Category: Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday appointed the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence as his new chief of staff, a move that comes as the U.S. leads a diplomatic push to end Russia’s nearly 4-year-old invasion.

Announcing the appointment of 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.

Zelensky had dismissed his previous chief of staff, Andrii Yermak, after anti-corruption officials began investigating alleged graft in the energy sector.

The president framed Budanov’s appointment as part of a broader effort to sharpen the focus on security, defense development and diplomacy.

“Kyrylo has specialized experience in these areas and sufficient strength to achieve results,” Zelensky said.

Budanov, 39, said on Telegram his new position is “both an honor and a responsibility — at a historic time for Ukraine — to focus on the critically important issues of the state’s strategic security.”

In his evening address, Zelensky announced further changes to his team, saying he had proposed Mykhailo Fedorov, the current minister for digital transformation, as the new minister of defense.

Fedorov, 34, is credited with spearheading the introduction of drone technology in Ukraine’s army and introducing several successful e-government platforms in his current role.

He replaces Denys Shmyhal who took up the post last July in a major government shake-up. Zelensky thanked Shmyhal and said he would be taking up another role in government. He also credited the ministry for reaching a target production of more than 1,000 interceptor drones per day in December.

Earlier, Zelensky appointed Foreign Intelligence Service head Oleh Ivashchenko to replace Budanov as intelligence chief.

‘Prominent face of Kyiv’s intelligence effort’

Budanov is one of the country’s most recognizable and popular wartime figures. He has led Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, known by its acronym GUR, since 2020.

A career military intelligence officer, he rose through the defense establishment after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. He also took part in special operations and intelligence missions linked to the fighting with Moscow-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine before the full-scale invasion of February 2022. He reportedly was wounded during one such operation.

Since the full-scale invasion, Budanov has become a prominent face of Kyiv’s intelligence effort, regularly appearing in interviews and briefings that mix strategic signaling with psychological pressure on Moscow. He has frequently warned of Russia’s long-term intentions toward Ukraine and the region, while portraying the war as an existential struggle for the country’s statehood.

Under Budanov, the GUR expanded its operational footprint, coordinating intelligence, sabotage and special operations aimed at degrading Russian military capabilities far beyond the front lines. Ukrainian officials have credited military intelligence with operations targeting Russian command structures, logistics hubs, energy infrastructure, and naval assets, including strikes deep inside Russian territory and occupied areas.

His appointment to lead the office of the president marks an unusual shift, placing an intelligence chief at the center of Ukraine’s political and diplomatic coordination.

Ihor Reiterovych, a Kyiv-based independent political expert, noted that Budanov had participated in the talks with the U.S. and “will fit much more naturally into the overall context” of the negotiations.

“Unlike Yermak, he has both experience in this field and has worked in a relevant position,” Reiterovych said, adding that the GUR also has had certain contacts with Russia on issues such as prisoner exchanges.

Russia reports a higher death toll from a strike

Russian authorities said Friday the death toll from what they called a Ukrainian drone strike on a cafe and hotel in a Russian-occupied village in Ukraine’s Kherson region rose to 28. Kyiv strongly denied attacking civilian targets.

Svetlana Petrenko, spokeswoman of Russia’s main criminal investigation agency, the Investigative Committee, said those killed in the village of Khorly, where at least 100 civilians were celebrating New Year’s Eve, included two minors, while 31 people were hospitalized.

A spokesman for Ukraine’s General Staff, Dmytro Lykhovii, denied attacking civilians. He told Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne on Thursday that Ukrainian forces “adhere to the norms of international humanitarian law” and “carry out strikes exclusively against Russian military targets, facilities of the Russian fuel and energy sector, and other lawful targets.”

He noted that Russia has repeatedly used disinformation and false statements to disrupt the ongoing peace negotiations.

The Associated Press could not independently verify claims made about the attack.

Washington praises progress in negotiations

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

The U.S. efforts has faced a new obstacle earlier this week, when Moscow said it would toughen its negotiating stand after what it said was a long-range drone attack against a residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin in northwestern Russia early Monday.

Kyiv has denied attacking Putin’s residence, saying the Russian claim was a ruse to derail the negotiations.

In his New Year’s address, Zelensky said a peace deal was “90% ready” but warned that the remaining 10% — 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.”

