• A 'Super Scooper' firefighting plane was grounded after hitting a drone in the skies over LA.
• It's one of only two Super Scooper planes helping fight the wildfires ravaging the area.
• The FAA has placed flight restrictions over much of LA's airspace since Thursday afternoon.

One of only two Super Scooper planes helping to fight the Los Angeles wildfires has been taken out of action after it collided with a drone.

In a statement, the Federal Aviation Administration said that the aircraft landed safely, but LA County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone told the LA Times that it was damaged in the encounter on Thursday.

"We hit a drone this afternoon — first one," Marrone said.

"It put a hole in the wing," he added. "It's grounded now."

The aircraft, named the Quebec 1, struck the drone at around 1 p.m. Thursday, according to the LA County Fire Department.

Fire services have been operating two Canadair CL-415 firefighting aircraft, known as Super Scoopers, as well as several other aircraft to try to combat the massive wildfires ravaging Southern California.

The planes are fitted with tanks that skim from large bodies of water to "scoop" it up and then drop it on fires from above.

"Flying a drone near a wildfire is dangerous and can cost lives," the FAA said in its statement, adding that it's a federal crime to interfere with firefighting efforts on public lands, punishable by up to a year in prison.

There's also a civil penalty of up to $75,000 for drone operators who interfere with emergency and wildfire responders during temporary flight restrictions, it said.

As of 4.18 p.m. local time on Thursday, the FAA issued the first of three NOTAM flight operating restrictions over large areas above the fires, to allow firefighting aircraft to operate.

The FAA statement said that when people fly drones near wildfires, fire response agencies often ground their aircraft to avoid the potential for a midair collision.

"Delaying airborne response poses a threat to firefighters on the ground, residents, and property in nearby communities, and it can allow wildfires to grow larger," it said.

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesperson Chris Thomas told military news site The War Zone that the damaged Super Scooper was one of only two in its arsenal.

He also said that other aircraft fighting the blazes had been temporarily grounded as well.

"This is creating a huge danger," Thomas added. "This is an unprecedented fire. When we ground all aircraft, it could be anywhere from 15 minutes to half an hour. You know how far a fire can spread in half an hour."

As of early Friday, almost 36,000 acres had been set on fire, according to official figures.

The drone operator has not been identified, but there has been speculation online, with many social media users pointing to photography accounts that have posted aerial images of the fires.

Consumer drones hit the headlines last month after a spate of drone sightings over the East Coast raised public anxiety, even after the White House and Pentagon said the drones didn't pose a threat.

• Wildfires are rampaging across Los Angeles County this week.
• Hundreds of thousands of people are under evacuation orders or warnings.
• Insured losses could top $20 billion, JPMorgan analysts estimated — the most-ever in California.

The Los Angeles area is battling a series of massive wildfires that continue to rip through its picturesque mountains and hillsides — creating a hellscape of burned-out neighborhoods and livelihoods that could end up being the most costly fire disaster in California history.

JPMorgan analysts said the blazes tearing through the region could lead to more than $20 billion in insured losses — and around $50 billion in total economic losses. That would make these conflagrations "significantly more severe" than the Camp Fires that struck the state in 2018 and racked up $10 billion in insured losses, the current record.

More than 1,500 displaced people were being housed in shelters on Thursday night, authorities said, and an additional 200,000 people had been placed under evacuation warnings — with officials advising them to be ready to leave their homes if fires move closer to their residences.

A curfew is in effect in impacted areas under evacuation orders until 6 a.m. Friday, Los Angeles County said.

Thick bands of smoke could be seen in several directions from the city's downtown core — with at least five fires burning throughout the 4,000 square-mile county that's home to nearly 10 million people.

More than 35,000 acres have burned so far, with the LA County Medical Examiner reporting 10 deaths as of 9 p.m. local time on Thursday.

Over 10,000 homes and other structures have been destroyed, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman described the scene in LA as apocalyptic.

"Not since the 1990s, when Los Angeles was hit with the fires, the flood, the earthquake, and the riots, have I seen such disaster occur here in our city," Hochman said at a briefing, referring to the Northridge Earthquake and the disturbances in the wake of the Rodney King verdict.

The National Weather Service predicted that the "red flag warning" signaling high fire danger will persist for LA County and nearby Ventura County through Friday.

But there was some brightening on the horizon: Officials said weather conditions are beginning to turn favorably for firefighters.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said at a Thursday briefing that twenty people had been arrested on suspicion of looting in areas affected by the fires.

Luna issued a stern warning to the public: Anyone who remains in areas under mandatory evacuation orders is guilty of a misdemeanor, and his officers will begin enforcing that. Beyond that, crimes like looting could reach the felony level, he said.

In an X post on Thursday night, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said that "taking advantage "of evacuated communities is "absolutely sick," and said that "looting will not be tolerated."

In a separate post on Thursday night, Newsom said that over 8,000 firefighting personnel, as well as over 600 California Guard members, 991 fire engines, and 40 helicopters were hard at work battling the wildfires.

Late Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration warned civilians against flying unauthorized drones in areas undergoing firefighting efforts, after a firefighting plane sustained wing damage from a civilian drone and had to be grounded.

Meanwhile, around 95,000 power customers remain in the dark, Janisse Quiñones, the CEO and chief engineer of the city's Department of Water and Power, said.

Satellite images of the LA fires showed the destruction left in their wake.

Starlink, Elon Musk's SpaceX subsidiary that provides satellite internet service, said on Thursday that people in the Los Angeles area can use the company's network to text loved ones, contact 911, and receive emergency alerts.

Here's a look at the latest happenings in the main fires spreading throughout the area:

Palisades Fire

The Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades area north of Santa Monica was the first fire to strike the region on Tuesday morning. It has spread to nearly 20,000 acres, making it one of the worst natural disasters in LA history, officials said Thursday.

Data from state agency CalFire early on Friday showed that the fire was 6% contained.

Los Angeles City's Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said in a Thursday briefing that the Palisades Fire had damaged or destroyed more than 5,300 structures.

Around 2,300 firefighters were tackling the blaze as of early Friday, LAFD spokesperson Capt. Adam VanGerpen told CNN.

Wind gusts in the area have calmed down since their Tuesday highs of nearly 100 mph, and are forecast to reduce to around 20 mph on Friday.

Crowley would not confirm reports that the fire started in a resident's garden, saying the origin is still under investigation.

Some celebrities have lost homes in the blaze, including Paris Hilton and Billy Crystal.

Eaton Fire

The second-largest fire in Los Angeles County is the Eaton Fire, which started on Tuesday evening in the Pasadena-Altadena area at the foothills of the Angeles National Forest.

The blaze has spread to over 13,000 acres and is zero percent contained, according to CalFire early on Friday.

About 5,000 structures have been damaged by the Eaton Fire, authorities said on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.

Hurst Fire

The Hurst Fire, which began late on Tuesday night in the northern part of the San Fernando Valley, spread to 771 acres as of early Friday, according to data from CalFire.

CalFire estimated it was 37% contained as of early Friday.

LAFD's Crowley said firefighters have been able to hold the fire within a containment area and had established a perimeter.

In an X post on Thursday afternoon, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the mandatory evacuation order for the Hurst Fire had been lifted.

Sunset Fire and others

The Sunset Fire broke out in the Runyon Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills on Wednesday evening, quickly spreading to scorch over 40 acres and threaten major LA landmarks.

As of Thursday morning, firefighters were able to stop the fire's forward progress, Crowley said.

All evacuation orders related to the Sunset Fire were lifted as of 7:30 a.m. Thursday, she added.

A large structure fire consumed two large homes in the Studio City area but firefighters were able to stop its forward growth at just one acre and prevent another brushfire, Crowley said.

Another fire, the Kenneth Fire, started on Thursday afternoon near Calabasas and Hidden Hills, north of the Palisades Fire. The fire quickly grew from 50 acres to almost 1,000 acres in less than a few hours, according to Cal Fire.

On Thursday night, the Ventura County Fire Department said that firefighters had stopped the forward progress of the fire, with the blaze holding at 960 acres with 0% containment.

It was 35% contained as of the early hours of Friday.

A mandatory evacuation order was issued for several neighborhoods near the fire.

LAPD said it had detained a possible arson suspect, but could not confirm any connection to the fire.

An evacuation notice intended for residents impacted by the Kenneth Fire was mistakenly sent out across LA County due to a "technical error," County Supervisor Janice Hahn said in an X post.

Yet another fire, the Lidia Fire, started Wednesday afternoon in Acton near the Antelope Valley, about 20 miles northeast of the San Fernando Valley. It spread to consume 394 acres but has been 75% contained, per CalFire.

One of the fires has been 100% contained. The Woodley Fire, which began Wednesday morning in the southern part of the San Fernando Valley, has been suppressed and there are no current threats, Crowley said.

Patrols were monitoring the area for any flare-ups, she added.

Events canceled and landmarks closed as smoke chokes LA

Major and minor events alike have been canceled or postponed across the LA area as the city battles the fires.

The 30th Annual Critics Choice Awards, set for Sunday night, were rescheduled for January 26. A National Hockey League game between the Los Angeles Kings and the Calgary Flames, scheduled for Wednesday night at Crypto.com arena, was postponed. The LA Lakers rescheduled Thursday night's game.

Music venues across the city were also canceling or postponing their shows, including The Troubadour, The Wiltern, The Echo, the Kia Forum, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and others.

Flights into and out of LAX, Hollywood Burbank Airport, Ontario International Airport, and Santa Ana's John Wayne Airport were also experiencing delays and cancellations on Thursday.

The fires are also shuttering tourist attractions in and around Los Angeles, which attracts nearly 50 million visitors a year.

