A Russian drone hit a civilian freight train in Donetsk Oblast on May 12 and injured its driver, Ukrainian Railways said amid Kyiv's calls for a ceasefire.
Moscow and Hanoi agreed to negotiate and sign agreements to construct nuclear power plants in Vietnam, the two countries said in a joint statement on May 11.
The sanctions appear to be in response to Russia's rejection of a 30-day ceasefire that the U.K., alongside Ukraine, France, Germany, and Poland, demanded during a visit to Kyiv on May 10.
"We now know for sure that the great fire of the Marywilska shopping centre in Warsaw was caused by arson ordered by the Russian special services," Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on X. "Some of the perpetrators have already been detained, all the others are identified and searched for."
The publications' latest report covers the period of February 24, 2022 to May 8, 2025. Since it was last updated at the end of April, 2,857 additional Russian military personnel have been confirmed killed.
Hungary cancelled a meeting planned for May 12 with a Ukrainian delegation on the rights of national minorities, Hungary's Deputy Foreign Minister said on May 11, amid a deepening spying scandal between the two countries.
Three were injured in Russia's Kursk Oblast when the town of Rylsk was allegedly struck by a missile attack on May 11, local governor Alexander Khinshtein claimed.
This week, the world watched in anticipation for Russia’s Victory Day parade after President Volodymyr Zelensky commented that he could not guarantee the safety of those attending. Meanwhile, the European Union moves one step forward to banning Russian gas from the European continent. It is also revealed this week that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has fallen out of step with the White House.
"(Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin... doesn't want to have a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine, but rather wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the bloodbath. Ukraine should agree to this, immediately," U.S. President Donald Trump said.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to to Antalya, Turkey, for a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting from May 14–16, where he is expected to address the war in Ukraine and push for stronger Allied defense commitments.
The NATO flag and the EU flag on June 9, 2023 in Riga, Latvia. (Gints Ivuskans/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
Support for NATO across 13 member states surveyed remains high, with a median of 63% of respondents saying they had a "a positive opinion" of the alliance, according to a poll released by the Pew Research Center on July 2.
The poll also found that confidence in President Volodymyr Zelensky throughout a mix of 35 NATO members and other countries surveyed had dropped in many places, including a 22-point decline in Poland since 2023 (from 70% to 48%).
The highest number of respondents among European countries polled who said that they did not have confidence in Zelensky was in Hungary (83%).
In general, confidence in Zelensky remained at 40% among the countries surveyed. In many countries, it remained high, such as Sweden, at 80%. The decline was relatively moderate in some states – the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and France all show a drop of seven points.
Of the countries surveyed, Poland also had the highest number of respondents saying they had a positive opinion toward NATO (91%), while the lowest was Greece, at 37%.
Generally, the survey found a decline in support for NATO since 2023 across the 13 countries, besides Hungary and Canada, which saw an 8% and 1% increase, respectively.
Consensus on aid for Ukraine was largely split, especially in the case of Poland, where 44% of respondents said the country was giving too much aid, 45% said the right amount and 6% said it was not enough.
In the U.S., 31% of those polled said that the level of support for Ukraine was too high, while 24% said it was not enough.
The consensus on Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia in general across the 35 countries remained negative, with 65% of respondents across the board saying they had an unfavorable opinion toward Russia and 73% saying they had "no confidence" in Putin to "do the right thing in global affairs."
Nate Ostiller is a former News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. He works on special projects as a researcher and writer for The Red Line Podcast, covering Eastern Europe and Eurasia, and focused primarily on digital misinformation, memory politics, and ethnic conflict. Nate has a Master’s degree in Russian and Eurasian Studies from the University of Glasgow, and spent two years studying abroad at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine. Originally from the USA, he is currently based in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Chris York
