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.
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Monday, May 12
"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."
Monday, May 12
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.
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"There is no point in prolonging the killings. And I will wait for Putin on Thursday in Turkey," President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
"We cannot allow NATO's military infrastructure to get that close to our borders," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
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.
Preliminary findings suggest that one of the men killed the other before taking his own life.
Western leaders dismissed the Kremlin's proposal for talks in Istanbul on May 15 as insufficient.
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.
The current pace of Ukraine's counteroffensive does not indicate a stalemate or inability to retake large territory, the Institute for the Study of War said in its assessment on July 4.
The Ukrainian military's gradual progress in eastern and southern Ukraine reflects a strategy of resource conservation over territorial acquisition, the ISW wrote in its analysis.
The strategic priority is "the maximum destruction" of Russian manpower and equipment, Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said on Twitter, adding that "a war of destruction is equal to a war of kilometers."
Ukrainian forces face land mines and other impediments as they advance deeper into Russian-occupied territory. Admiral Rob Bauer, chair of NATO's military committee, told reporters he agreed with the cautious approach and that Ukraine was right to avoid high casualties.
"People should never think that this is an easy walkover," Bauer said.
Nonetheless, Ukraine's gradual advance has yielded territorial gains. Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar reported via Telegram that in the last week, Ukrainian forces liberated nine kilometers in the east and 28 kilometers in the south.
The ISW compared Ukraine's current counteroffensive to its campaign to liberate Kherson Oblast between August and November 2022. In that case, a slow offensive eventually resulted in the successful liberation of Kherson.
Inside Ukraine’s costly mission to grind down Russia near Bakhmut
Editor’s note: The Kyiv Independent interviewed a few dozen soldiers deployed near Bakhmut and visited their positions in late May and early June. The soldiers are identified by their first names or call signs for security reasons amid the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine. NEAR IVANIVSKE VILLAGE, Don…
Asami Terajima
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