Ukraine remains the most mined country in the world. Nearly one-third of Ukraine's territory, approximately 174,000 square kilometers, had been mined since Russia began its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
The phone call comes as Moscow once again rejected a 30-day ceasefire, with Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova claiming that a ceasefire would give "Kyiv a break to restore its military potential and continue its confrontation with Russia."
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.
The dead bodies of two Russian soldiers lie on the grass in front of a house in the liberated village of Makiivka in Ukraine's eastern Luhansk Oblast. Photo for illustrative purposes. (Laurel Chor/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The BBC's Russian service, along with the Russian independent media outlet Mediazona, confirmed on April 5 the identities of more than 50,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale war.
The research, using open-source analysis, only cites those confirmed as being killed, thus almost certainly undercounting the real total. The BBC estimated the true figure likely surpasses 100,000.
The figure also does not include soldiers from Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine. According to the BBC's research, around 23,400 soldiers from Russian-occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts have been killed, bringing the total of confirmed deaths to close to 75,000.
Total estimates of Russia's casualties since the full-scale invasion vary widely.
In a joint study with independent Russian media outlet Meduza released in February 2024, Mediazona reported that at least 83,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in Russia's war.
President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed in February 2024 that 180,000 Russians had been killed in the war. He added that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers were also killed. Zelensky said that the exact number is unknown, and it would only be possible to find out once the territories occupied by Russia were liberated.
According to the BBC, at least 43% of those confirmed as being killed were not associated with the army before February 2022, adding that the total could be as high as 70%.
Among those confirmed as killed were the names of 101 conscripts, who are not allowed by law to fight abroad.
In total, the BBC said that 18% of those killed were prisoners, 13% were soldiers who joined voluntarily, and 12% were mobilized.
The highest proportion of deaths as a percentage of the population came from regions far from Moscow and St. Petersburg. The highest was from Tuva, a republic in southern Siberia, followed by Buryatia, also in Siberia, and the Nenets Autonomous Okrug in Russia's Arctic.
Tuva's population is overwhelmingly ethnic Tuvan, while Buryatia and Nenets have significant non-ethnic Russian populations.
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.
Dmytro Basmat
