The phone call comes as Moscow once again rejected a 30-day ceasefire, with Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova claiming that a ceasefire would give "Kyiv a break to restore its military potential and continue its confrontation with Russia."
Flight MH17 departed from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport en-route to Kuala Lumpur International Airport on July 17, 2014. Three hours into the flight, the Boeing-777 was shot down by Russian proxy forces using a Buk surface-to-air missile above Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.
"I am grateful for the support and the readiness at the highest level to promote diplomacy," President Volodymyr Zelensky said of the phone conservation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "We share the same view on the need for a ceasefire."
The convictions mark a significant development in Britain's efforts to counter Russian intelligence operations amid heightened tensions stemming from Moscow's war against Ukraine and repeated Kremlin threats toward Kyiv's allies.
According to the Verkhovna Rada's website, Ukraine completed the ratification of the U.S.-Ukraine minerals agreement on May 12. President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the deal.
"I myself have heard relatives talking: our village is being attacked, let's roll the car out of the garage, maybe they will shell it — at least we will get money. The car is old, we can't sell it," Belgorod Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
The new tranche brings total recent EU defense support for Ukraine to 3.3 billion euros ($3.6 billion), marking a significant expansion of European efforts to boost Kyiv's defense industry.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends his first press conference, after taking office. on September 16, 2024 in Tehran, Iran. This marks the president's first major interaction with the press since taking office on July 28, 2024. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian claimed on Sept. 23 on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York that his country had never supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine and denied supplying ballistic missiles to Russia, the Guardian reported.
Washington confirmed on Sept. 10 earlier media reports that Russia had received shipments of Iranian Fath-360 close-range ballistic missiles. A day prior, Iran denied it had delivered ballistic missiles to Russia, claiming the ongoing reports were "psychological warfare."
"We are willing to sit down with the Europeans and the Americans to have a dialogue and negotiations. We have never approved of Russian aggression against Ukrainian territory," Pezeshkian claimed in New York.
Pezeshkian became the country's president on Aug. 30, 2024. During his first press conference after taking office he also denied supplying ballistic missiles to Russia.
"There may have been such deliveries in the past. But I can assure you that there have been no such deliveries to Russia since I took office," Pezeshkian said.
Ukraine, the E.U., and the U.S. introduced more sanctions against Iran in the wake of the confirmation of the missile delivery to Russia.
The confirmation of the deliveries marked a "further escalation of Iran's military support to Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine," the U.K., France, and Germany said in their Sept. 10 joint statement.
Russia and Iran have deepened their military and political cooperation since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Tehran has provided Moscow with thousands of Shahed kamikaze drones used in attacks against Ukraine.
Kateryna Hodunova is a News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked as a sports journalist in several Ukrainian outlets and was the deputy chief editor at Suspilne Sport. Kateryna covered the 2022 Olympics in Beijing and was included in the Special Mentions list at the AIPS Sport Media Awards. She holds a bachelor's degree in political journalism from Taras Shevchenko University and a master's degree in political science from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
Kateryna Hodunova
