Brazilian President Lula da Silva claimed that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha had appealed to his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira, to ask Putin if he was willing to conclude a peace agreement.
Earlier reporting from the Washington Post cited a former Russian official who claimed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, would represent Moscow in the talks.
The Council of Europe on May 14 approved the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute Russia's top leadership for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, Ukrainian lawmaker Maria Mezentseva reported.
Viktoria Roshchyna, 27, disappeared in August 2023 while reporting from Ukraine's Russian-occupied territories. Moscow admitted she was in Russian detention the following year.
Dutch Justice Minister David van Weel speaks about the future of the EU-led special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine and its role in bringing Russia to justice.
Turkish officials told Bloomberg that while they don't expect Trump to visit Istanbul, they are not ruling it out, and preparations for any scenario are underway.
Melkonyants was arrested in August 2023 in connection with the activities of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO), which was co-founded by Golos's legal predecessor, the Golos association.
Ukraine's underground storage facilities are currently using 19.4% of their capacity. Almost 32%, or 2.79 bcm, less gas is available in the storages than in the previous year, according to the estimates.
The majority of Ukrainians, 71%, do not support holding elections before a full peace deal, even in the case of a ceasefire and security guarantees, according to a poll published by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on May 14.
"He'd like me to be there, and that's a possibility. ... I don't know that he would be there if I'm not there. We're going to find out," U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One while traveling to Qatar, Reuters reported.
Trump has long demanded that NATO allies increase their military spending, previously calling for the alliance to raise its benchmark from 2% to 5% of GDP.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and his Iraqi counterpart attend a joint press conference in Baghdad on April 17, 2023. (Photo by Ahmad Al- Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images)
Finland's NATO accession showed that fears Ukraine joining the military alliance would "provoke" Russia were unwarranted, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote in an op-ed for Foreign Affairs published on April 25.
Finland, which also borders Russia, submitted its application in May 2022 to join NATO after years of military neutrality. Rather than responding with military action when Finland became a member of NATO, Russia simply attempted to downplay the move.
According to Kuleba, "Russian aggression against Ukraine has reinvigorated the alliance and given it a new raison d’être."
However, fears of provoking Russia have "clouded the alliance’s judgment, leading it to adopt an overly cautious strategy that has had grave consequences for thousands of Ukrainians who have been kidnapped, raped, tortured, displaced, or killed," according to Kuleba.
Kuleba also reiterated a point that he made in mid-April about how NATO's Membership Action Plan (MAP) is no longer a necessary step for Ukraine's path to joining the military alliance and would only delay its membership.
This is why Ukraine is looking for a "concrete timetable for Ukraine’s accession to NATO," Kuleba wrote.
"Today, millions of Ukrainians are honing their skills in Europe’s bloodiest war of the twenty-first century. Tomorrow, they will use those skills to bolster NATO’s collective security," according to Kuleba.
During a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Kyiv on April 21, President Volodymyr Zelensky also said that Ukraine needed "something more than the format of our relations which exist today" and that the country needed a clearer indication of when it was joining NATO.
At the meeting, the NATO chief reaffirmed his personal support for Ukraine's future NATO membership.
"I will speak clearly," Stoltenberg said at the briefing, "Ukraine's rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family, Ukraine's rightful place is in NATO."
We are the news team of the Kyiv Independent. We are here to make sure our readers get quick, essential updates about the events in Ukraine. Feel free to contact us via email with feedback and news alerts.
Asami Terajima
