"I am waiting to see who will come from Russia, and then I will decide which steps Ukraine should take. So far, the signals from them in the media are unconvincing," President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The air raid was announced at around 2:30 p.m. local time, while the explosion sounded around 2:50 p.m. The number of victims killed rose to three, Sumy Oblast Governor Oleh Hryhorov reported at 8:42 p.m.
If confirmed, the decision would mark the first time since Russia's full-scale invasion that President Volodymyr Zelensky is absent, either physically or virtually, from a NATO summit.
The disclosure follows a warning from Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski, who on May 6 said Moscow was carrying out an "unprecedented" interference campaign.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva claimed that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha had appealed to his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira, to ask Putin if he was willing to conclude a peace agreement.
Earlier reporting from the Washington Post cited a former Russian official who claimed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, would represent Moscow in the talks.
The Council of Europe on May 14 approved the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute Russia's top leadership for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, Ukrainian lawmaker Maria Mezentseva reported.
Viktoria Roshchyna, 27, disappeared in August 2023 while reporting from Ukraine's Russian-occupied territories. Moscow admitted she was in Russian detention the following year.
Kazakh opposition activist Zamanbek Tleluiev displays a set of broken teeth in Kyiv on Jan. 6, 2022. He alleges that he was beaten up by men claiming to be plainclothes SBU officers. (Screenshot)
Human rights activists have accused the State Security Service (SBU) of launching a crackdown on Kazakh opposition activists in Ukraine.
Lyudmyla Kozlovska, a human rights activist at the Open Dialogue Foundation, wrote on Facebook that several men in plainclothes and claiming to be SBU agents visited and beat up Zamanbek Tleuliev, a representative of the opposition Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan party, on Jan. 6. The attackers did not show any identification, she added.
The service denied the allegations but said it had visited "certain Kazakh nationals" regarding possible “Russian provocations.” It did not elaborate.
Kozlovska also published a video of Tleuliev showing his broken teeth and saying they had been knocked out by the attackers.
In contrast with the SBU’s claims that the activists were being checked as possible Russian provocateurs, Tleuliev lashed out at the Kremlin in the video.
“Kazakh authorities are cooperating with (Russian dictator Vladimir) Putin and want to occupy our land,” he said.
At the same time, unknown people visited Yeldos Nasipbekov, another activist from the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan, Kozlovska said. She published a video of one of them showing his SBU ID card to Nasipbekov.
Kozlovska said that the SBU officers had made Nasipbekov sign a document with a promise not to be involved in political activities in Kazakhstan.
The activists and Kozlovska said that they are involved in coordinating anti-government protests and collecting information on the killing of protesters in Kazakhstan.
The crackdown followed accusations by Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov and other pro-Kremlin media that violence in Kazakhstan was being orchestrated from Ukraine and Poland.
“So does it mean that the attack on (Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan) is help provided by Ukrainian special services to a Russian propagandist?” Kozlovska said.
The SBU confirmed visiting Kazakh opposition activists in Kyiv, attributing the visits to “the Russian factor and possible provocations from the Russian side that may discredit our state internationally and harm its interests.”
The agency denied beating any of the activists and claimed that its employees had been polite.
The SBU also said that it would file a motion with the State Migration Service to deport the activists.
The ongoing protests, which began on Jan. 2, are the biggest and most violent since Kazakhstan gained independence in 1991. Initially demonstrators protested against a sharp hike in liquified petroleum gas (LPG) prices but later began to demand the resignation of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and the departure from politics of Kazakhstan’s ex-President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The demonstrations turned into an uprising on Jan. 5, when protesters seized government buildings in Almaty, the nation’s biggest city and former capital. As a result, Tokayev has called on a Russian-led military alliance to intervene, and Russian troops arrived in the country.
As of now, Kazakh authorities have mostly restored control over the country.
Oleg Sukhov is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent. He is a former editor and reporter at the Moscow Times. He has a master's degree in history from the Moscow State University. He moved to Ukraine in 2014 due to the crackdown on independent media in Russia and covered war, corruption, reforms and law enforcement for the Kyiv Post.
