"We agreed to pursue ambitious measures to reduce Russia's ability to wage war by limiting Kremlin revenues, disrupting the shadow fleet, tightening the Oil Price Cap, and reducing our remaining imports of Russian energy."
Zelensky on May 12 removed Lieutenant General Ivan Havryliuk from the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the top command and control body for all branches of Ukraine's defense apparatus.
Ukraine remains the most mined country in the world. Nearly one-third of Ukraine's territory, approximately 174,000 square kilometers, had been mined since Russia began its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
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.
Soldiers on the Armored Infantry Vehicle 2 (BMP-2) on the road to the city, the outskirts of Avdiivka on Feb. 14, 2024. (Vlada Liberova/Libkos/Getty Images)
Russia may focus its potential late spring or summer offensive against Ukraine in the western part of Donetsk Oblast, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote in their April 1 report.
The Russian military command may consider the area near Avdiivka, a key front-line city in Donetsk Oblast captured by Russia in February, as a priority, the ISW said. Russia's willingness to commit a battalion of tanks to an attack in the area is one of the indications of such plans, the report said.
Referring to an unnamed Ukrainian service member, the ISW said that on March 30, Ukraine's Armed Forces appeared to repel the first Russia's battalion-sized mechanized assault since Moscow began a new campaign to seize Avdiivka in late October 2023.
Russian troops may have used 36 tanks and 12 infantry fighting vehicles near the village of Tonenke, which the ISW and the U.K. Defense Ministry consider likely to have been captured by Russian troops.
The Ukrainian military did not confirm this claim.
Subscribe to newsletter
War Notes
The ISW suggested that Ukrainian troops had to expend a "significant amount of material" to repel this assault, but the "ability to skillfully defend against a large-scale Russian assault in a particularly critical part of the front despite challenges suggests that Ukrainian forces can achieve significant battlefield effects if they are properly equipped."
Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrskyi said that a Russian attack on Kharkiv, which saw an escalation in strikes in recent weeks, cannot be ruled out.
The contact line near another hotspot, the village of Robotyne in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, was "in flux," but the situation was "not critical" despite Russian troops' assaults in the area, according to the Ukrainian military.
The ISW said that despite warnings about the accumulation of Russian forces in other parts of the front, Russia may focus on one sector.
"ISW continues to assess that Russian forces will likely only be able to launch a concerted large-scale offensive operation in one operational direction at a time due to Russia's own manpower and planning limitations," the report said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said in late March that the situation on the battlefield has been stabilized compared to earlier months, but he did not rule out that a major Russian offensive may come at the end of May or in June.
Kateryna Denisova works as a News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked as a news editor at the NV media outlet for four years, covering mainly Ukrainian and international politics. Kateryna holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv. She also was a fellow at journalism schools in the Czech Republic and Germany.
Igor Kossov
