Moscow and Hanoi agreed to negotiate and sign agreements to construct nuclear power plants in Vietnam, the two countries said in a joint statement on May 11.
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.
"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."
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.
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.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson on Dec. 1, 2023, in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson plans to hold separate votes this week on new assistance packages for Israel and Ukraine, aiming to assemble fragile coalitions to support both embattled allies.
This move seeks to overcome Republican resistance to aid Kyiv and address the recent missile and drone attack by Iran on Israel. By capitalizing on the sense of urgency among many U.S. lawmakers to stand with Israel following the attack, Speaker Johnson aims to gauge the resolve of ultraconservative factions in blocking aid to Ukraine, Bloomberg reports.
Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has threatened to trigger a vote to remove the speaker if any assistance to Ukraine is considered in the House.
On April 15, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a briefing that "we will not accept a standalone" Israel aid bill. "A standalone would actually not help Israel and Ukraine. It would actually delay ... the needed aid," Jean-Pierre noted, calling for the House to pass the Senate's $95 billion Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan aid bill.
The United States' delay in providing assistance to Ukraine has directly affected the battlefield, leading to the loss of the crucial front-line city of Avdiivka. With the situation escalating on the eastern front and Russian assaults intensifying on energy infrastructure, President Volodymyr Zelensky emphasized that the failure of the U.S. Congress to approve military aid could result in Ukraine losing the war.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that U.S. President Joe Biden and congressional leaders reached a "consensus" on April 14 regarding the urgent need for Congress to swiftly provide aid to Israel and Ukraine. Schumer expressed his optimism that actions would be taken this week to assist both nations, as he mentioned during a press conference in New York.
Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.
Kateryna Hodunova
