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.
"Russia is ready for negotiations without any preconditions," Putin claimed in an address marking the end of the three-day Victory Day ceasefire. He invited Ukraine to begin talks in Istanbul on May 15.
A man examines a damaged road sign with directions to Ukraine and Russia at a destroyed border crossing point near the Ukrainian-controlled Russian town of Sudzha, Kursk Oblast, on Aug. 16, 2024.(Yan Dobronosov/AFP via Getty Images)
Two Italian journalists from the RAI news agency will return to Italy for safety reasons after Russia threatened to prosecute them for entering the country to report on Ukraine's incursion in Kursk Oblast, RAI Managing Director Roberto Sergio said on Aug. 17.
Russia's Foreign Ministry on Aug. 16 summoned the Italian ambassador regarding the news team, accusing them of "illegally" crossing the border into Kursk Oblast and promising to press criminal charges against the journalists.
"The company has decided, exclusively to ensure safety and personal protection, to return, temporarily to Italy, journalist Stefania Battistini and cameraman Simone Traini," Sergio said.
The RAI news team were the first to publish a foreign media report of Ukraine's incursion in Kursk Oblast.
Cecilia Piccioni, Italy's ambassador in Moscow, told the Russian authorities when summoned that RAI's reporters "plan their activities in a totally independent and autonomous way."
RAI also stressed that their reporters "complied with the norms of international law" when covering the situation in Kursk Oblast.
"Journalism is not a crime," RAI union Usigrai and Italy's national press union FNSI said in a joint statement.
"The Moscow authorities' possibility of putting Stefania Battistini and Simone Traini on trial is unacceptable. Reporting is not done with prior authorizations."
Abbey Fenbert is a senior news editor at the Kyiv Independent. She is a freelance writer, editor, and playwright with an MFA from Boston University. Abbey served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine from 2008-2011.
Chris York