The fires forced some Los Angeles-area landmarks to close, including the Hollywood sign, the Los Angeles Zoo, the Broad Museum, the Norton Simon Museum, the Getty Villa and Getty Center, Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal CityWalk, and the Griffith Observatory.

Airbnb told CNN that it would be allowing refunds for bookings in areas affected by the wildfires, following a viral social media post from a customer who said the company refused to offer her a refund.

California already struggled with an insurance crisis

The devastating fires this week will likely only worsen California's ongoing insurance crisis, where many homebuyers already struggle to get approved for loans, home insurance, and fire insurance — even in areas outside the typical risk zones.

In recent years, some insurance companies, like State Farm, have stopped accepting new home insurance policies in the state entirely, as wildfire risks have only increased.

Experts told Business Insider that prices are likely to continue rising for those who can still get insurance.

"I've seen numbers go up 200%, 300%, even 500% in a year," Nick Ramirez, the owner of a California insurance agency, told BI.

And as the fires' estimated damages already climb into the billions of dollars, some homeowners will have to rebuild without the help of insurance payouts.

"These fires will likely be the costliest in history, not the deadliest, and that is the only silver lining right now," Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA, told LAist.

This a developing story. Please check back for updates.

• Firefighters in LA have limited options against blazes so huge.
• Common tactics like firebreaks, controlled burns, and dousing vital buildings face big hurdles.
• A wildfire expert told BI that the fire is unlikely to be put out until LA's winds change.

Firefighters confronting the Los Angeles wildfires face hurdles to many tactics in their arsenal as they try to tame some 27,000 burning acres.

As of Thursday, more than 1,400 firefighters were battling several blazes with both ground crews and airdrops.

The firefighters of California "are amongst the best-trained and best-equipped wildfire fighters anywhere in the world," said Stefan Doerr, a professor of wildland fire science at the UK's Swansea University.

But, he told Business Insider, "they are really challenged by the fact that the winds are so extreme, as well as having several large fires burning at the same time."

His conclusion: Until the winds fanning the blazes die down, "putting out a fire like this is essentially impossible."

Numerous California officials gave a similar assessment, saying there was no immediate prospect of containing the fires.

'Not prepared'

Anthony Marrone, the fire chief of the County of Los Angeles Fire Department, told local outlet 6ABC: "LA County and all 29 fire departments in our county are not prepared for this type of widespread disaster."

They could handle one or two major fires, he said, "but not four."

Doerr, who did not have direct information about the LA fire services' plans, walked BI through some tactics generally used for major wildfires, and their limitations in combatting these fires.

1) Attack from the side

"This fire is very complex," said Doerr, pointing to the number of distinct blazes, some expanding in several directions at once.

Most of the fires were being pushed toward the sea by powerful inland air currents known as Santa Ana winds.

Doerr said there it is too dangerous to approach so huge a fire from the front, where it burns most intensely.

"It's usually attacked on the side to basically shrink the overall fire front," he said.

2) Use — or make — firebreaks

Common tactics include removing flammable material with bulldozers, he said. "Removing the vegetation is much more effective than trying to fight a fire like this with water."

The problem is that LA's topography is complex, making it hard to remove vegetation, he said.

"That leaves the firefighting forces with limited opportunities," he said. One option is to take advantage of natural firebreaks, such as roads and rivers, or other spots with no flammable vegetation, he said.

There, firefighters could wet the area or use a fire retardant to slow the fire, he said.

Even that, Doerr said, is "very, very challenging" in this instance.

"Even if they are able to basically stop the flames from moving over, say, a road or something directly, the strong winds often mean that you have embers flying over large distances," he said, adding that in some fires, these can travel miles.

That could, in turn, spark more fires, leapfrogging the barriers.

3) Soak important buildings

"When we see firefighters using water, it's often to protect properties — to stop them burning, rather than stopping the entire fire," Doerr said.

As well as ground crews, Chinook helicopters have been dropping thousands of gallons of water on the fire. "It's like having six fire trucks show up to your house every 10 minutes," Wayne Coulson, CEO of the Coulson Group, told Global News.

The fires have put immense strain on LA's water supply.

Three huge tanks of a million gallons each serving the Pacific Palisades ran dry within hours under "tremendous demand," said Janisse Quiñones, chief engineer and CEO of the LA department of water and power, according to The Guardian.

"We're fighting a wildfire with urban water systems, and that is really challenging," Quiñones said, per the paper.

4) Accept losses and prioritize

So many structures are under threat that it is impossible to protect all of them with water. Here, tough decisions have to be made, with important buildings like hospitals likely to receive priority, Doerr said.

More than 1,000 buildings have been destroyed, including the homes of celebrities like Paris Hilton and Billy Crystal.

Another extreme option would be to bulldoze whole streets to create a firebreak, Doerr said.

It would be a desperate measure against some of the most costly properties in the world — but "it's still cheaper than having it burn down, and burning the next building along the road," he said.

"Whether they take these extreme measures at the moment, I don't know, but they have done this in the past in extreme fires," he added.

Some tactics are likely out of bounds

One option that is likely out of reach is what Doerr called a "tactical burn."

When tackling some seasonal wildfires, firefighters light a smaller, controlled fire in the path of the main flames to burn away the available fuel, he said.

This can be really effective — but with the strong winds in LA, it risks making things even worse, Doerr said.

"Otherwise you're just going to generate a new fire that's going to burn further on," he said.

Waiting for the wind to change

Observers are anxiously keeping tabs on a key metric — the percentage of containment of the fire.

But it's often misunderstood. "'Contained' means that you basically stopped the edges of the fire from moving further," said Doerr. 100% containment means authorities are reasonably sure the fire can no longer spread, he said. From there, it can burn itself out.

According to the fire service, two smaller fires were partially contained as of early Thursday, at 10% and 40% each. The larger ones were at 0%.

For all their efforts, LA's firefighters are largely "at the mercy of the weather," Doerr said.

"In reality, most fires of such extremity tend to be stopped by a change in weather," he added.

Winds, which on Thursday were gusting up to 25 mph, are forecast by the National Weather Service to slow down to a maximum of 15 mph by Friday evening, offering the best opportunity yet to stop the blaze.

Until then, Doerr said, "putting out a fire like this is essentially impossible."

• Firestorms in Los Angeles have burned nearly 27,000 acres, destroying homes and killing five people.
• One of the biggest blazes, the Palisades Fire, could be the costliest in US history.
• The fires have spread so fast in part because of a windstorm and flood-drought whiplash.

All was well in Los Angeles at around 10 a.m. on Tuesday.

Less than 24 hours later, 2,925 acres of the Pacific Palisades were ablaze in what is being called the worst wildfire in Southern California since 2011. It has grown by orders of magnitude since.

Several more blazes have ignited in the area, with one, the Eaton Fire, engulfing another 10,600 acres.

Firefighters had not contained the fires as of early Thursday morning, the Los Angeles Fire Department said. On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom told CNN that five people were dead, and "likely more."

More than 1,000 structures have burned and the fires could get even worse.

California is no stranger to fires, but this situation is different and especially dangerous for a few reasons.

An 'urban firestorm' that could be the costliest in history

Few brush fires in California history have intruded into such vast areas of dense, urban housing.

The UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain called it an "urban firestorm" as he assessed live images of the developing Eaton Fire on Tuesday morning.

Perhaps the best historical comparison is the 1991 Tunnel Fire, which raged through more than 1,500 acres of Oakland, but it was smaller than either of the two giant blazes in Los Angeles. It killed 25 people and injured 150, and ranks as the third-deadliest and third-most-destructive fire in California history.

The true toll of this week's fires won't be clear until later.

Swain said that he and several colleagues have estimated that the Palisades Fire could be the costliest on record in the US because of the number of structures burning and the fact that those homes are some of the most expensive in the world.

"We are looking at what is, I think, likely to become the costliest wildfire disaster in California, if not national history, along with a number of other superlatives," Swain said.

A historic windstorm spread the fire fast

A powerful windstorm buffeted the flames throughout Tuesday and into Wednesday morning, with gusts of wind reaching up to 90 miles an hour, according to the National Weather Service.

During a 2 ½ hour period overnight, the Palisades Fire's size more than doubled, per the fire service's reports.

The winds were so powerful on Tuesday evening that water- and retardant-dropping aircraft could not fly.

It's a phenomenon that scientists have warned about: a deadly combination of high winds and dry, open land — such as the brushland now being swept by flames in Los Angeles — amounting to fires that move faster than emergency responders can keep up with.

"It's certainly unusual how fast it's grown," Douglas Kelley, a researcher at the UK's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, told Business Insider. "It's definitely a lot faster than I guess a lot of people were expecting in the area at the time."

A study published in Science in October found that while only about 3% of US fires over a nearly two-decade period could be considered "fast fires," they caused disproportionate damage.

"The most destructive and deadly wildfires in US history were also fast," wrote the study's authors, led by University of Colorado Boulder's Jennifer Balch.

Between 2001 and 2020, fast fires accounted for 78% of fire-destroyed buildings and a full 61% of suppression costs — or $18.9 billion, the scientists wrote. And they are getting more frequent, the study said.

The windstorm was bad luck. But the other primary factor in the fires' rapid explosions — the fuel — is strongly linked to the climate crisis.

Weather whiplash made abundant fire fuel

Southern California has experienced heavy rainfall and flooding the past two winters — which is a huge part of the problem.

Abundant rainfall spurred an explosion of grasses and brush, the primary fire fuel in Southern California. Then, with very little rainfall in the past few months, all that vegetation was flash-dried.

Kelley said those dry conditions made the Palisades especially susceptible to a fast-spreading fire.

This is part of a growing phenomenon that Swain calls "hydroclimate whiplash," or weather whiplash. As global temperatures rise, many parts of the world, especially California, are seeing more violent swings between extreme wet and extreme dry conditions.

