely — President Donald Trump’s intervention in the South American country and his recent comments signaling the possibility of expanding military action to countries like Colombia and Mexico over drug trafficking accusations. The Republican president also has reupped his threat to take over the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests.

Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the mineral-rich island, carefully denounced U.S. prospects for taking over Greenland without mentioning its NATO ally by name.

“The inviolability of borders is not up for negotiation,” said Christina Markus Lassen, Danish ambassador to the U.N.

She also defended Venezuela’s sovereignty, saying “no state should seek to influence political outcomes in Venezuela through the use of threat of force or through other means inconsistent with international law.”

U.S. allies push back on Venezuela

While French President Emmanuel Macron recently endorsed Maduro’s capture, its U.N. envoy was slightly more critical Monday, saying any violations of international law by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, which include the U.S., erodes “the very foundation of the international order.”

“The military operation that has led to the capture of Maduro runs counter to the principle of peace dispute resolution and runs counter to the principle of nonuse of force,” said Jay Dharmadhikari, deputy French ambassador to the U.N.

U.S. envoy Mike Waltz defended the operation in Venezuela as a justified and “surgical law enforcement operation,” calling out the 15-member council for criticizing the targeting of Maduro.

“If the United Nations in this body confers legitimacy on an illegitimate narco-terrorist with the same treatment in this charter of a democratically elected president or head of state, what kind of organization is this?” said Waltz, who is Trump’s former national security adviser.

Maduro’s 2024 reelection was widely disputed.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that he is “deeply concerned that rules of international law have not been respected with regard to the 3 January military action.” He said the “grave” action by the U.S. could set a precedent for how future relations between nations unfold.

Venezuela calls on the U.N. to take action

Even with the strong support for Venezuela’s sovereignty, its envoy called on the U.N. to go beyond veiled comments and condemnation. Ambassador Samuel Moncada urged the Security Council to demand that Washington release Maduro and his wife.

“If the kidnapping of a head of state, the bombing of a sovereign country, and the open threat of further armed action are tolerated or downplayed, the message sent to the world is a devastating one: namely that the law is optional, and that force is the true arbiter of international relations,” Moncada said.

He warned that other countries can’t afford to look away: “Accepting such a logic would mean to open the door to a deeply unstable world.”

Neighboring Colombia described the raid as reminiscent of “the worst interference in our area in the past.”

“Democracy cannot be defended or promoted through violence and coercion, and it cannot be superseded, either, by economic interests,” Ambassador Leonor Zalabata said.

China, Russia are expectedly critical

The biggest critics of U.S. foreign policy, China and Russia, which are also permanent members of the Security Council, called for the U.N. body to unite in rejecting America turning back to an “era of lawlessness.”

Maduro, like his predecessor, forged a close relationship with Russia, while China was the main destination for most Venezuelan oil.

“We cannot allow the United States to proclaim itself as some kind of a supreme judge, which alone bears the right to invade any country, to label culprits, to hand down and to enforce punishments irrespective of notions of international law, sovereignty, and nonintervention,” Russian ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said.

His own country’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has drawn widespread condemnation within the U.N. and from the U.S., although the Trump administration is engaging with Russia in hopes of brokering an end to the fighting.

The U.S. seized Maduro and his wife early Saturday from their home on a military base and put them aboard a U.S. warship to face prosecution in New York in a Justice Department indictment accusing them of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy. Maduro declared his innocence during his first appearance in a Manhattan courthouse Monday.

His stunning removal came after months of the U.S. amassing a military presence off Venezuela’s coast and blowing up alleged drug trafficking boats. Trump has insisted that the U.S. would run Venezuela at least temporarily and tap its vast oil reserves to sell to other nations.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, however, says the U.S. would enforce an oil quarantine that was already in place on sanctioned tankers and use that leverage to press policy changes in Venezuela.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A former school police officer in Uvalde, Texas, who was part of the slow law enforcement response to one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history went on trial Monday on charges that he failed to protect children from the gunman.

Adrian Gonzales, one of the first officers to respond to the 2022 attack, is charged with 29 counts of child abandonment or endangerment in a rare prosecution of an officer accused of not doing more to save lives. Authorities waited more than an hour to confront the teenage shooter who killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary.

Gonzales has pleaded not guilty, and his attorney has said the officer tried to save children that day.

Jury selection began Monday at a Texas courthouse where a long line of prospective jurors stretched outside the building before the proceedings got underway.

Potential jurors were given a list of questions asking what they knew about the law enforcement response and their impressions of what happened, as well as whether they contributed money to Uvalde victims.

