"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.
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.
European Union flags decorates the façade of the iconic Berlaymont building, the seat of the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium, on May 31, 2023. (Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The European Union and the European Central Bank (ECB) are in dispute over plans to use profits from frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine's reconstruction, Bloomberg reported on July 14.
Officials from the EU's executive branch have opposed ECB President Christine Lagarde's warnings that measures against sanctioned holdings could endanger the eurozone's financial stability and the liquidity of the common currency, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
The European Commission reportedly rejected the ECB's arguments, saying that any risk appeared — and was assessed — when the assets were initially frozen in February 2022 following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and that so far, none of those fears have materialized.
According to one of the Bloomberg sources, the windfall option does not affect the assets themselves or any requirements from the Russian Central Bank, nor does it influence the EU's role in holding securities.
The EU has been exploring options for using over $200 billion of frozen Russian Central Bank assets to aid Ukraine. Although Brussels assessed that it could not legally confiscate the funds, the EU officials have been discussing how to at least use the profits generated from these assets and send them to Ukraine.
The European Commission initially said it would come up with a proposal this summer, but the purported dispute has pushed the timeline until the commission's summer break ends, Bloomberg wrote.
According to the media outlet, windfall profits from frozen Russian assets could generate up to 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) in cash and securities.
Tetiana Khutor