Overnight attacks

Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia struck a residential area of Kharkiv with two missiles Friday, Zelensky wrote on his Telegram page, adding that Moscow’s forces “continue the killings, despite all the efforts of the world, and above all the United States, in the diplomatic process.”

At least 19 people in the eastern city were injured, including a 6-month-old, said regional administration head Oleh Syniehubov.

The Russian Defense Ministry denied launching any strikes with missiles or other airborne weapons on Kharkiv on Friday and suggested, without offering evidence, that the damage could have been caused by the detonation of ammunition at a weapons depot.

Earlier Friday, Russia conducted what local authorities called “one of the most massive” drone attacks at Zaporizhzhia. At least nine drones struck the city, damaging dozens of residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure but causing no casualties, according to Ivan Fedorov, head of the regional administration.

Overall, Russia fired 116 long-range drones at Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s air force, with 86 intercepted and 27 striking their targets.

The Russian ministry said its air defenses intercepted 64 Ukrainian drones overnight in multiple Russian regions.

The Russian city of Belgorod was hit by a Ukrainian missile, according to regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov. Two women were hospitalized after the strike, which shattered windows and damaged an unspecified commercial facility and a number of cars in the region that borders Ukraine, he said.

CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland — Investigators said Friday that they believe sparkling candles atop Champagne bottles ignited a fatal fire at a Swiss ski resort when they came too close to the ceiling of a bar crowded with New Year’s Eve revelers.

Authorities planned to look into whether sound-dampening material on the ceiling conformed with regulations and whether the candles, which give off a stream of upward-shooting sparks, were permitted for use in the bar.

Forty people were killed and 119 injured in the blaze early Thursday as it ripped through the busy Le Constellation bar at the ski resort of Crans-Montana, authorities said. It was one of the deadliest tragedies in Switzerland’s history.

Officials said they would also look at other safety measures on the premises, including fire extinguishers and escape routes. The attorney general for the Valais region warned of possible prosecutions if any criminal liability is found.

Arthur Brodard, 16, from the Swiss city of Lausanne, was among the missing. His mother, Laetitia, was in Crans-Montana on Friday and frantic to find him. She held out “a glimmer of hope” that he might be one of the six injured people who had yet to be identified.

“I’m looking everywhere. The body of my son is somewhere,” she told reporters. “I want to know, where is my child, and be by his side, wherever that may be — be it in the intensive care unit or the morgue.”

The injured included 71 Swiss nationals, 14 French, and 11 Italians, along with citizens of Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal, and Poland, according to Frédéric Gisler, police commander of the Valais region. The nationalities of 14 people were unclear.

An evening of celebration turns tragic

Among the crowd was Axel Clavier, a 16-year-old from Paris, who said he felt as if he was suffocating inside the Swiss Alpine bar where moments before he had been ringing in the new year.

The teenager escaped the inferno by forcing a window open with a table. The dead included one of Clavier’s friends, and he told the Associated Press that two or three other friends were still missing hours after the disaster.

An impromptu memorial took shape near the bar, where mourners left candles and flowers. Hundreds of others prayed for the victims at the nearby Church of Montana-Station.

A French teenager on Friday brought a bouquet of tulips to the regional hospital in Sion for her best friend, a fellow 17-year-old girl who was badly burned and in intensive care. The two attend school together in Lausanne, said the girl, who was in distress and did not give her full name to the AP.

But when she arrived at the hospital, her friend had been heavily sedated for a dressing change and could not see visitors. It was the latest in hours of heartbreak for the teen, who had intended to join a dozen schoolmates at the bar but ultimately decided against it.

She said she has since learned that two of the 12 are in a Zurich hospital. She did not know if the others survived.

On Instagram, an account filled up with photos of people who were unaccounted for, and friends and relatives begged for tips about their whereabouts.

Valais regional government head Mathias Reynard told RTS radio Friday that officials have “numerous accounts of heroic actions, one could say, of very strong solidarity in the moment.”

He lauded the work of emergency officials on the day after the fire but added “in the first minutes it was citizens — and in large part young people — who saved lives with their courage.”

Servers arrived with burning sparklers

Clavier, the Parisian teenager, said he did not see the fire start, but saw servers arrive with Champagne bottles topped with the burning sparklers.

Two women told French broadcaster BFMTV they were inside when they saw a male bartender lifting a female bartender on his shoulders as she held a lit candle in a bottle. The flames spread, collapsing the wooden ceiling, they told the broadcaster.

