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.
A serviceman from Ukraine's 65th Separate Mechanized Brigade is standing on the outskirts of Robotyne, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, southeastern Ukraine, on Feb. 21, 2024. (Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Members of the Military Medical Examination Commission can no longer use their own discretion when determining a person's eligibility for the military, the Defense Ministry said on May 4.
President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law on April 2 canceling the "partially eligible," which stipulates that certain health issues exempt conscripts from specific kinds of military activities.
The law came into force on May 4, reducing the categories to "eligible" and "non-eligible." Men between the ages of 18 and 60 who were listed as "partially eligible" must be re-examined.
The list of illnesses that could grant a given person an exemption must be evaluated, the Defense Ministry said.
This change will prevent corruption and draft dodging during the medical examination, the ministry said.
"In fact, the individual evaluation of (a given candidate's) eligibility was canceled. From now on, Military Medical Examination Commission members will not be able to make decisions on their own but will be guided only by clear rules," the statement read.
Ukraine's government aims to update the legal framework around mobilization to ramp up its number of available troops in 2024.
In early April, Zelensky approved laws to lower the minimum age of compulsory military service from 27 to 25, allowing younger men to be mobilized, and to create the online register for conscripts.
Ukraine's president also signed an updated mobilization bill on April 16, one of the key points of which is the right of disabled soldiers and those who have returned from captivity to discharge themselves.
Kateryna Hodunova is a News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked as a sports journalist in several Ukrainian outlets and was the deputy chief editor at Suspilne Sport. Kateryna covered the 2022 Olympics in Beijing and was included in the Special Mentions list at the AIPS Sport Media Awards. She holds a bachelor's degree in political journalism from Taras Shevchenko University and a master's degree in political science from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
Elsa Court