Judge Sid Harle told several hundred potential jurors that the court was not looking for jurors who know nothing about the shooting but wants those who can be impartial. The trial was expected to last about two weeks, he said.

Among the potential witnesses are FBI agents, rangers with the Texas Department of Public Safety, school employees, and family members of the victims.

Nearly 400 officers from state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies responded to the school, but 77 minutes passed from the time authorities arrived until a tactical team breached the classroom and killed the shooter, Salvador Ramos. An investigation later showed that Ramos was obsessed with violence and notoriety in the months leading up to the attack.

Gonzales and former Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo were among the first on the scene, and they are the only two officers to face criminal charges over the response. Arredondo’s trial has not been scheduled.

The charges against Gonzales carry up to two years in prison if he is convicted.

Police and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott initially said swift law enforcement action killed Ramos and saved lives. But that version quickly unraveled as families described begging police to go into the building and 911 calls emerged from students pleading for help.

The indictment alleges Gonzales placed children in “imminent danger” of injury or death by failing to engage, distract, or delay the shooter and by not following his active shooter training. The allegations also say he did not advance toward the gunfire despite hearing shots and being told where the shooter was.

State and federal reviews of the shooting cited cascading problems in law enforcement training, communication, leadership, and technology, and questioned why officers waited so long.

According to the state review, Gonzales told investigators that once police realized there were students still sitting in other classrooms, he helped evacuate them.

Some family members of the victims have said more officers should be indicted.

“They all waited and allowed children and teachers to die,” said Velma Lisa Duran, whose sister Irma Garcia was one of the two teachers who were killed.

Prosecutors will likely face a high bar to win a conviction. Juries are often reluctant to convict law enforcement officers for inaction, as seen after the Parkland, Fla., school massacre in 2018.

Sheriff’s deputy Scot Peterson was charged with failing to confront the shooter in that attack. It was the first such prosecution in the U.S. for an on-campus shooting, and Peterson was acquitted by a jury in 2023.

At the request of Gonzales’ attorneys, the trial was moved about 200 miles southeast to Corpus Christi. They argued Gonzales could not receive a fair trial in Uvalde, and prosecutors did not object.

Uvalde, a town of 15,000, still has several prominent reminders of the shooting. Robb Elementary is closed but still stands, and a memorial of 21 crosses and flowers sits near the school sign. Murals depicting several victims can still be seen on the walls of several buildings.

Jesse Rizo, whose 9-year-old niece Jackie was one of the students killed, said even with a three-hour drive to Corpus Christi, the family would like to have someone attend the trial every day.

“It’s important that the jury see that Jackie had a big, strong family,” Rizo said.

A man who broke windows at Vice President JD Vance’s Ohio home and caused other property damage was detained early Monday, the U.S. Secret Service said.

The man was detained shortly after midnight by Secret Service agents assigned to Vance’s home, east of downtown Cincinnati, agency spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement emailed to the Associated Press. The vice president and his family were not at home, having returned to Washington on Sunday after a weekend there, his office said.

The Secret Service heard a loud noise at the house around midnight and found a person who had broken a window with a hammer and was trying to get in, according to two law enforcement officials who were not publicly authorized to discuss the investigation into what happened and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The man had also vandalized a Secret Service vehicle on his way up the home’s driveway, one of the officials said.

A law enforcement official identified the suspect as William Defoor, 26, who public records list as living in Cincinnati. Calls to the listings for possible relatives and an attorney who previously represented Defoor were not immediately returned.

Defoor is set to be arraigned Tuesday on misdemeanor charges of vandalism, criminal trespass, criminal damaging, and obstruction of official business, court records show.

Vance expressed gratitude to the Secret Service and Cincinnati police for responding quickly to the incident in a post on the social platform X.

“I appreciate everyone’s well wishes about the attack at our home,” Vance tweeted. “As far as I can tell, a crazy person tried to break in by hammering the windows.”

Court records show that Defoor faced an earlier charge of vandalism in 2024 and agreed to treatment under the county’s Mental Health Court system.

The Secret Service is coordinating with the Cincinnati Police Department and the U.S. attorney’s office as charging decisions are reviewed, Guglielmi said.

The Vance home is located in one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, on hills overlooking the city. Throughout Vance’s vice presidency, protesters have often gathered outside the home — clashing at one point last spring with Vance himself.

Vance, a Republican, was a U.S. senator representing Ohio before becoming vice president. He moved to Cincinnati after a stint in Silicon Valley following law school, and his half brother ran unsuccessfully for mayor there last year. Vance was raised in nearby Middletown, which figured heavily in his best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.

Associated Press writers Mike Balsamo, Sarah Brumfield and Julie Carr Smyth contributed to this article.