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.
"Think of the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be saved as this never ending 'bloodbath' hopefully comes to an end... I will continue to work with both sides to make sure that it happens."
U.S. State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce called for "concrete proposals from both sides" in order for Washington to "move forward" in peace negotiations.
"If they speak to each other in Russian, he doesn't know what they are saying," one Western official told NBC News. Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, called Witkoff's approach "a very bad idea."
A woman passes by PrivatBank 's office in downtown Kyiv on Dec. 15, 2021. (Volodymyr Petrov)
The websites of Ukraine’s defense ministry and armed forces witnessed a cyberattack on Feb. 15, which also hit Ukraine's two largest banks - PrivatBank and Oschadbank.
Starting at 3 p.m. the affected websites could not be accessed and clients of the banks reported issues with their payments and apps.
"We managed to eliminate the consequences of the DDOS attack and restore the stable operation of the systems," PrivatBank wrote in an official statement. A similar statement was published by Oschadbank.
"There is a possibility of further attacks, so our IT team is doing everything possible to properly counter them," wrote PrivatBank.
Yet, as of 8:30 p.m., some clients continue to experience difficulties entering bank apps.
Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov reported that a powerful DDoS attack was also launched at the Diia e-governance portal, but was repelled. Oleg Gororkovsky said similar attacks were directed at the Monobank digital bank he co-owns and many others, including Alfa Bank and A-Bank.
The attack is "the most powerful yet" in Ukraine, Ukrainska Pravda news outlet reported citing sources in the law enforcement.
Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security said it was a DDoS attack, but assured that deposits of clients are safe. The center also implied that the culprit may be Russia.
"It is possible that the aggressor resorted to the tactics of petty mischief because by and large, its aggressive plans do not work," the center said on Facebook.
In a DDoS attack, perpetrators flood the target with superfluous requests from many sources to overload the system.
It’s a method different from the previous Jan. 14 attack that crashed state websites, replacing their main pages with a threatening message, and which the government blamed on Russia.
Cyberattacks are one of the many ways Russia may try to destabilize Ukraine, according to the government and the U.S. intelligence.
The attack came amid the ongoing reports of a looming Russian further invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin has already massed over 140,000 troops around Ukraine and in the Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, while over 20 embassies have urged their citizens to immediately leave the country following the White House’s new warnings that Russia could mount a major military assault on Ukraine “at any moment.”
Artur Korniienko is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent, currently on a leave to serve in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He previously reported on Ukrainian literature, art, music, film and social issues for the Kyiv Post, including the controversial Babyn Yar memorial and other development projects opposed by the community. In 2021, he ran a podcast about Ukrainian migrant workers for RFE/RL on the Vaclav Havel Fellowship in Prague. With a Master's in Journalism from the Ukrainian Catholic University, Korniienko had also worked as a freelance journalist and a TV correspondent.