One of the women described a crowd surge as people frantically tried to escape from the basement nightclub up a flight of stairs and through a narrow door.

Another witness speaking to BFMTV described people smashing windows to escape the blaze, some gravely injured, and panicked parents rushing to the scene in cars to see whether their children were trapped inside.

Gianni Campolo, a Swiss 19-year-old who was in Crans-Montana on vacation, raced to the bar to help first responders after receiving a call from a friend who escaped the inferno. He described people on the ground suffering from terrible burns.

“I have seen horror, and I don’t know what else would be worse than this,” Campolo told French television network TF1.

The severity of the burns made it difficult to identify bodies, requiring families to supply authorities with DNA samples. In some cases, wallets and any identification documents inside turned to ash in the flames.

Emanuele Galeppini, a promising 17-year-old Italian golfer who competed internationally, was officially listed as missing. His uncle Sebastiano Galeppini told Italian news agency ANSA that their family is awaiting the DNA checks, though the Italian Golf Federation on its website announced that he had died.

With high-altitude ski runs rising nearly 9,850 feet in the heart of the Valais region’s snowy peaks and pine forests, Crans-Montana is a major destination for international Alpine skiing competitions. It’s also home to the European Masters each August.

DIMONA, Israel — During the two years he was held captive in Gaza, Segev Kalfon had a recurring dream: slowly walking through a supermarket, browsing each aisle for his favorite foods, taking in the brightly colored packages and smells.

Since being released on Oct. 13, his dreams have flipped: Most nights when he closes his eyes, he is back on a dirty piece of foam mattress in the 22-square-foot room in a Hamas tunnel where he was kept with five other hostages, counting each tile and crack in the cement to distract himself from severe hunger and near-daily physical torture.

“I was in the lowest place a person can be before death, the lowest. I had no control over anything, when to eat, when to shower, how much I want to eat,” said Kalfon, 27. During the worst parts of captivity, he was so skinny he could count the individual vertebrae jutting from his spine.

Now that he’s back home in Dimona in southern Israel, Kalfon is trying to piece together a post-captivity life. He spends much of his time juggling appointments with an array of doctors and psychologists.

One of the strangest aspects of his release, Kalfon said, is that for two years, his entire life revolved around trying to please his captors, so they might share more food or spare a beating. Now that he’s out, “everyone is trying to please me,” he said.

From a family bakery to a Hamas tunnel

Before being taken hostage at the Nova music festival, Kalfon worked at his family’s bakery in the town of Arad and was studying finance and investments.

When rockets started flying at the start of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, Kalfon said he and his closest friend tried to help others at the festival escape. Kalfon remembers pleading with a group of people who had taken cover in a yellow dumpster, telling them to come with him, that they were in a death trap. For two years, Kalfon wondered what happened to them. After his release, he learned they were all killed.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages during their cross-border assault that day. Israel’s ensuing offensive has killed more than 71,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.

While in captivity, every moment “felt like an eternity,” Kalfon said. The only thing that broke up the monotony was a meager portion of food and water once a day.

There were so many times he felt close to death: during frequent bombardment by the Israeli military, going through COVID and other illnesses with no medicine, enduring starvation and frequent physical torture. He said his captors used bicycle chains as whips and pummeled the hostages while wearing large rings to leave painful welts.

“We didn’t even have energy to yell out, because no one hears you,” he said. “You’re in a tunnel 30 meters underground; no one knows what’s going on.”

The worst part was the last three months of his captivity, Kalfon said, when he was kept in isolation and felt like he was losing his sanity.

In the darkest places, faith brings a ray of light

Both Kalfon and his family, advocating in Israel for his release, further turned to their Jewish faith to get through the dark times. Kalfon’s family filled their homes with additional Jewish books, ritual objects, and prayers from senior rabbis.

Kalfon and the other five hostages made a tradition of marking the start of Jewish holidays or the Sabbath by saying prayers over a bit of water and moldy pita.

The hostages used a square of precious toilet paper, where one roll had to last six people for two months, for the ritual skullcap that Jewish men traditionally wear during prayers.

A radio the captors had given to the hostages in hopes of converting them to Islam through recordings of the Quran sometimes allowed them to capture signals from Israeli news.

Once, when Kalfon was at his lowest and considering an escape attempt, which likely would have led to his death, he turned on the radio and heard his mother’s voice. He said it felt like a divine message to hold on for a little longer.