The same confluence of weather whiplash and extreme winds was behind the Camp Fire, Swain said. That November 2018 blaze in Paradise, California, was the deadliest and most destructive in the state's history, destroying 18,804 structures and killing 85 people.

• 3,800 North Koreans have been killed or wounded fighting alongside Russia, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
• But Ukraine's president told the Lex Fridman podcast that hundreds of thousands more could arrive.
• The estimate came amid a discussion of the danger to Europe if the US leaves NATO.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a podcast interview released Sunday that 3,800 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded in Russia's Kursk region to date.

Zelenskyy's figure suggests that a third of the North Korean troops brought over to fight alongside Russia have been taken out of action.

"12,000 has arrived. Today, 3,800 killed or wounded," he told podcaster Lex Fridman, but he cautioned that North Korea could send many more, giving a figure as high as half a million troops.

Estimates of North Korean casualties have varied since intelligence agencies reported in October that it was sending troops to help Russian President Vladimir Putin defend territory seized by Ukraine in the summer.

In late December, the White House estimated that more than 1,000 North Koreans had been killed or wounded in the space of a single week, amid mass dismounted attacks.

And in his nightly address on Saturday, Zelenskyy said that the Russian army had lost "up to a battalion of infantry, including North Korean soldiers and Russian paratroopers," in fighting in the village of Makhnovka in Kursk.

Concerns for Europe

Zelenskyy offered the latest casualty figures as part of a broader argument about the dangers to Europe if the US retreats from NATO.

President-elect Donald Trump has long been critical of NATO and the defense spending of some of its members, leading to concerns that he could slash support for the alliance or even walk away.

Zelenskyy said that if Trump decides to leave NATO once back in office, "Putin will destroy Europe."

He also argued that European countries are much less willing and able to raise massive armies compared to an autocracy like North Korea.

While Ukraine has around 980,000 military personnel, the militaries of its European allies are a fraction of the size, Zelenskyy said.

"Can Europe bring people together? No," he said. "Will Europe be able to build an army consisting of two to three million people? No, Europe will not want to do this."

Dmytro Ponomarenko, Ukraine's ambassador to South Korea, told Voice of America in November that the number of North Korean troops aiding Russia could soon reach 15,000, with troops rotated out every two to three months.

That could mean about 100,000 North Korean soldiers serving in Russia within a year, he added.

• Russia is planning to move military gear from its naval base in Syria, Ukrainian intelligence says.
• It comes amid uncertainty around Russia's role in Syria following the fall of Bashar Assad.
• Ukraine said the military equipment was headed for Libya, where Russia has a strong influence.

Russian ships are preparing to transport military equipment from a naval base in Syria to Libya after the fall of Bashar Assad late last year, according to Ukrainian intelligence.

Defense Intelligence of Ukraine wrote on Telegram on Friday that two cargo ships, the Sparta and the Sparta II, were headed toward the Syrian port of Tartus, with the first set to arrive on January 5.

It said they will be used to transport military equipment and weapons to Libya.

DI Ukraine also said that three other ships — the Alexander Otrakovsky, an Ivan Gren-class large landing ship, and the tanker Ivan Skobelev — are scheduled to arrive in Tartus in the coming days.

Ukraine did not say how it obtained the information, which Business Insider was unable to independently verify.

The flurry of movement comes around a month after the fall of Bashar Assad, the longtime ruler of Syria who was considered a close Russian ally.

Assad's ousting, following a rapid two-week campaign by rebel groups, was seen as a sign of the weakening of Russia's grip on the region.

Last month, Ukraine said that Russia was sending vessels to evacuate weapons and military equipment from Tartus.

Russia's lease on the Syrian naval base, as well as its air base at Hmeimim, gave it sweeping abilities to conduct military activity across Africa and the Mediterranean.

Its hold on those bases is now unclear, although in a recent interview Syria's de facto leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, said, "We don't want Russia to exit Syria in a way that undermines its relationship with our country," Radio Free Europe reported.

In its Telegram post, Ukraine said that Africa Corps troops — Russian mercenaries previously under the control of the now-defunct Wagner Group — were also gathered at Tartus.

It added that a Russian naval brigade commander, Davityan Yuriy Albertovich, was reportedly on board one of the ships.

Russia's Ministry of Defence did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Libya, where Russian equipment is said to be headed, is a major hub for Russian activities in Africa, according to a July 2024 Atlantic Council report.

"Strategically positioned at the crossroads of Africa and Europe, it provides Russia with a gateway to its operations in Sudan, Chad, Niger, and other Sahel and Central Africa countries, eventually projecting power and influence across these regions," it said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine said it is readying to increase its involvement with Syria, which is under the effective control of rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he planned to re-establish diplomatic relations with the country "after years of Russian interference," adding that "I really hope that post-Assad Syria will respect international law."

He also said he is readying to supply Syria with grain, according to RBC-Ukraine.

Hyunseung Lee and his family defected from North Korea in 2014 after a series of violent executions by North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un. Despite living a privileged life in the elite class of Pyongyang and serving in the North Korean special forces, he feared for his safety.

He tells Business Insider how he escaped to the United States. He also discusses brutal conditions inside the hermit kingdom, how law and order are maintained, and the social hierarchy. He covers public attitudes toward Kim Jong Un and the past dictators, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. He also explains what North Korean propaganda is like, what Hollywood movies and TV shows are shown to the public, and why he believes the North Korean Storm Corps troops will fail in Ukraine.

He now works as a consultant for the Global Peace Foundation in Washington, DC.

• Industrial production has screeched to a halt in Transnistria after Russian gas flows were halted.
• The breakaway region of Moldova is heavily dependent on cheap Russian gas flowing via Ukraine.
• But Ukraine ended its agreement to transit the gas, plunging the region into an energy crisis.

A breakaway region of Europe has been forced to halt almost all industrial production after Ukraine ended the transit of Russian gas through its territory.

"All industrial enterprises are idle, with the exception of those engaged in food production — that is, directly ensuring food security," Transnistria's first deputy prime minister, Sergei Obolonik, said, per Reuters.

Obolonik said it was "too early" to say what will unfold, but the region risks "irreversible" changes if the problem isn't quickly resolved.

"Enterprises will lose their ability to start up," he added.

Transnistria, an autonomous region that broke off from Moldova in the 1990s, has been one of the hardest-hit following Ukraine's decision not to renew a gas transit agreement with Russia on January 1.

The pipeline's shutdown marked the end of an era for Russia's oldest gas route to Europe.

Almost a hundred large- and medium-sized industrial enterprises operate in Transnistria, according to its chamber of commerce.

The region is pro-Russia and is largely Russian-speaking. It hosts about 1,500 Russian soldiers, ostensibly on national security grounds.

In December, its government said that it was "making every possible effort to maintain natural gas supplies" in the face of the Ukrainian decision, and blamed Moldova for not taking joint steps to ensure the supply.

But on Monday, local energy company Tirasteploenergo warned that it would cut heating and hot water to homes starting January 1, reserving supplies for hospitals.

The company advised families to seal drafts and gather in a single room to save heat.

It suggested sealing cracks in windows and balcony doors, hanging blankets over them, and putting all family members in one room, warning that temperatures could drop to 23 degrees Fahrenheit in the capital, Tiraspol.

Some towns have set up "heating points" and local authorities are offering hotlines to help people find firewood, the BBC reported.

The region's leader, Vadim Krasnoselsky, has said that it has up to 20 days of gas reserves, and that energy production has switched from gas to coal, according to Reuters.

He added that there should be electricity for households through January and February.

Ahead of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Europe sourced around 40% of its gas from Russia. But the war sparked an unprecedented resolve to reduce countries' dependence on Russian energy.

Many have cut their reliance and found alternative, often more expensive, sources of gas.

The loss of Russian gas will badly impact Transnistria's economy, since the region has been getting gas basically free of charge from Russian state-owned giant Gazprom.

Moldova, an EU candidate country, could also be badly hit, as it gets 80% of its energy from a power plant in Transnistria. It faces a major hike in energy costs amid plans to switch sources, the BBC reported.

Other European nations could also be badly impacted, and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has appealed to the EU to find a way to keep Russian gas flowing via Ukraine.

"Halting gas transit via Ukraine will have a drastic impact on us all in the EU — but not on the Russian Federation," Fico said in a New Year's address.

• The suspect in the New Orleans attack was interviewed by a journalist back in 2015.
• The reporter said the suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, gave "no red flags."
• Jabbar talked about the difficulties of adjusting to civilian life after serving in the Army.

A reporter has spoken about an interview he conducted 10 years ago with the man now suspected of conducting Wednesday's deadly attack in New Orleans.

The suspect, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was named by the FBI following the attack, which saw a pickup truck drive into crowds on Bourbon Street at around 3.15 a.m. on New Year's Day, killing 15 people and injuring at least 35 others.

Jabbar was shot and killed by police.

Sean Keenan, a freelance contributor to The New York Times, said he recognized Jabbar from a photo shared by the FBI, and said he interviewed him for Georgia State University's college newspaper in 2015.

Keenan told CNN his "head was spinning" when he found out.

Jabbar attended Georgia State University between 2015 and 2017, studying computer information systems, according to the Times.

Keenan interviewed him back then for an article about the difficulties veterans have adjusting to post-military life.

"What little I remember about that interview was a very cool, calm and collected guy," Keenan told CNN. "Nothing about his character threw any red flags."

Keenan said he recalled Jabbar as having a "pretty reserved demeanor" and being "a little bit distant" in a way he said was familiar with veterans who had difficult deployments.

Jabbar, who served in the Army between 2007 and 2015, was deployed to Afghanistan between February 2009 and January 2010, military spokespersons said Wednesday.

He worked as a human resources specialist there, the Times reported, and later served in the Army Reserve until 2020, per the outlet.

