According to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), this marks the first time Ukrainian authorities have exposed a Hungarian military intelligence network conducting activities harmful to Ukraine.
Delegations from 35 countries and the Council of Europe gathered in Lviv as EU officials prepare to approve both new defense aid and steps toward establishing a tribunal for Russian leadership.
The ruling marks a significant victory for RFE/RL amid growing concerns about U.S. funding cuts to independent media countering Russian disinformation.
U.S. Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected the new pope and leader of the Roman Catholic Church on Thursday, taking the name Pope Leo XIV, a senior cardinal announced on May 8 to crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square, according to Vatican News.
George Simion, leader of Romania's far-right AUR party, who won the first round of the presidential election with nearly 40% of the vote, reiterated that if elected, he would oppose any further assistance to Ukraine and shift Romania’s focus inward.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed their countries' relationship on May 8, vowing to increase cooperation in all areas, including military ties.
"There is Turkey, which maintains channels of communication. And then, above all, there is the People's Republic of China, which, more than anyone else, has the means to make (Russian President Vladimir) Putin come to the negotiating table and soften his demands," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on May 8.
The United States will be ready to "walk away" from the negotiating table if it does not see Russia making progress in negotiation to end the war, U.S. Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on May 8.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico arrived in Moscow on May 9 to celebrate Victory Day, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
US President Donald Trump on May 8 called for a "30-day unconditional ceasefire" between Ukraine and Russia. Writing on Truth Social, Trump expressed his hope for "an acceptable ceasefire," with both countries "held accountable for respecting the sanctity of... direct negotiations."
President Volodymyr Zelensky had a "constructive" phone call with United States President Donald Trump on May 8, discussing the war, continued pressure on Russia, and a potential ceasefire.
The survey, conducted between April 24 and May 4, shows that 56.9% of respondents would not be willing to compromise on either territorial integrity or Ukraine’s pro-Western direction in any potential talks with Moscow.
Ukrainian servicemen get ready to repel an attack in Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast on Feb. 24, 2022. (AFP via Getty Images)
Seven days into the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it remains unclear how many casualties Russia has sustained.
The Ukrainian government said on March 2 the "indicative" number of Russia's losses stands at 5,840 people. Russia has only admitted it had any losses four days after it started the war, and had not given any numbers.
But multiple videos and pictures from battlefields suggest that invading forces have sustained severe casualties.
And yet another piece of evidence obtained by the Kyiv Independent sheds more light on the fate of Russia's 35th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade in Russia's war in Ukraine.
Dozens of Russian military service members were killed in action near the city of Chernihiv as a result of Ukrainian resistance in late February. Afterwards, scores of dead Russian bodies were sent home secretly, without the Russian leadership ever admitting their deaths.
The Kyiv Independent obtained a WhatsApp audio message recorded by a woman residing in the city of Aleysk in Russia's Altai region some 3,500 kilometers east of Kyiv, the home base for the 35th Brigade.
In the voice message, an unidentified woman weeps telling her fellow WhatsApp group member that the local "tank brigade" was "totally destroyed in Ukraine."
In particular, she mentions that "just 18 out of 150 guys survived," probably meaning one of the brigade's formations was destroyed by Ukrainian troops. Besides, the speaker says the first batch of 45 coffins, mostly young people from the town and villages nearby, were coming to Aleysk on the day of the recorded voice message.
The weeping woman also says some of the killed were her neighbors and acquaintances. She particularly mentions a military service-member named Evgeniy Zhilin. This name can be found in the leaked register of 120,000 Russian soldiers allegedly involved in the invasion of Ukraine published on March 1 by Ukraine's Center for Defense Strategies, a think tank. There is also a deleted VK social media account of a Evgeniy Zhilin from Aleysk.
According to the woman, the killed were mostly very young men. The local community found out about their deaths the day before the recording was made, and it mourned the loss.
The revelation is partially confirmed by several pieces of evidence about Russia's 35th Brigade's involvement in Ukraine. It is known that the brigade's armored formations were destroyed in armed clashes near the city of Chernihiv, north of Kyiv, on Feb. 26, with lots of manpower killed or taken prisoner.
The Ukrainian military on that day particularly reported seizing Major Leonid Shchetkin, who served as a chief executive officer and deputy battalion leader with Russia's military unit No. 41659, which is the home base for the 35th Brigade.
Notably, this is not the 35th Brigade's combat debut in Ukraine -- in 2014, its formations were seen engaged in combat against Ukrainian forces in Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russian leadership continues to refuse to publish any exact data on casualties of its war in Ukraine. In most cases, Russian propaganda outlets report on Russia's "special military operation in Ukraine" saying that no Russian casualties have been sustained.
But as of early March 1, the Ukrainian military reported as many as 5,710 Russian manpower casualties since the all-out invasion's first day on Feb. 24, which is comparable to Russian military losses in the two-year-long First Chechen War.
In its worst defeat in Donbas against combined Russian-militant forces in Ilovaisk in late August 2014, Ukraine lost a total of 366 combatants, according to an official investigation.
Illia Ponomarenko was a defense and security reporter at the Kyiv Independent in 2021-2023. He has reported about the war in eastern Ukraine since the conflict’s earliest days. He covers national security issues, as well as military technologies, production, and defense reforms in Ukraine. Besides, he gets deployed to the war zone of Donbas with Ukrainian combat formations. He has also had deployments to Palestine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an embedded reporter with UN peacekeeping forces. Illia won the Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellowship and was selected to work as USA Today's guest reporter at the U.S. Department of Defense.
