Flight MH17 departed from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport en-route to Kuala Lumpur International Airport on July 17, 2014. Three hours into the flight, the Boeing-777 was shot down by Russian proxy forces using a Buk surface-to-air missile above Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.
"I am grateful for the support and the readiness at the highest level to promote diplomacy," President Volodymyr Zelensky said of the phone conservation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "We share the same view on the need for a ceasefire."
The convictions mark a significant development in Britain's efforts to counter Russian intelligence operations amid heightened tensions stemming from Moscow's war against Ukraine and repeated Kremlin threats toward Kyiv's allies.
According to the Verkhovna Rada's website, Ukraine completed the ratification of the U.S.-Ukraine minerals agreement on May 12. President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the deal.
"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.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock gives a press conference alongside the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Estonia at the Federal Foreign Office, Berlin, on Aug. 22, 2023. (Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said she was open to a deal in which London supplies Ukraine with additional Storm Shadow missiles in exchange for Germany backfilling British long-range missile stocks.
Baerbock's statement came after U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron proposed the idea of a so-called ring exchange in an interview with German Süddeutsche Zeitung on March 8.
"The ring exchange is a German invention, so to say. It would be an option. And we've already done it with other equipment some time ago," Baerbock told German public broadcaster ARD on March 10.
This way of transferring weapons has already taken place some time ago to avoid directly arming Ukraine, the minister said.
Taurus missiles, which have a range of up to 500 kilometers (310 miles), have been the subject of extensive discussion since Ukraine submitted a request to acquire the weapons in May 2023.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is reportedly against sending Taurus missiles to Kyiv because he fears the move will draw Germany into the war. Ukraine has received other long-range missiles, such as the Storm Shadow from the U.K. and the French-made SCALP.
U.K. officials have repeatedly made clear to Germany that Ukraine badly needs long-range missiles, Bloomberg reported.
Unlike Germany, both the U.K. and France have supplied Ukraine with its Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles with a range of over 250 kilometers (155 miles).
Germany's parliament supported a motion to deliver unspecified long-range weapons to Ukraine on Feb. 22, the same day it rejected sending Taurus missiles.
Kateryna Denisova works as a News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked as a news editor at the NV media outlet for four years, covering mainly Ukrainian and international politics. Kateryna holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv. She also was a fellow at journalism schools in the Czech Republic and Germany.
Elsa Court