In the interview with Keenan, reproduced in the Times on Wednesday, Jabbar talked about problems he was having adjusting to civilian language, compared to the military jargon he was used to.

"The culture isn't too much different but once you get out of the military there's so many different acronyms you've learned," Jabbar said. "You're not sure what terms are used outside of the military."

He also said he had a good experience with the university's military outreach center.

Police said they found an ISIS flag in the Ford F-150 pick-up truck used in Wednesday's attack, and authorities are investigating Jabbar's potential connection to terrorist organizations.

Chris Pousson, a retired Air Force veteran and former schoolmate of Jabbar's, told the Times that after they reconnected on Facebook in 2015, he noticed Jabbar posting a lot about his faith.

"It was never Muslim extremist stuff, and he was never threatening any violence, but you could see that he had gotten really passionate," he said.

Pousson and other former acquaintances described Jabbar as quiet and polite, per the outlet.

Reflecting on his old interview, Keenan told CNN he is "still processing it all."

• FBI identified Shamsud-Din Jabbar as the suspect in the New Orleans truck attack.
• Jabbar, now deceased, was a US citizen from Texas and had a criminal record.
• At least 15 people were confirmed dead, and dozens more were injured.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has identified the suspect in Wednesday's deadly attack in New Orleans as Shamsud-Din Jabbar.

The agency said Jabbar, who was confirmed dead after a shootout with police, was a 42-year-old US citizen from Texas. His actions are being investigated as a terrorist attack.

At least 15 people are confirmed dead, and dozens more were injured, after the suspect drove a truck into crowds on Bourbon Street at about 3:15 a.m. on New Year's Day. Two police officers were shot but are in stable condition.

The FBI said an ISIS flag, as well as weapons and a "potential" improvised explosive device, were found in the Ford F-150 pick-up truck Jabbar used.

It added other IEDs were found in the French Quarter, and the agency is investigating Jabbar's potential connection to terrorist organizations.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told NBC News that "multiple individuals" were involved, and that they had rented a house from Airbnb.

"There was a house fire in New Orleans this morning that was connected to this event where we believe the IEDs were being made," she added.

President Joe Biden said in a press conference that, hours before the attack, Jabbar had posted videos "inspired by ISIS, expressing a desire to kill."

Jabbar's criminal record, obtained from the Texas Department of Public Safety and viewed by Business Insider, shows two prior arrests in 2002 and 2005.

The first was for theft of $50-$500. The other was for driving with an invalid license. Both were classified as misdemeanors.

FBI Assistant Special Agent Alethea Duncan said in a press conference that the FBI does not believe Jabbar acted alone. She did not specify how many additional suspects the agency is investigating.

"We are aggressively running down every lead, including those of his known associates," Duncan said. "We're asking anyone who has information, video, or pictures to provide it to the FBI."

She later added that Jabbar was an Army veteran, and the FBI believes he was honorably discharged.

US military spokespersons told media on Wednesday evening that Jabbar had served in the Army from 2007 to 2015, during which he was deployed to Afghanistan from February 2009 to January 2010.

He filled information technology and human resource roles at the time and was later an information technology specialist in the Army Reserve from 2016 until 2020. He left the military as a staff sergeant.

Jabbar also graduated from Georgia State University in 2017 after studying information technology, per an online résumé reviewed by CNN.

Sean Keenan, a freelance journalist for The New York Times, reported that he had interviewed Jabbar in 2015 for Georgia State University's newspaper. Jabbar told Keenan that he had difficulty adjusting back to civilian life — particularly with getting used to non-military speech.

"You may have a lot of skills and training from the Army," Jabbar was quoted as saying in the article. "But you may not be able to speak the language to really translate it and be understood when you apply for a civilian job."

Jabbar had also complained that bureaucracy in the Department of Veteran Affairs meant he might not receive his benefits if he made small mistakes on his paperwork.

Based on Jabbar's resume, CNN reported that he worked at Deloitte and Accenture, two of the biggest consultancies. A Deloitte spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement that he worked in a "staff-level role" since his 2021 hiring.

"We are shocked to learn of reports today that the individual identified as a suspect had any association with our firm," the Deloitte statement said. "Like everyone, we are outraged by this shameful and senseless act of violence and are doing all we can to assist authorities in their investigation."

Accenture did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Jabbar also held a real estate license in Texas from 2019 to 2023. He took classes in real estate from 2018 to 2021, per the Texas Real Estate Commission.

Citing court documents, CNN reported he had been divorced twice, although The New York Times reported him as having only separated from his second wife.

His second wife had a temporary restraining order against him granted in 2020, per CNN.

According to the Times, Jabbar was divorced from his first wife in 2012, who has forbidden their two daughters from seeing him. Dwayne Marsh, her new husband, said that in recent months he had started acting strangely.

Jabbar's brother, Abdur, told the outlet that Jabbar had grown up as a Christian but converted to Islam many years ago.

"What he did does not represent Islam," the brother said. "This is more some type of radicalization, not religion."

Chris Pousson, a retired Air Force veteran who went to school with Jabbar and reconnected with him in 2015, told the outlet that he remembered Jabbar as "quiet, reserved, and really, really smart."

Jabbar was always polite and well-dressed, he said, and although he noticed Jabbar writing increasingly religious posts on Facebook around 2015, the latest news is "a complete 180 from the quiet, reserved person I knew."

Turo, a carsharing company, confirmed to BI that Jabbar used a truck rented through its app to carry out the attack and that it is "actively partnering with the FBI."

"We are not currently aware of anything in this guest's background that would have identified him as a trust and safety threat to us at the time of the reservation," a Turo spokesperson said.

The attack comes ahead of three major events in New Orleans, including the college football Sugar Bowl game, which was scheduled for January 1. Officials said it has been postponed 24 hours.

The city also has its annual Mardi Gras festivities starting on January 6 and the 59th Super Bowl scheduled for February 9.

• Authorities say a driver deliberately plowed into a crowd of people in New Orleans early Wednesday.
• 15 people were killed, and at least 35 more were injured.
• The suspect is a 42-year-old named Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, the FBI now says.

The man accused of plowing into a crowd in the heart of New Orleans in an ISIS-inspired attack that killed 15 people acted alone, an FBI official said Thursday.

Law enforcement officials identified the suspect in the attack as Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, a 42-year-old US Army veteran, and have described it as a premeditated act of terrorism.

Officials say he killed 14 people and injured at least 35 more others after driving into the crowd with a rented truck early on New Year's Day and started shooting before being killed in a shootout with police.

At a press conference Thursday, Christopher Raia, an FBI counterterrorism official involved in the investigation, walked back earlier claims that other people may have assisted Jabbar with the attack.

He said officials have since reviewed hundreds of hours of surveillance footage and other records, and believe Jabbar acted alone.

"We do not assess, at this point, that anyone else has been involved in this attack except for Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar," Raia said at the New Orleans press conference.

Raia also said investigators have not found any links between the New Orleans attack and a Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas outside a Trump hotel, while cautioning the investigations into each event were still in their early stages. Both trucks were rented through the vehicle-sharing app Turo, and officials say the perpetrator in the Las Vegas attack was an active-duty Army soldier.

"At this point, there's is no definitive link between the attack here in New Orleans and the one in Las Vegas," Raia said.

The truck slammed through Bourbon Street

New Orleans was still reeling Thursday after the driver, later identified as Jabbar, drove a rented Ford pickup truck through the crowd on Bourbon Street at about 3:15 a.m. on New Year's Day.

Several improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, were also found near the scene of the attack. An ISIS flag was found in the vehicle's trunk, according to Raia.

Raia said that authorities initially believed other people may have been involved in the attack because of witnesses who said they saw people setting down coolers containing the IEDs.

But surveillance footage showed that Jabbar set down coolers containing two IEDs himself, Raia said. According to Raia, footage showed other people later "checking out" the coolers, but they did not seem to have any role in the attack. Reports of additional IEDs could not be substantiated, Raia said.

Officials had also earlier said that a fire in a New Orleans house, which was rented from Airbnb, may have been where the IEDs were assembled. But authorities said at Thursday's press conference that they now believe the fire is likely unrelated to the attack.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said "information changes" as the investigation continues.

"No one dumps a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle and solves it in five seconds," he said at the press conference Thursday.

Jabbar's criminal record, obtained from the Texas Department of Public Safety and viewed by Business Insider, shows two prior arrests in 2002 and 2005. The first was for theft, while the other was for driving with an invalid license. Both were classified as misdemeanors.

Support for ISIS posted on Facebook

At Thursday's press conference, Raia said Jabbar rented the Ford truck in Houston on December 30 and headed to New Orleans on December 31.

He said Jabbar made a series of Facebook posts during his journey expressing support for ISIS and posting a last will and testament.

Raia also said that investigators believe Jabbar joined ISIS before this past summer.

In a statement to Business Insider, the car-sharing app Turo said Jabbar used its service to rent the truck.

"We are heartbroken to learn that one of our host's vehicles was involved in this awful incident," the statement reads. "We are actively partnering with the FBI. We are not currently aware of anything in this guest's background that would have identified him as a trust and safety threat to us at the time of the reservation."

Starting Wednesday evening, Texas authorities performed a search of a location in Houston believed to be linked to Jabbar, the FBI said.

At Thursday's press conference, officials said they had obtained two laptops and three phones connected to Jabbar, which they have been examining.

The agency said it's made no arrests but had deployed specialized personnel, including a SWAT team, crisis negotiators, and a bomb squad, to the Houston location.

The search finished early Thursday, with the agency saying that it could not release more information, but that "there is no threat to residents in that area."

Superintendent Anne E. Kirkpatrick of the New Orleans Police Department said during an earlier press conference that a man drove a pickup truck down Bourbon Street "at a very fast pace." Kirkpatrick said the man drove into the crowd intentionally.

