The publications' latest report covers the period of February 24, 2022 to May 8, 2025. Since it was last updated at the end of April, 2,857 additional Russian military personnel have been confirmed killed.
Hungary cancelled a meeting planned for May 12 with a Ukrainian delegation on the rights of national minorities, Hungary's Deputy Foreign Minister said on May 11, amid a deepening spying scandal between the two countries.
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.
Vehicles of the Finnish Defence Forces at the Vartius border station in Kuhmo, Finland, on Nov. 19, 2023. (Miska Puumala/Lehtikuva/ AFP via Getty Images)
Finland will shut the border crossing point of Raja-Jooseppi from Nov. 30 to Dec. 13, which means its entire border with Russia will be closed for two weeks, the Finnish government said on Nov. 28.
Finland previously closed all but the Raja-Jooseppi crossing in the country’s far north in response to a growing migrant crisis allegedly orchestrated by Moscow.
As long as the measure is in force, asylum seekers will be able to apply for international protection in Finland only at air- and maritime traffic border points, according to the government.
November saw an unusually high number of third-country asylum seekers arriving at the Finnish border from Russia without proper documentation. Helsinki accused Moscow of orchestrating the migrant influx as retribution for the country's entry into NATO.
“Russia is enabling the instrumentalization of people and guiding them to the Finnish border in harsh winter conditions. Finland is determined to put an end to this phenomenon,” Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said at the press conference when announcing the full closure of the border.
“In the current situation, it is necessary to close the entire eastern border. We have made this decision to protect Finland's national security against this Russian hybrid operation,” according to the Finnish Interior Minister Mari Rantanen.
In its Nov. 27 assessment, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) cited a Russian insider source saying that Russian authorities had directed the Interior Ministry to gather migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and other regions and send them to the Finnish border.
The ISW source complained that border officials in Finland had stopped most migrants from crossing into the country, and Russian authorities would now be forced to settle the migrants on Russian territory.
Reports of Moscow-orchestrated migrant crisis echo the strategy used by Belarus against its NATO neighbors. Minsk has been facilitating flows of third-country migrants to the Baltic countries and Poland since 2021.
Dinara Khalilova
