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 captive named Umit allegedly agreed to serve in the Russian army in exchange for Russian citizenship and a monetary reward of 2 million rubles ($25,000).
Russia's Buryatia Republic declared a state of emergency on May 13 over massive forest fires that have engulfed multiple regions in the Russian Far East.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko's statement came as Strong Shield 5 exercises involving military personnel from other NATO countries began in Lithuania.
"Amendments to the Budget Code are needed to implement the provisions on funding the U.S.-Ukrainian Reconstruction Investment Fund," lawmaker Roksolana Pidlasa said.
During reconnaissance in an unspecified front-line sector, Special Operations Forces' operators detected Buk-M3 and Uragan-1 on combat duty, the unit said.
The suspect quit his job at the Rivne NPP before the full-scale war began. In the spring of 2025, a GRU liaison contacted him and offered cooperation in exchange for money.
European Commissioner for Trade Valdis Dombrovskis speaks during a press conference on the EU's partnership with Latin America and the Caribbean at the EU headquarters, in Brussels on June 7, 2023. (Photo by Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD / AFP) (Photo by KENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP via Getty Images)
Fourteen EU member states and states participating in the EU Civil Protection Mechanism have provided aid to Ukraine in the wake of the Kakhovka dam disaster, European Commissioner for Trade Valdis Dombrovskis reported on June 13.
According to Dombrovskis, the aid comprises 76 boats, over 300 water pumps, and over 160,000 shelter items.
EU officials were preparing a contingency plan in case Russian forces blew up the dam since it came under Russian occupation, Dombrovskis said.
The Kakhovka dam was blown up by Russian forces on June 6, resulting in a mass-scale humanitarian and ecological disaster in Kherson Oblast and other parts of southern Ukraine.
In his statement at the European Parliament, Dombrovskis stressed the importance of using frozen Russian funds in Ukraine's post-war reconstruction.
"It is important to stress that Ukraine's reconstruction should also be financed by Russian assets. The EU is committed to ensuring that Russia is held fully accountable for its unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine," Dombrovskis said.
Kate Tsurkan is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent who writes mostly about culture-related topics in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Her newsletter Explaining Ukraine with Kate Tsurkan, which focuses specifically on Ukrainian culture, is published weekly by the Kyiv Independent. The U.S. publisher Deep Vellum published her co-translation of Ukrainian author Oleh Sentsov’s Diary of a Hunger Striker in 2024. Some of her other writing and translations have appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Harpers, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She is the co-founder of Apofenie Magazine.
Anna Myroniuk