She also said the driver shot two police officers, who she said were in stable condition.

Kirkpatrick said it appeared that most of those injured were locals rather than tourists.

Eyewitness accounts

NOLA Ready, the city's emergency preparedness campaign, had initially said there was "a mass casualty incident involving a vehicle that drove into a large crowd on Canal and Bourbon Street."

Kevin Garcia, a 22-year-old who was present at the time, told CNN, "All I seen was a truck slamming into everyone on the left side of Bourbon sidewalk."

He said that "a body came flying at me," and that he heard gunshots.

One witness told CBS that a driver plowed into the crowd on Bourbon Street at high speed and that the driver got out and started firing a weapon, with the police firing back.

Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana said on X on Wednesday that a "horrific act of violence took place on Bourbon Street earlier this morning."

"Please join Sharon and I in praying for all the victims and first responders on scene," he wrote, referring to his wife. "I urge all near the scene to avoid the area."

Bourbon Street, in the city's French Quarter, is a famous party destination.

Some streets in and around the French Quarter were due to be closed for New Year's celebrations, with Canal Street expected to stay open unless traffic got too bad, the local outlet Fox 8 WVUE-TV reported.

As a result of the attack, the Sugar Bowl football game between the University of Georgia and the University of Notre Dame was postponed from Wednesday night to Thursday afternoon.

Local officials tried to assure the public that the city was now safe, with additional law enforcement deployed everywhere.

"The city of New Orleans is not only ready for game day today but also to host large-scale events," New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said Thursday.

• I decided to cook five of the top-rated recipes of 2024 on The New York Times' Cooking app.
• Some dishes were a hit — while others left me frankly confused.
• Following the ranking, which is based on a popular vote, allowed me to broaden my food horizons.

As a personal treat this year, as part of Black Friday sales I finally took the plunge on something I've long coveted: a subscription to NYT Cooking.

The recipe juggernaut celebrated 10 years of publishing in September, following a massive expansion in 2021 and the development of a wildly successful app.

As a product, it's bolstered The New York Times' business model. Other publishers have tried to get in on the act, including The Guardian, which launched its own subscription-based food app, Feast, in April.

NYT Cooking says it published around 1,000 recipes in 2024, and it's clear that much of the appeal is on comfort food, un-fussy recipes, and shrewd attention to social media trends.

Last week, it released its annual top 50, which I took as a challenge.

I chose the five recipes with the highest number of ratings and which all had five stars at the time of writing (I couldn't obtain a key ingredient for one, so skipped to the sixth in that instance.)

Some recipes wowed me — while others left me frankly puzzled.

1. Creamy, Spicy Tomato Beans and Greens were incredibly moreish.

Creamy, Spicy Tomato Beans and Greens, published in April, was fourth on the list in terms of ratings, and I was excited to give it a try.

It's been quite the year for the humble bean. Beans and legume-based recipes have been all over my TikTok feed, and I can see why — they're cheap, easy to cook, vegan, and add heft and creaminess.

Combining cannellini beans with sun-dried tomatoes, cream and parmesan in this recipe — similar to the combo that's in the super-viral Marry Me Chicken — it was easy to see where the flavor was going to come from.

The most fun part was turning this, into this.

Into the pan went the onion, crushed pepper, and garlic, and then the beans and sauce.

It was beautiful to watch the sun-dried tomato and puree slowly melding into heavy cream.

What made the dish really work was the panko and arugula.

The beans themselves were hearty and rich — I couldn't finish a modest portion, but despite the description, the dish didn't come out remotely spicy. Perhaps the crushed red pepper I bought was milder than the recipe allows for.

Crusty bread with a drizzle of olive oil was also a must — as were the toasted Parmesan panko crumb and arugula, which added much-needed texture and freshness.

2. Something went terribly wrong with the Sticky Miso Salmon Bowl.

Third on the list was the Sticky Miso Salmon Bowl.

Everything about this dish — butter-laced sushi rice, tender broiled salmon in a sticky glaze of miso, honey, ginger, and grapefruit — called out to me.

But somewhere along the way, I messed up.

The glaze should taste amazing. But it didn't.

The recipe called for two teaspoons of fresh grapefruit zest. But as I tasted the glaze it was off-the-charts bitter.

I restarted with half as much zest and ended up with a marmalade-like substance to coat the salmon, hoping that the broiling process would mellow it out.

It didn't.

I'd cook the dish again, but would be much more careful.

It's clear that the grapefruit — citrusy, aromatic, and a little bitter — is the stand-out flavor twist for this recipe.

But either due to me messing up, or perhaps getting an extra-amped grapefruit, the result tasted harsh and metallic.

The sushi rice was glorious, however. Stirring butter and diced scallions in made it glossy and rich, an almost decadent accompaniment to the avocado.

Done right, this dish would pretty much be my dream meal, but I'll have to be extra careful next time around.

3. The Taverna Salad was a massive hit with my family.

Salad is generally my least favorite method of getting nutrients, so I wasn't too excited about this one, which was second on the list.

But the Taverna Salad is a good proposition — as the author says, it's based around a mashup of fattoush, a Lebanese dish, and Greek salad, making this a sort of Mediterranean super-salad.

Inside the dish are chickpeas, capers, tomatoes, red onion, parsley, scallions, cucumber, bell pepper, and Kalamata olives, along with cheese and croutons, and a garlic and red wine vinaigrette.

Fat and starch balance out the healthy parts.

You can make this dish with store-bought pita chips, but it's worth the effort to fry them fresh in lashings of oil.

And with the toasted halloumi, the residual warmth and fattiness makes the salad super moreish.

I took this one around to my parents' house, and it went down a storm, almost eclipsing the main event of steak.

There's plenty of salty 'meatiness' in the form of the capers, olives, and cheese to balance out the freshness and crunch of the vegetables.

4. One-Pot Chicken and Rice With Caramelized Lemon looked fancy but was super easy.

The One-Pot Chicken and Rice With Caramelized Lemon, which was top of the ranking, was rustic and full of flavor, and combined the richness of chicken fat with unctuous, caramelized lemon.

It's all done in stages but in a single pot.

This recipe works by browning off the chicken thighs and caramelizing the lemon slices separately, before starting the rice and broth in the same pan.

The dish is then topped with the chicken and lemon, and it all goes into the oven.

The result was deeply comforting.

This dish was delicious. But if I made it again, I'd make some adjustments — I ended up with way too much rice, and I needed to cook it in the oven for longer than stated, as my chicken was still a little pink.

I also used the leftover Kalamata olives from the Taverna Salad, which turned out a little too salty for my taste. The recipe says you can also use green olives, which is what I'll use next time.

5. I really wanted to love the Peanut Butter Noodles.

I wasn't able to make the Cheesy Green Chile Bean Bake, which was fifth on the list, due to not being able to get my hands on pinto beans, so I turned to the sixth choice, Peanut Butter Noodles.

The comment section on this recipe is a massive love-in — people are wild for this extremely simple dish.

"I wanted to eat this alone, naked, in a closet. It's that good," one commenter wrote.

I was curious to see for myself.

It's just 5 simple ingredients.

This dish involves just a handful of ingredients: noodles, butter, soy sauce, Parmesan, and, of course, peanut butter.

Everything about the recipe seems designed to be as simple as possible: You're encouraged to use the cheapest peanut butter you can find, and the noodles are from packet ramen.

You can also use spaghetti, so in the interests of science, I resolved to try both.

The spaghetti was a disaster, but the ramen worked well.

The dish is just a matter of cooking your spaghetti/ramen, then mixing some of the cooking water with the rest of the ingredients to make a glossy sauce.

As soon as I tasted the spaghetti version, I knew it wasn't for me: they were just too thick and heavy with the cloying sauce.

The texture with the springier noodles, however, had just the right chew.

Even so, I won't be making it again.

The recipe is clearly designed to be an umami-fest that you can blearily throw together after a night out. But it was just too bland and salty for me.

Overall, this was a great adventure for me and my assistant.

Before I started, I had hit a bit of a cooking rut and was fresh out of ideas.

It was brilliant to throw the choice open to the popular vote, and to see what people — 17,265 devoted NYT Cooking readers at the time of writing — were eating and loving.

Most of the five dishes were not recipes I would have chosen myself, but they've broadened my outlook — and I'll definitely be cooking some of them again soon.

• Mike Jeffries, the former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, likely has dementia, his lawyers say.
• Jeffries stands accused in an international sex-trafficking case.
• The illness means Jeffries won't be able to contribute to his own defense, his lawyers say.

Ex-Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries likely has dementia and possible Alzheimer's disease, casting doubt on his ability to stand trial in a sex-trafficking case, his lawyers have said.

According to court papers filed Monday and seen by Business Insider, a neuropsychologist has assessed that "the combination of Mr. Jeffries' cognitive impairments" means that he would be unable to contribute to his own defense.

Jeffries, 80, along with his partner Matthew Smith and a third man, were arrested in October on federal sex-trafficking charges.

Earlier this month, lawyers for Jeffries filed a motion to determine his competency to stand trial.

The neuropsychologist found "a significant neurological deficit" after examining him in October last year and said her "initial diagnostic impressions" were consistent with dementia, the latest filing states.

Follow-up tests this year gave further "diagnostic impressions" of dementia and "probable" late-onset Alzheimer's, it says.

A diagnostic impression is a preliminary assessment of a patient rather than a final diagnosis.

"The Michael Jeffries who presented himself did not even come close to resembling a Master's degree-educated individual," the filing said.

The issues include "impaired memory, diminished attention, processing speed slowness, and ease of confusion," it continued.

The doctor has deemed his disease to be "irreversible" and said it will worsen over time, the filing said.

A so-called competency hearing has been scheduled for June next year, the BBC reported.