“I was living in the body of a dead person, living in a grave,” Kalfon said. “To get out of this grave, it’s nothing else if not a miracle.”

Kalfon was released along with 19 other living hostages as part of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire. He considers President Donald Trump a “messenger from God,” sure that no one else could have halted the fighting. His family has hung nearly a dozen American flags around the house in recognition of the U.S. contribution to his return.

‘War is starting with my soul’

Since his return, Kalfon is getting used to a new life, one where he is famous after his name and face were broadcast across Israel during the fight to release the hostages.

“Everyone wants to support me and say, ‘You’re such a hero,’” Kalfon said. “I don’t feel like a hero. Every person would want to survive.”

Kalfon knows he has a long journey to recovery after his years in captivity and a post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis from before he was taken hostage.

“Although the war in Gaza is over, now my war is starting with my soul, to try to deal with thoughts that are very difficult,” he said.

He tries to keep his schedule busy to distract himself.

“But every night when I’m alone, it comes up,” Kalfon said. Even a small noise can startle him awake and thrust him into a terrifying flashback, so he barely sleeps.

For the immediate future, he wants to share his story more widely. He said he has been shocked by the rise in global antisemitism and anti-Israel fervor since he was captured and wants to make sure people hear his story, especially those who tore down posters of the hostages or accuse Israel of lying.

“I’m proof that it happened,” he said. “I felt it with my body. I saw it with my own eyes.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — President Donald Trump and top Iranian officials exchanged dueling threats Friday as widening protests swept across parts of the Islamic Republic, further escalating tensions between the countries after America bombed Iranian nuclear sites in June.

At least seven people have been killed so far in violence surrounding the demonstrations, which were sparked in part by the collapse of Iran’s rial currency but have increasingly seen crowds chanting anti-government slogans.

The protests, now in their sixth day, have become the biggest in Iran since 2022, when the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody triggered nationwide demonstrations. However, the demonstrations have yet to be countrywide and have not been as intense as those surrounding the death of Amini, who was detained over not wearing her hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.

Trump post sparks quick Iranian response

Trump initially wrote on his Truth Social platform, warning Iran that if it “violently kills peaceful protesters,” the United States “will come to their rescue.”

“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump wrote, without elaborating.

Shortly after, Ali Larijani, a former parliament speaker who serves as the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, alleged on the social platform X that Israel and the U.S. were stoking the demonstrations. He offered no evidence to support the allegation, which Iranian officials have repeatedly made during years of protests sweeping the country.

“Trump should know that intervention by the U.S. in the domestic problem corresponds to chaos in the entire region and the destruction of the U.S. interests,” Larijani wrote on X, which the Iranian government blocks. “The people of the U.S. should know that Trump began the adventurism. They should take care of their own soldiers.”

Larijani’s remarks likely referenced America’s wide military footprint in the region. Iran in June attacked Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar after the U.S. strikes on three nuclear sites during Israel’s 12-day war on the Islamic Republic. No one was injured, though a missile did hit a radome there.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that “the Great People of Iran will forcefully reject any interference in their internal affairs. Similarly, our Powerful Armed Forces are on standby and know exactly where to aim in the event of any infringement of Iranian sovereignty.”

Araghchi also said that Trump’s message likely was influenced by those who fear diplomacy between the two nations without elaborating.

Video circulated on social media late Friday showed protests continued in many cities across the country, including at least three points in the south and east of the capital Tehran. The Associated Press cannot independently verify the footage.

No major changes have been made to U.S. troop levels in the Middle East or their preparations following Trump’s Iran post, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans.

Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who previously was the council’s secretary for years, separately warned that “any interventionist hand that gets too close to the security of Iran will be cut.”

“The people of Iran properly know the experience of ‘being rescued’ by Americans: from Iraq and Afghanistan to Gaza,” he added on X.

Iran’s hard-liner parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf also threatened that all American bases and forces would be “legitimate targets.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei also responded, citing a list of Tehran’s longtime grievances against the U.S., including a CIA-backed coup in 1953, the downing of a passenger jet in 1988 and taking part in the June war.

The Iranian response came as the protests shake what has been a common refrain from officials in the theocracy — that the country broadly backed its government after the war.

