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 Kremlin said the leaders held a detailed discussion about the Russian initiative and Erdogan expressed full support, reiterating Turkey’s readiness to provide a venue and assist in organizing the negotiations.
Erdogan told Macron that international cooperation is critical for initiating peace negotiations and the "sensitive implementation" of Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction processes, the Turkish Presidency reported.
The assault began around 2 a.m. on May 11, with Russian forces deploying 108 Shahed-type attack drones and decoy UAVs from multiple directions, Ukraine’s Air Force said.
Fragments of the Iranian drone Shahed-136 (Russia named Geran 2), displayed in Kyiv on Aug. 24, 2023. (Illustrative purposes only) (Aleksandr Gusev/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Ukrainian forces shot down 22 of the 33 Shahed-type attack drones launched by Russia overnight, the Air Force said via its official Telegram page on Jan. 18.
The drones were launched from Primorsko-Akhtarsk in southern Russia, off the coast of the Sea of Azov, and Kursk region, according to the Air Force. At least two S-300 missiles targeting Kharkiv Oblast were launched from Russia's Belgorod Oblast.
The drones mainly targeted Ukraine's northern and southern oblasts.
Anti-aircraft missile units and mobile firing groups have been used to repel the air attack. The drones were downed over Sumy, Mykolaiv. Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad and Khmelnytskyi oblasts.
At least four of the 22 drones were downed over northeastern Sumy Oblast, damaging a warehouse and several trucks.
Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.
Dinara Khalilova
