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 visitor stands next a F-35 fighter jet poster during Japan Aerospace 2018 air show in Tokyo, Japan, Nov. 28, 2018. Photo for illustrative purposes. (Alessandro Di Ciommo/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Japan scrambled fighter jets and used flares to warn off a Russian military plane that breached Japanese airspace on Sept. 23, Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said.
The airspace violation could be related to the joint military exercises Russia and China planned to participate in during September.
A Russian Il-38 reconnaissance aircraft entered Japanese airspace over Rebun Island, off Japan's northern coast, Kihara told reporters. The plane breached Japan's airspace three times, for up to a minute in each instance, over the course of a five-hour flight in the region.
In response, Japan scrambled F-15 and F-35 fighter jets, which used flares after the Russian plane ignored earlier warnings.
The incident marks the first time Japanese aircraft used flares to warn off a Russian military plane.
"The airspace violation was extremely regrettable," Kihara said. He also said Japan has lodged a protest with Moscow via diplomatic channels.
"We will carry out our warning and surveillance operations as we pay close attention to their military activities," Kihara said.
The Russian plane was not engaged in particularly dangerous activities at the time it entered Japanese airspace, he said.
Earlier in September, Russian Il-38 and other military aircraft were detected and tracked in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in North America, though the planes stopped short of violating U.S. or Canadian airspace.
In July 2024, the U.S. and Canada scrambled fighter jets to intercept Russian and Chinese military planes in the ADIZ.
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.
Dinara Khalilova
