The sanctions appear to be in response to Russia's rejection of a 30-day ceasefire that the U.K., alongside Ukraine, France, Germany, and Poland, demanded during a visit to Kyiv on May 10.
"We now know for sure that the great fire of the Marywilska shopping centre in Warsaw was caused by arson ordered by the Russian special services," Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on X. "Some of the perpetrators have already been detained, all the others are identified and searched for."
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.
Members of the neo-Nazi paramilitary unit Rusich walk by the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow, Russia. (STR/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
A court in Helsinki ordered the pre-trial detention of Yan Petrovsky, a Russian neo-Nazi mercenary who has fought against Ukrainian troops, as he awaits potential formal charges on war crimes he allegedly committed in Ukraine, the Finnish media outlet Helsingin Sanomat reported on Dec. 18.
Petrovsky is a co-leader of Rusich, a Russian neo-Nazi paramilitary unit that has fought against Ukraine. He is accused by Ukraine, and now Finland, of committing war crimes during the Russian invasion of Donbas that started in 2014.
Finnish authorities arrested Petrovsky in July as he tried to fly to France under the name Voislav Torden.
Ukraine requested his extradition so that he could stand trial for the alleged war crimes, but a Finnish court ruled on Dec. 8 that he could not be forced to go to Ukraine because it said conditions in Ukrainian prisons do not meet standards set by the European Convention on Human Rights.
Ukraine has said that Russian prisoners of war are treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
Petrovsky was released on Dec. 8, but three days later, a Finnish court ordered him back into custody. Over the following days, Finnish authorities publicly speculated about the possibility of trying Petrovsky in Finland for his alleged crimes in Ukraine.
Helsingin Sanomat said that charges would be filed by the end of May 2024 and likely relate to the treatment of wounded Ukrainian soldiers and POWs.
The Rusich unit prides itself on atrocities, publishing photos and videos of the torture and murder of Ukrainian citizens.
Another co-leader of the Rusich unit, Alexei Milchakov, has posed with a swastika flag and called for “killing homeless people, puppies and children.”
If official charges are announced and a trial proceeds, it would be a novel occurrence, as Petrovsky is not a Finnish citizen, and the alleged crimes did not happen in Finland.
Alexander Khrebet