Jeffries, who left Abercrombie & Fitch in 2014, has pleaded not guilty to the sex trafficking charges, as have Smith and the third accused man.

Prosecutors say that they ran an international sex trafficking and prostitution business, coercing vulnerable men connected to the company into taking part in "sex events."

Between about 2008 to 2015, the accused men used the "so-called casting couch system" in their scheme, Breon Peace, the US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, alleged in a news conference announcing the charges in October.

The indictment states that the men used Jeffries' power and wealth "to run a business that was dedicated to fulfilling their sexual desires and ensuring that their international sex trafficking and prostitution business was kept secret, thereby maintaining Jeffries' powerful reputation."

His arrest came after a high-profile BBC investigation cited a number of men who said they were exploited or abused as part of the events Jeffries is accused of.

Jeffries was hired as CEO in 1990, ushering in a period in which the brand relied heavily on sex appeal to sell its preppy outfits. Huge popularity came alongside a 2003 class-action lawsuit that alleged racialized and looks-based discrimination against staff and prospective employees, which was settled in 2004 without admission of wrongdoing.

• Russia attacked Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure on Wednesday, causing power outages.
• Zelenskyy called the Christmas Day missile and drone attack "inhumane."
• Mass attacks on Ukraine's energy have been a hallmark of Russia's full-scale invasion.

Russia launched an attack on Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure on Christmas Day in what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as an "inhumane" move, according to multiple reports.

Zelenskyy said in a Telegram message that more than 70 missiles, including ballistic missiles, and more than 100 attack drones were launched at Ukrainian energy targets.

"Every Russian massive strike takes time to prepare. It is never a spontaneous decision. It is a conscious choice not only of targets, but also of time and date," he said, according to the BBC's translation.

"Today, Putin deliberately chose Christmas for an attack. What could be more inhumane?" he continued.

In 2022, Ukraine's Orthodox Church allowed Christmas to be celebrated on December 25, in what was widely read as a snub to Russia, which largely celebrates on January 7. Much of Ukraine has followed suit since.

Russia claimed responsibility for the strikes, according to state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.

On Wednesday, Zelenskyy shared several images of firefighters working to tackle the damage in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

Ukraine's forces shot down at least 50 of the missiles and many of the drones, but there were still power outages in several regions as a result of hits, Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine's energy minister, German Galushchenko, also said in a Facebook post that the country's energy industry was under attack on a mass scale, forcing blackouts.

DTEK, Ukraine's largest energy company, called the attack "cynical," saying it had caused serious damage and forced energy systems to cut power to the regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, and Kyiv.

The northeastern city of Kharkiv — Ukraine's second largest city — was among the worst hit, according to its mayor, Ihor Terekhov, who said there had been a series of explosions amid massive rocket fire.

He said four people had been injured as of 11 a.m. local time, and a large part of the city was without heating.

Video shared on social media — which Business Insider couldn't independently verify — appeared to show air-raid sirens going off in Kyiv amid reports that people were sheltering in metro stations.

There were also explosions reported in Kremenchuk, Kryvyi Rih, and Ivano-Frankivsk, The Kyiv Independent reported.

In a statement, Russia's Ministry of Defense said it targeted "critical energy infrastructure facilities in Ukraine that ensure the operation of the military-industrial complex," per the BBC's translation.

"The strike's goal was achieved. All facilities were hit," it added.

Mass attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure have been a hallmark of Russia's full-scale invasion. There have been mass strikes throughout the year, and as of November, an estimated two-thirds of the country's electrical generation capacity had been knocked out.

• Small businesses on TikTok are telling their customers about their worst business struggles.
• "My small business is failing" and other messages have become common hooks.
• It's a good way to build authenticity, marketing experts say — as long as it's done smartly.

In the last couple of years, small businesses have littered TikTok with confessionals.

"My small business is failing," is how they often begin.

"If you've been following me for the last couple of months, you may think that it's not," craftsperson Laura Craine said in a post last year. "But in reality, I haven't received an order in weeks."

Another TikToker said: "On the outside, it might look like everything is going well and I'm making lots of orders, but I'm just not."

Ranging from straight-up claims of failure through to warts-and-all insight into the toughest days, each post aims to grab a precious few seconds of your attention, and maybe a portion of your cash.

They resonate well with users "who want to see more than the polished, curated success stories that once dominated social media and Instagram," Inigo Rivero, cofounder of UK-based TikTok marketing agency House of Marketers, told BI.

It also comes "as more small business owners are embracing radical transparency" on TikTok, Rivero added.

And in many cases, it seems to be working.

I remember thinking: 'I can't do this.'

Emma Molloy has long known the power of lifting the veil on her vegan-friendly doughnut business through TikTok, and being transparent about the ups and downs of making her four-year-old business work.

But the hardest moment for her company, Cat Burglar Dough Co., came in August. She had just given birth and was exhausted. Sales had been poor, and she had just learned that her maternity cover had fallen through.

"I was in a real corner and I remember just sitting there thinking, 'I can't do this,'" Molloy, 30, told BI.

She posted about her worries on TikTok, saying: "This month I've come closer than I ever have before to quitting," but added that she was determined to carry on.

A couple of days later, she was sitting on the floor with her baby when her phone suddenly started buzzing nonstop.

Notifications were flooding in. "Order, order, order, order," she said.

Over on Facebook, an influencer named Lisa Dollan — more familiar to her hundreds of thousands of fans as Yorkshire Peach — had just posted a glowing review.

"We had about £3,000 [about $3,800] worth of orders in a week," Molloy said, adding that the business turned a corner after that.

Business Insider wasn't able to independently confirm the amount.

Dollan didn't respond to BI's request for comment. It's unclear whether Molloy's emotional post prompted her reaction.

But some business owners told BI that posting some variant of "my small business is failing" has brought them unusual engagement, new customers, as well as encouragement at a time when they sorely needed it.

The pull of schadenfreude

Creative duo Caitlin Derer and Joseph Lattimer hopped on the trend in August, with a video that has been watched more than 1 million times.

"For us that's huge," they said.

They used the format as a vehicle to talk about how hard they were working and what they needed to turn the business into a success.

Their business, Collectable Cities, makes art toys for the high-end souvenir market, but the pair had reached the "soul-destroying" part of the business where practical issues turned the spark into a slog, Derer said.

"Then you see someone else make a video, where you can feel their pain through the screen and it's like, 'I should be also sharing some of this,'" she said.

The response to their video spanned thousands of comments, giving them exposure to new customers, as well as a wealth of feedback and suggestions.

Alice Bull, founder of Gratified, a TikTok-focused strategy and content agency, says she finds these kinds of posts compelling and has even ordered from businesses after seeing them. She characterizes it as a "storytelling hook," one of five tried-and-tested approaches that she says tend to produce results on the platform.

Bull regularly encourages her clients to not just showcase their products, but to pull back the curtain on their own stories.

"Telling stories, especially on TikTok right now, is one of the most powerful things you can do, particularly with a small business," she told BI.

"Anything you can do to connect with the audience that will potentially become your customers is absolutely vital," she added. "And one of the quickest ways you can do that is by being slightly dramatic."

She said that research shows that emotionally positive content gets the best engagement, but negative content has its own pull.

Indeed, one 2023 study that tracked the eye movement of TikTok and Twitter users suggested that viewers spend more time on negative rather than positive content.

It works because people immediately want to know what happened, Bull said. "You want to either experience that emotion with that person or understand what they went through" in order to save yourself from the same fate, she said.

It can also be a smart way of adding context to unpopular decisions like price hikes, Bull said.

Staying authentic

Done right, the hook can tap into the authenticism that has underpinned other TikTok trends in recent years, like deinfluencing and the "social media isn't real" hook.

But there's an obvious business risk to telling the world you're failing.

People who adopt this strategy need to weigh up the risk of harm to their long-term reputation with the benefits of appealing to people through honesty, Bull said.

There's also a potential ethical problem that comes with virality — if declaring your troubles is such an effective cash lever, there'll always be the temptation for successful businesses to exaggerate or even lie about their struggles.

Indeed, so many iterations have proliferated on the platform that it's been boiled down to something like a script, with audio from particularly successful versions borrowed by others, who simply paste it over their own visuals.

Rivero said that quality also matters.

"I'm not just going to buy a product just because I like the story," he said. "It needs to come hand-in-hand with a good quality product."

He added that a dropshipper who makes the same complaint as a one-person craft business is unlikely to get much sympathy.

Building trust

Laura Craine said that the massive response to her "small business is failing" post was part of what rallied her to carry on with her craft business when she was almost ready to close shop.

"At the time, my videos weren't doing great," she said. But this one took off, bringing her hundreds of new followers and a wealth of supportive feedback.

Craine's business, With Love And Dreams, preserves personal items like wedding blooms or human remains in resin to create memorial keepsakes.

The fact that she handles sensitive and irreplaceable items means her business depends on maintaining a deep wellspring of trust. Being completely authentic with her audience just made sense.

"I want people to see that I'm a real person," she said.

• Trump and his team have signaled opposition to some of Ukraine's recent attacks on Russian soil.
• Trump's Ukraine envoy said this week that the killing of a Russian general was outside the rules of war.
• Trump has also criticized Biden's decision to allow strikes on Russia using US-supplied missiles.

In a worrying sign for Ukraine, the incoming Trump administration has signaled its disapproval of recent attacks on Russian soil, including long-range strikes and the assassination of a top general in Moscow using a scooter bomb.

President-elect Donald Trump's envoy to Ukraine, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, said on Wednesday that Ukraine's claimed killing of Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov this week was contrary to the rules of war.

Kirillov, who headed up Russia's chemical, nuclear, and biological protection troops, was killed by a bomb planted on a scooter in Moscow on Tuesday. Ukraine has claimed responsibility.

