The agreement, signed on April 30, establishes a joint investment fund between Kyiv and Washington and grants the U.S. special access to projects developing Ukraine's natural resources.
Ukraine is considering moving away from the U.S. dollar and closer to the euro as a benchmark for the hryvnia, National Bank Governor Andrii Pyshnyi told Reuters.
The Atesh partisan group claims it disabled communication at several Russian military facilities when it allegedly destroyed equipment at a transformer substation in the village of Mogiltsy in Russia's Moscow Oblast.
"The Russians are asking for a certain set of requirements, a certain set of concessions in order to end the conflict. We think they’re asking for too much," U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on May 7, according to Politico.
EU ambassadors began talks this week on a 17th sanctions package that targets Russia’s military-industrial complex, Moscow’s shadow shipping fleet, and related support networks.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong (R) meets with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during a visit to the Government House on May 3, 2024, in Adelaide, Australia. (Michael Errey - Pool/Getty Images)
Germany on May 3 blamed Russian-backed hackers for a cyberattack against members of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) last year and promised a response, Deutsche Welle (DW) reported.
SPD, the strongest party in Germany's governing coalition, announced in June 2023 that email accounts of its members had been targeted by hackers earlier that year.
Speaking at a press conference in Australia, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that the investigation into the incident has concluded and pointed to Russia as the culprit.
"Today we can say unambiguously... we can attribute this cyber attack to a group called APT28, which is steered by the military intelligence service of Russia," Baerbock said.
"In other words, it was a state-sponsored Russian cyberattack on Germany," the minister said, adding: "This is absolutely intolerable and unacceptable and will have consequences."
Russia's military intelligence agency, also known as GRU, has already been linked to numerous cyberattacks in Ukraine and elsewhere.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said that a GRU-backed group called SandWorm was responsible for a large-scale hacking attack against the Kyivstar telecommunications provider in December 2023.
Speaking alongside Baerbock at the press conference in Adelaide, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong voiced full support for Germany: "Australia stands in solidarity with Germany in calling out states that act contrary to the norms of responsible state behavior in cyberspace."
Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press. He was also volunteering as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukraïner. Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.
Kateryna Hodunova
