"I myself have heard relatives talking: our village is being attacked, let's roll the car out of the garage, maybe they will shell it — at least we will get money. The car is old, we can't sell it," Belgorod Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
The new tranche brings total recent EU defense support for Ukraine to 3.3 billion euros ($3.6 billion), marking a significant expansion of European efforts to boost Kyiv's defense industry.
"Russia is ready for negotiations without any preconditions," Putin claimed in an address marking the end of the three-day Victory Day ceasefire. He invited Ukraine to begin talks in Istanbul on May 15.
Both men face charges related to terrorism and espionage. Daniil B. was detained in Lithuania, where he is in temporary custody, while Oleksandr V. remains at large in Russia.
Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine and its allies discussed tougher sanctions against Russia's banking sector, central bank, and energy industry.
"We are ready for all options. But of course, we are separately waiting for a response on the ceasefire," a source close to President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Kyiv Independent.
The EU plans to unveil on May 14 its next package of sanctions imposed against Russia over its aggression against Ukraine, an EU official told the Kyiv Independent on condition of anonymity.
Polish truckers plan to restrict freight traffic at the Yahodyn-Dorohusk checkpoint on the Ukrainian border, Ukraine's State Border Guard said on May 12.
"If the Russians are using this level of specialists in urban combat, they are probably facing some difficulties," Ivan Petrychak, spokesperson for the 24th Separate Mechanized Brigade, said.
Previously, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk accused the Russian intelligence services of orchestrating a May 2024 arson attack on the Marywilska shopping centre in Warsaw.
"Perhaps in some areas, the intensity decreased slightly to create an image of compliance with their own announcement. But in reality, (Russia) continued attacks every day, using all available weapons — including aircraft to drop guided bombs on Ukraine," Andrii Demchenko, spokesperson for Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service, said.
Beijing supports all efforts toward achieving peace in Ukraine, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on May 12 when asked about Kyiv and Europe's proposal for a 30-day truce.
The photo, released on May 10 by Ukraine's Azov regiment, shows injured Ukrainian servicemen inside the Azovstal iron and steelworks factory in eastern Mariupol, amid the Russian invasion. (Photo by Dmytro 'Orest' Kozatskyi)
Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said that 264 Ukrainian soldiers were evacuated on May 16 from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol to hospitals in Russian-occupied Novoazovsk and Olenivka.
Of those evacuated, 53 heavily wounded soldiers will receive medical treatment in Novoazovsk, while 211 will be transferred to Olenivka to take part in an upcoming prisoner exchange, according to the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces.
"We are continuing efforts to rescue the defenders who remain at Azovstal," the General Staff said. Earlier reports said that some 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers were at the plant, which remained the only Ukrainian-controlled area of Mariupol.
In his video address to the nation on the night of May 16, President Volodymyr Zelensky emphasized that "Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive."
According to Zelensky, Ukraine is continuing negotiations to reach an agreement that will allow Azovstal defenders to return home. "This work needs delicacy and time," said the President.
The National Guard's Azov Regiment and the 36th Marine Brigade, holding off at the Azovstal steel plant, are the last Ukrainian forces defending Mariupol, a city with a pre-war population of 450,000, now occupied and nearly completely destroyed by Russian troops.
“The defenders of Mariupol carried out orders, despite all the difficulties, held off the overwhelming forces of the enemy for 82 days and allowed the Ukrainian army to regroup, train more personnel, and receive a large number of weapons from partner countries,” Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Azov Regiment, said in a May 16 video address.
“In order to save lives, the entire Mariupol garrison is implementing the approved decision of the supreme military command and hopes for the support of the Ukrainian people,” he added.
According to the garrison’s estimates, in the period between Feb. 24 and April 15, the Azov Regiment alone killed 2,500 Russian soldiers in the city, wounded over 5,000, and also destroyed over 60 and damaged over 30 tanks. This does not include fatalities inflicted by other Ukrainian formations.
According to the Ukrainian command, this continued resistance forced Russia into keeping at least 10 battalion tactical groups away from other critical axes of attack against Ukraine – nearly 10% of the entire Russian force invading Ukraine.
By mid-April, amid immense bloodshed, the Ukrainian garrison got locked up at the Azovstal, a giant industrial complex of 11 square kilometers, nearly 7% of the city’s territory.
Ukrainian soldiers at the Azovstal have repeatedly called on the Ukrainian and world leaders to find a way to get them out of the besieged plant, potentially by organizing an evacuation to a third-party country.
Approximately 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers were trapped in the plant. About 600 of them were wounded, according to one of the soldiers at Azovstal. Having been cut off from the rest of the world for many weeks, they have almost no food and medicine.
The soldier, who was a local police officer, said “injured soldiers without limbs lie next to each other in unsanitary conditions, with flies, sounds of pain, and foul smells.”
On May 15, the wives of the Ukrainian soldiers holding out at Azovstal held a joint press conference via Zoom, calling on the world to join together and evacuate the Ukrainian military from the encircled plant.
“The most important thing is to save the lives of the heroes of Ukraine, not to give (them) posthumous awards,” one of the soldiers' wives, Yuliia Fedosiuk, said.
Oleksiy Sorokin is the co-founder and deputy chief editor at the Kyiv Independent. He is tasked with building the organization and leading the hiring, editing, and newsletter workstreams. Oleksiy is the author of the "WTF is wrong with Russia?" newsletter, sent out every Thursday. For his work, Oleksiy was included in the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Oleksiy holds a BA from the University of Toronto.