Speaking on Fox Business, Kellogg said, "There are rules of warfare and there are certain things you just kind of don't do."

He added: "When you're killing flag officers, general officers, admirals or generals in their hometown, it's kind of like you've extended it, and I don't think it's really smart to do it."

Russia said it had arrested a man in connection with the killing, saying he was suspected of a "terrorist attack," the BBC reported.

Kellogg said the events wouldn't be a setback for any peace talks.

The US State Department said it was unaware of the plot, with an unnamed official saying the US doesn't support this kind of action, according to Agence France-Presse.

Kellogg's remarks come after President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday that the decision to allow Ukraine to make long-range strikes on Russia with US-supplied missiles was "stupid," and that he might reverse it once in office.

"I don't think they should have allowed missiles to be shot 200 miles into Russia," he said. "I think that was a bad thing."

Trump claimed that the decision prompted North Korea to send troops to fight alongside Russia, though intelligence agencies said that North Korean troops were being deployed at least two weeks before the Biden administration's decision.

He also said that the Biden administration should have asked for his opinion "weeks before I take over."

"Why would they do that without asking me what I thought?" he added.

Trump has repeatedly stated he would end the war in Ukraine, without publicly saying how he would achieve it.

Plans under discussion have included establishing a demilitarized zone in the areas occupied by Russia and requiring a pledge from Ukraine not to join NATO, The Wall Street Journal reported in November.

In an interview with Le Parisien on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated his stance that ceding territory to Russia in any talks would be unacceptable, along with any promise not to join NATO.

• Gazprom's share price hit a 15-year low amid ongoing export challenges to Europe.
• It comes after the company posted its first annual loss since 1999 in May.
• The EU is pushing to phase out its use of Russian gas, impacting Gazprom's European market share.

Gazprom's share price tumbled to a new low on Wednesday, the latest episode in a calamitous year for the Russian state-owned energy juggernaut.

According to Russian outlet RBC, Gazprom's 106.1-ruble share price on Tuesday represented its lowest value since January 2009. As of Wednesday, the share price had dropped further to 105.75 rubles.

In comparison, just before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Gazprom's share price hovered around 300 rubles.

Analysts speaking to RBC attributed the slide to broader market factors as well as roadblocks in Gazprom's ability to export gas to Europe, as the continent doubles down on its commitment to end its dependence on Russian energy following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

In May, Gazprom posted its first annual loss since 1999, and its share price immediately dropped by 4.4%. It continued to tumble through June, to a then-low of around 113 rubles.

The dreary May report reflected Gazprom's "loss of a significant share of the European gas market," Katja Yafimava, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, told Business Insider.

Impact of Russia's war

Prior to 2022, Europe sourced around 40% of its natural gas from Russia. In June, a Gazprom report seen by the Financial Times said that it would take a decade for the company to recoup losses caused by the war in Ukraine.

Compounding the concerns, an agreement to transit Russian gas via Ukraine is set to end on January 1, 2025.

In September, European Commissioner Kadri Simson said that the EU is "fully committed" to phasing out Russian gas via the Ukraine pipeline. "We started preparing two years ago," she said.

The move away from Russian gas is not without its headaches for EU countries, and Slovakia is leading efforts from some affected countries to stop this flow running out.

On Monday, following a meeting with Slovakia's prime minister, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal reiterated what the country had been signaling for some time: that it has no interest in renewing the deal.

He added, however, that Ukraine is open to the transit of gas from other sources.

Yafimava told BI that "the transit question is still hanging in the balance," but a recent decision by Austrian energy company OMV to cut ties with Gazprom amid a thorny contract dispute has "arguably weakened" its chances of continuing.

OMV's decision earlier this month was a historic blow to Gazprom, with the company among the first in Western Europe to import and invest in Russian gas during the Soviet era.

Industry experts told Business Insider this month that the end of the OMV deal was a significant indicator of Europe's success in weaning itself off Russian energy, one that would have been unthinkable before the invasion of Ukraine.

Even so, Gazprom's problems in Europe are not a death knell for the company, Yafimava said.

Gazprom can stay afloat thanks to the large domestic gas market in Russia, she said, adding that the blow had been cushioned by sharply increased gas prices.

Gazprom needs to find new markets "while the cushion lasts," she added.

One option ahead for it is an agreement over Power of Siberia 2, a Russia-China pipeline that would sharply increase exports to China. "In my view, this will eventually happen," Yafimava said.

• Ukraine said that North Korean troops had accidentally killed 8 Russian soldiers in Kursk.
• Ukrainian intelligence said it was a "friendly fire" incident caused by a language barrier.
• Experts previously told BI that language issues would pose a challenge for the military alliance.

Eight Russian soldiers were killed by North Korean forces in a recent "friendly fire" incident in Kursk, according to Ukrainian intelligence.

North Korean soldiers opened fire on Russian military vehicles, Defense Intelligence of Ukraine said on Saturday, attributing it to a language barrier between the two forces.

It didn't say when the incident took place, but added that language barriers continue to be a "difficult obstacle" for Russian and North Korean personnel, per The Kyiv Independent's translation.

Business Insider could not independently verify the report.

North Korea has sent thousands of troops to aid Russia in its fight against Ukraine, officials from South Korea, Ukraine, and the US have said.

Dmytro Ponomarenko, Ukraine's ambassador to South Korea, told Voice of America last month that the number could reach 15,000, with troops rotated out every two to three months. He said a cumulative 100,000 North Korean soldiers could serve in Russia within a year.

Experts on the relationship between the two states have previously said that the language difference between North Korean and Russian soldiers would be a key logistical issue.

Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., an expert in North Korean defense at the Center for International and Strategic Studies, told BI that though the two countries have historical ties, they rarely learn each other's language.

"To conduct combat operations with an allied force that doesn't speak your language presents real problems," he said.

North Korean soldiers have been sent to aid Russian forces in Kursk, an area of Russia that was partially occupied by Ukraine in August.

The North Korean soldiers are reported to have been scattered across various Russian units and had already come under Ukrainian fire as of early November.

Audio intercepted by Defense Intelligence of Ukraine in October suggested a chaotic start to the Russia-North Korea partnership, not least because of language difficulties.

In the intercepted audio, a Russian soldier complained about leaders having "no fucking clue" what to do with the new troops and remarked that they had been allocated one interpreter per 30 soldiers.

The soldiers reportedly killed in the friendly fire incident were from the Ahmat battalion, Ukrainian intelligence said — a group under the control of Chechen warlord and Putin loyalist Ramzan Kadyrov.

"Kadyorovites," as they are known, have been fighting in Kursk since August, according to reports.

Ukraine initially seized a large swathe of Kursk in its surprise cross-border raid — around 500 square miles — but Russian forces have retaken about 40% of that land, a senior Ukrainian military source told Reuters in late November.

• Dozens of unidentified aircraft have been spotted over military bases, airports, and cities in the US.
• The Pentagon said Monday that DoD has "no evidence" the drone sightings pose a threat.
• A White House spokesperson said the sightings include a mix of commercial, hobbyist, and law enforcement drones.

US officials said on Monday that the mystery drones flying over US military bases, airports, and cities don't pose a threat.

On Monday, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said that more than 5,000 drone sightings have been reported in recent weeks, but only about 100 required further investigation.

He said the sightings have included a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as some crewed aircraft and stars mistaken for drones.

The House Intelligence Committee was expected to receive a classified briefing on Tuesday over the issue, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

The drones have been seen flying at night over New Jersey and other East Coast states since mid-November, sparking concern and speculation from officials and citizens.

Kirby told reporters that "our assessment at this stage is that the activity is lawful and legal,"

The federal government has sent advanced technology and additional personnel to assist local authorities and state officials investigating the sightings, Kirby said.

He stressed that the government does not believe the drones represent a threat to national security.

"There are more than one million drones lawfully registered with the FAA here in the US and there are thousands of commercial hobbyists and law enforcement drones that are lawfully in the sky on any given day," Kirby said.

Kirby spoke to reporters on Monday after the Pentagon indicated, drawing an analogy to vehicles that approach the base, it wouldn't shoot at something unless it presented as a "clear and present danger."

The Department of Homeland Security echoed Kirby's statement in a post to X late on Monday.

Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said the Defense Department has "no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat, or have a foreign nexus."

"We'll continue to do everything possible to investigate reports of concerning activity," he told reporters Monday. "But given how many drones are lawfully in our skies every day, we need to be careful to avoid assuming malintent or malicious behavior."

President-elect Donald Trump accused the US government on Monday of withholding information about the drones.

"The government knows what is happening," he said during public remarks at Mar-a-Lago. "And for some reason, they don't want to comment. I think they'd be better off saying what it is. Our military knows, and our president knows, and for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense."

"Something strange is going on," Trump said of the recent developments. "For some reason, they don't want to tell the people."

Mayors of 21 towns in New Jersey sent a letter Monday to the state's governor, Phil Murphy, demanding more transparency.

"Despite inquiries made to relevant authorities, we have yet to receive satisfactory answers about the purpose, operators, or safety protocols governing these flights," the letter says.

Where have residents reported seeing drones and unidentified aircraft?

Residents and officials have reported spotting unidentified aircraft, believed to be drones, flying above New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in recent weeks.

Murphy, the New Jersey governor, said late Monday that he had received a briefing from FBI Newark on their investigation.

"We are ready to assist the federal government in getting to the bottom of this," he added.

Murphy told reporters on Monday that some of the suspected drones spotted over his state are "very sophisticated" and can "go dark" the "minute you get eyes on them." Others have described the flying objects as bigger than normal hobby-style drones and able to avoid detection.

"This is something we're taking deadly seriously and we've gotten good cooperation out of the feds, but we need more," Murphy said.

