Performing their song "Bird of Pray," Ukrainian band Ziferblat passed the Eurovision semi-finals on May 13, qualifying Ukraine for the grand final on May 17.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that a Russian delegation will be in Istanbul on May 15 for direct peace talks with Ukraine. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov will likely represent Russia.
The move follows Ukraine's ratification of the minerals agreement, deepening U.S.-Ukraine economic ties and signaling expanded U.S. involvement in Ukraine's long-term recovery.
"Ukraine has initiated a coordinated campaign to vilify Hungary in order to undermine our initiative to hold a poll on (Kyiv's) EU membership," Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that further concessions from Ukraine during negotiations would be unreasonable if Russia continues to attack civilian targets.
U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg, will travel to Istanbul for possible peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, Reuters reported on May 13, citing three undisclosed sources.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said he will meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, but said both leaders are ready to fly to Istanbul if Russian President Vladimir Putin chooses to attend the talks there.
A laptop keyboard, a binary code reflected and Intel logo displayed on a phone screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on January 2, 2024. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Despite sanctions, Russia imported advanced chips valued at more than $1 billion from U.S. and European companies during the initial nine months of 2023, according to classified data from the Russian customs service obtained by Bloomberg.
The imported chips encompassed products from Intel Corp, Advanced Micro Devices, and Analog Devices Inc., along with European brands such as Infineon Technologies AG, STMicroelectronics NV, and NXP Semiconductors NV.
The companies, whose products were discovered in Russia, said that they strictly comply with sanctions and discontinued operations in Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
There is no data suggesting that the companies violated any sanctions and exported technology to Russia, according to Bloomberg. The technology entered Russia through countries such as China, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.
The U.S. and the European Union have been collaborating to impede these channels, with a particular emphasis on a designated set of high-priority items known as dual-use and advanced goods. These items are identified either within Russian weaponry used in Ukraine or deemed essential to their production.
Russia stopped publishing official data shortly after February, 2022. The Federal Customs Service told Bloomberg in an emailed statement that it temporarily doesn’t provide data on foreign trade.
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.
Anne O. Krueger