Trump’s online message marked a direct sign of support for the demonstrators, something that other American presidents have avoided out of concern that activists would be accused of working with the West. During Iran’s 2009 Green Movement demonstrations, President Barack Obama held back from publicly backing the protests — something he said in 2022 “was a mistake.”

But such White House support still carries a risk.

“Though the grievances that fuel these and past protests are due to the Iranian government’s own policies, they are likely to use President Trump’s statement as proof that the unrest is driven by external actors,” said Naysan Rafati, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.

“But using that as a justification to crack down more violently risks inviting the very U.S. involvement Trump has hinted at,” he added.

Protests continue Friday

Demonstrators took to the streets Friday in Zahedan in Iran’s restive Sistan and Baluchestan province on the border with Pakistan. The burials of several demonstrators killed in the protests also took place, sparking marches.

Online video purported to show mourners chasing off security force members who attended the funeral of 21-year-old Amirhessam Khodayari. He was killed Wednesday in Kouhdasht, over 250 miles southwest of Tehran in Iran’s Lorestan province.

Video also showed Khodayari’s father denying his son served in the all-volunteer Basij force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, as authorities claimed. The semiofficial Fars news agency later reported that there were now questions about the government’s claims that he served.

Iran’s civilian government under reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian has been trying to signal it wants to negotiate with protesters. However, Pezeshkian has acknowledged there is not much he can do as Iran’s rial has rapidly depreciated, with $1 now costing some 1.4 million rials. That sparked the initial protests.

The protests, taking root in economic issues, have heard demonstrators chant against Iran’s theocracy as well. Tehran has had little luck in propping up its economy in the months since the June war.

Iran recently said it was no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic program to ease sanctions. However, those talks have yet to happen as Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned Tehran against reconstituting its atomic program.

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian officials said Thursday that a Ukrainian drone strike killed 24 people and wounded at least 50 more as they celebrated the new year in a Russian-occupied village in Ukraine’s Kherson region.

Three drones struck a cafe and hotel in the resort town of Khorly on the Black Sea coast, the region’s Moscow-installed leader Vladimir Saldo said in a statement on Telegram. He said that one of the drones carried an incendiary mixture, sparking a blaze.

Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment on the claim of a strike. The attack could not be independently verified by the Associated Press.

The attack was condemned by a number of Russian officials as tensions between the two nations continue to spike despite diplomats hailing productive peace talks.

Valentina Matviyenko, the chair of Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, said that the strike “strengthened” Russia’s resolve to quickly achieve its goals in its almost four-year invasion of Ukraine.

The strike “once again demonstrates the validity of our initial demands,” Matviyenko said.

The statement follows claims from Moscow that Ukraine launched a long-range drone attack against one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s official residences in northwestern Russia on Tuesday. Kyiv has denounced the claims as a “lie.”

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Thursday that its specialists had accessed the navigation system in one of the drones it claimed was used in the Tuesday attack and used its data to confirm that Putin’s residence was the drone’s final destination.

The claim could not be verified as the ministry did not share evidence on the findings, but officials said that it would transfer the data to U.S. officials “through established channels.”

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

The nighttime clip showed a man wearing camouflage, a helmet, and a Kevlar vest standing near a damaged drone lying in snow. The man, his face covered, talks about the drone. Neither the man nor the Defense Ministry provided any location or date and neither the video nor its claims could be independently verified.

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, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that a peace deal was “90% ready” but warned that the remaining 10%, 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 Wednesday that he, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner had a “productive call” with the national security advisers of Britain, France, Germany, and Ukraine “to discuss advancing the next steps in 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 Saturday. Zelensky is due to hold talks next week with European leaders.

In the diplomatic sphere, Kyiv has also continued to push the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to take action against Russia for alleged attacks on electricity infrastructure deemed “critical for nuclear safety and security” at Ukraine’s nuclear power stations.

The IAEA on Tuesday published a Note Verbale sent by Kyiv to the agency, saying that a Russian drone and missile attack on Dec. 23 had caused certain Ukrainian nuclear power plants to lose a “significant part of their off-site power connections.”

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 that a two-story residential building was damaged and that a drone hit an apartment on the 17th floor of a high-rise building without detonating. There were no casualties reported.

In its daily report, Ukraine’s air force said air defense forces had downed or suppressed 176 of 205 drones targeting the country overnight. It said hits by 24 strike drones were recorded at 15 locations and the attack was still ongoing.