Drones have been spotted near Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle, both military bases in New Jersey, and an airport in New York serving the public and the military.

However, officials have stressed such sightings are not necessarily unusual.

"This is not a new issue for us. We've had to deal with drone incursions over our bases for quite a time now," the spokesperson for the Joint Staff said Saturday. "It's something that we routinely respond to in each and every case when reporting is cited."

There have also been reports of suspected drones following a US Coast Guard vessel, as well as local police statements on the presence of unidentified aircraft near critical infrastructure.

US Northern Command, which is responsible for overseeing the protection of the US homeland, said over the weekend it was "aware and monitoring the reports of unauthorized drone flights in the vicinity of military installations in New Jersey."

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio acknowledged that drone activity near the base led officials there to close its airspace for several hours late Friday night and into Saturday.

A recording of a controller from the Wright-Patterson air traffic control tower that was shared by The War Zone, which first reported the incursions, urges an aircraft to "use extreme caution for heavy UAS movement on the base."

What are officials saying about these mystery drones?

Trump said Friday on Truth Social that there are mystery drones being sighted all over the country. "Can this really be happening without our government's knowledge," he wrote. "I don't think so!"

He suggested that they be shot down. Other officials have expressed concern about shooting them down due to the threat to local populations of falling debris. Neither kinetic nor electronic warfare methods are particularly ideal near civilian areas.

New Jersey State Assemblyman Brian Bergen told CNN News Central's Sara Sidner on Monday that "we shouldn't be shooting things down right now."

"Look, I was an attack helicopter pilot in the US Army. I flew overseas. I have seen bullets fly through the sky. It's not a great idea to do over the United States," he said. "Things should not be shot out of the sky. That is a very dangerous thing to do."

The FBI and New Jersey State Police issued a joint statement on Monday warning of "a concern with people possibly firing weapons at what they believe to be a UAS," as well as increased incidences of pilots being dazzled by lasers.

There could be "deadly consequences" of these actions, they said.

Amid the confusion on the drones, there has been a lot of speculation, including from officials.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey said on Fox News last Wednesday that the drones came from an Iranian "mothership" off the East Coast of the United States, citing "very high sources."

Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh rejected the congressman's claim in a press conference later that day, saying "there is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States, and there's no so-called mothership launching drones toward the United States."

Singh said that the Pentagon has no evidence that the reported drone sightings are the work of a foreign adversary. While Iran does have vessels that can carry drones, they were spotted off its southern coast as recently as Thursday — debunking Van Drew's claims.

He doubled down on Thursday, saying the government isn't telling the truth. The congressman said it could be another ship belonging to another foe. A Department of Homeland Security official said Saturday that there is no evidence of any foreign-based involvement in sending drones ashore from vessels in the area.

"We're doing our best to find the origin of those drone activities," an FBI official told reporters Saturday. "But I think there has been a slight overreaction."

Local officials, meanwhile, have been calling for additional information.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Saturday called for increased federal oversight of drones and said runways at Stewart International Airport in Orange County were shut down for an hour due to unidentified drone activity. "This has gone too far," she said.

Hochul called on Congress to strengthen the Federal Aviation Administration's oversight of drones and provide counter-unmanned aircraft equipment to local law enforcement. On Sunday, she posted to social media that the federal government was sending a "drone detection system" to her state.

Previous unidentified flying objects and drone sightings

There have been a number of sightings of suspected drones and other unusual flying objects over or around military installations in recent years.

In February 2023, for example, the United States shot down three unidentified objects flying over American airspace over the course of three days. The incidents were part of a saga that followed the US takedown of a spy balloon off the coast of North Carolina the government said came from China.

As for drone activity, The Wall Street Journal reported in October that drones had been spotted over a military base in Virginia and the Energy Department's Nevada National Security Site the year prior. Retired US Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly, until March of this year the head of Air Combat Command, said that he learned about the sightings in December 2023, when officials at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia reported seeing dozens of drones flying over the base at night. It's unclear who was behind those incidents.

While the federal government says that the latest sightings are not the work of adversaries or a public security threat, multiple recent incidents near bases have raised national security concerns.

For instance, federal authorities on Monday charged a Chinese citizen residing in California, Yinpiao Zhou, with failure to register a non-transportation aircraft and violation of national defense airspace. The Justice Department accused Zhou of using a drone to photograph Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County on November 30.

Police arrested Zhou at the San Francisco International Airport before he boarded a China-bound flight.

And another man, Fengyun Shi, a Chinese national, was sentenced to six months in federal prison in October for photographing US Navy ships with a drone in Virginia. Fengyun, a student at the University of Minnesota, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of unauthorized use of aircraft for the unlawful photographing of a designated installation.

The FBI official who spoke to reporters on Saturday said of the most recent sightings: "We are doing everything we can, alongside our partners, to understand what is happening and whether or not there is more nefarious activity that we need to explore."

• An Austrian gas company ended its historic relationship with Russia's Gazprom.
• Austria framed the move as defiance against Russian energy blackmail attempts.
• It's a key step in Europe's thorny path to gaining energy independence from Russia.

A European gas supplier ended a decades-long contract with Gazprom, the Russian state-owned energy juggernaut.

Analysts are hailing the decision as a sign of Europe moving to be more resilient in its energy supplies.

The Austrian gas conglomerate OMV announced on Wednesday that it was cutting ties with Gazprom over a protracted contract dispute, ending its dealings with Russia.

OMV was one of the last large, long-term buyers of Russian gas.

"Huge, positive development. Russia is in trouble," political scientist Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, wrote on X about the collapse of the deal.

The termination of the 34-year contract comes after months of wrangling between the two companies, in which Gazprom switched off the gas supply to OMV last month.

Austria's government — which owns 31.5% of OMV — framed the move as defiance against Russian attempts to blackmail the country, a common refrain from European leaders.

Austria's chancellor, Karl Nehammer, wrote on X on Wednesday: "Russia wanted to use energy as a weapon against us — that didn't work," adding: "Austria cannot be blackmailed by Russia!"

Austria has a secure energy supply, he added.

The news is a blow to Gazprom and, despite rising prices, is one sign of success on Europe's rocky path to wean itself off energy dependence on Russia, industry experts told Business Insider.

Dmitrij Ljubinskij, Russia's ambassador to Austria, denied in an interview with Ivzestia that Russia uses energy as a tool of pressure and said that OMV's move would not go unanswered.

Gazprom did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A calculated move?

Gazprom's supply to OMV and Austria — which comes via Ukraine — was not likely to be there for long anyway.

Ukraine has long signaled that it will not renew an agreement, which expires in January, to allow Russian gas to transit its pipelines.

Jack Sharples, a researcher at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, told Business Insider that OMV had likely been eyeing the Ukrainian decision, in parallel to the Gazprom dispute, for some time, and preparing alternative suppliers.

"There were significant risks to transit as a result of the Ukrainian transit deal ending in January, so canceling the deal seems a good idea," Tom Edwards, a modeler at the energy-market analysis company Cornwall Insight, told BI.

OMV now says its gas storage is at around 85%, and that it's well positioned to supply gas from alternative sources.

A feud entangled deep in the Ukraine war

OMV's announcement ends a historic partnership. It was among the first Western European, non-socialist companies to import gas and invest in Soviet Russia in the 1960s.

It signed its 34-year contract with Gazprom to supply Austria with gas in 2006, signaling a relationship of trust that showed signs of breaking down with Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

By March that year, the company announced it would no longer invest in Russia, but kept up its long-term supply relationship.

A Brookings Institute report from June highlighted that remaining tie as one of the many issues Europe still faced in decoupling, saying any break would be fraught with risk.

But a long-running, separate contract dispute sowed the seeds. A subsidiary of OMV had a smaller contract with Gazprom to supply gas to Germany via the Nord Stream undersea pipelines.

In summer 2022, Gazprom said that newly-imposed sanctions were preventing it from accessing key parts needed to drive the pipe's turbine.

That supply petered out and then stopped. Infamously, it never restarted after the attack on Nord Stream a few months later.

OMV went to commercial arbitration over the lack of supply to Germany, and in November was awarded 230 million euros, or about $240 million, plus interest and costs.

It said it would offset this award "against payments to be made by OMV to Gazprom Export under its Austrian gas supply contract."

Gas prices jumped 5% at the news, reaching a new high for the year. Three days later, Gazprom shut off the supply to Austria.

Europe is — slowly — weaning itself off Russian gas

The start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine stiffened political will across Europe to end dependency on Russian energy — something few could have foreseen, Sharples said.

Before 2022, Europe got around 40% of its imported natural gas from Russia.

"I think if you had asked European gas market analysts back in 2021, could the European market cope with losing 80% of what it gets from Gazprom via pipelines? We'd have said no, it would be horrendous," he said.

The landscape has changed significantly, Sharples said.

Over the last years, Europe has invested more not only in alternative suppliers but also the integration of its distribution system, meaning it can more flexibly respond to shortages, he said.

There are still many difficulties. A Chatham House analysis from this year pointed out that some replacement imports are Russian gas being "laundered" via third states.

And as of 2024, gas prices are still higher than they were before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Sharples said.

But the market has reacted with both a reduction in demand and the seeking out of alternative supplies, he said.

"What has actually happened is that European gas demand has come down by a fifth, and we've ramped up our imports of LNG from the global market," he said.

"There's no doubt that Gazprom has lost a huge chunk of its revenues by losing these export volumes to Europe," he said.

The impact on Russia

"Gazprom has lost a substantial share of its gas sector revenues since February 2022, and the loss of the Austrian market is another chip away at those revenues," Sharples said.

"It's not make-or-break for Gazprom, but it certainly doesn't help."

There's also a domestic impact — the Russian government derives much of its tax revenue from energy sales and also uses the funding from Europe to subsidize domestic gas prices, Sharples said.