Presidential Office chief Andriy Yermak voiced doubt about leading negotiations with anyone from Russia except President Vladimir Putin, saying only he can take real decisions.
This includes at least seven people injured in drone attacks overnight on May 12, a date from which Kyiv and its allies put forward a demand for a 30-day unconditional truce, a step that Moscow continues to reject.
"When European unity becomes inconvenient, disinformation goes so far as to make a simple tissue look like drugs," the Elysee Palace reacted to a fake story pushed by Russia.
The comments came after Trump urged Ukraine to agree to direct negotiations with Russia, which has invited Kyiv to peace talks in Istanbul on May 15, without first agreeing to halt military operations.
A Russian drone hit a civilian freight train in Donetsk Oblast on May 12 and injured its driver, Ukrainian Railways said amid Kyiv's calls for a ceasefire.
Moscow and Hanoi agreed to negotiate and sign agreements to construct nuclear power plants in Vietnam, the two countries said in a joint statement on May 11.
The sanctions appear to be in response to Russia's rejection of a 30-day ceasefire that the U.K., alongside Ukraine, France, Germany, and Poland, demanded during a visit to Kyiv on May 10.
"We now know for sure that the great fire of the Marywilska shopping centre in Warsaw was caused by arson ordered by the Russian special services," Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on X. "Some of the perpetrators have already been detained, all the others are identified and searched for."
The publications' latest report covers the period of February 24, 2022 to May 8, 2025. Since it was last updated at the end of April, 2,857 additional Russian military personnel have been confirmed killed.
Hungary cancelled a meeting planned for May 12 with a Ukrainian delegation on the rights of national minorities, Hungary's Deputy Foreign Minister said on May 11, amid a deepening spying scandal between the two countries.
Three were injured in Russia's Kursk Oblast when the town of Rylsk was allegedly struck by a missile attack on May 11, local governor Alexander Khinshtein claimed.
Belgorod Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, June 2, 2023. (Olga Maltseva / AFP via Getty Images)
Thousands of children from Russia's Belgorod Oblast are to be evacuated to regions further away from the border with Ukraine, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced on March 18.
Reports suggest the security situation in Belgorod Oblast, which borders Ukraine's Sumy, Kharkiv, and Luhansk oblasts, has been deteriorating since March 12, when Russian anti-Kremlin militiasbroke into the region from Ukraine, resulting in clashes with the Russian military.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed on March 19 that Belgorod Oblast again came under a rocket strike after days of alleged attacks against the city of Belgorod.
The Kyiv Independent could not verify the claims of Russian authorities, and Ukraine does not usually comment on alleged attacks on Russian soil.
"We are evacuating a large number of villages today" and the authorities plan to evacuate 9,000 children from the region, Gladkov claimed at a press conference.
Gladkov said children would be evacuated from Belgorod and the surrounding district, as well as from Shebekino district, which lies southeast of Belgorod on the border with Ukraine, and Grayvoron district, which lies west of Belgorod on the border with Ukraine.
Residents of the town of Shebekino, the administrative center of Shebekinsky district, were previously evacuated in June 2023 after reports that militias had launched an incursion over the border. Gladkov said in July 2023 that the evacuated residents could return home.
Gladkov claimed in January 2024 that around 100 children were temporarily evacuated from the city of Belgorod after the city came under attack and taken to neighboring Voronezh Oblast.
Igor Kossov
