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.
The assault began around 2 a.m. on May 11, with Russian forces deploying 108 Shahed-type attack drones and decoy UAVs from multiple directions, Ukraine’s Air Force said.
Chief of Ukraine's State fiscal service Roman Nasirov (R) is seen surrounded by his lawyers and defenders in a courtroom in November 2017. (Sergii Kharchenko/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Roman Nasirov, the former head of Ukraine's tax service who is accused of taking hefty bribes, was released from custody on bail worth Hr 55 million (around $1.4 million), the High Anti-Corruption Court reported on May 24.
Nasirov had been in detention since October 2022, with an initial bail set at Hr 532 million (around $13.2 million).
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau in 2023 concluded that Nasirov, during his tenure as the head of the service from 2015-2016, had received $5.5 million for granting Hr 540 million in fraudulent value-added tax (VAT) refunds to an agricultural holding company in 2015.
Later in 2016, he allegedly received another 21 million euros for granting Hr 2.7 billion in illegal VAT refunds.
Ukrainian businessman Oleh Bakhmatyuk, owner of the agricultural holding Ukrlandfarming, was arrested in absentia on March 7, 2023, on charges of allegedly giving bribes to Nasirov and his adviser.
The bribe is said to have been worth around Hr 722 million ($19.3 million) and was intended to secure VAT reimbursement for entities under Bakhmatyuk's control, according to Ukraine’s Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO).
Nasirov was first arrested in March 2017, when he was still in office at the Tax Service. He was then suspected of embezzling Hr 2 billion ($49.8 million) with the controversial businessman and lawmaker Oleksandr Onyshchenko.
Martin Fornusek
