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.
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.
Erdogan told Macron that international cooperation is critical for initiating peace negotiations and the "sensitive implementation" of Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction processes, the Turkish Presidency reported.
A woman wearing a face mask carries a rainbow flag during the Equality March KyivPride 2021. (Photo by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Kyiv City Council has denied permission to hold this year's Kyiv Pride march to be held in the capital's metro system "for security reasons," it announced on June 3.
Organizers of the event said last week that registration for an "Equality March" was open and hoped up to 500 people would attend the event on the underground network on June 16.
Kyiv has not hosted an LGBT+ pride event since the launch of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Last year's event was hosted by Liverpool, England.
"In order not to endanger the participants and passengers, and to avoid possible provocations, the city authorities cannot allow the Equality March to take place in the metro," Kyiv's City Hall said in a statement on June 3.
It added that the metro system which doubles as an air raid shelter during Russian aerial attacks is a "dual-use facility and part of the city's critical infrastructure."
"It is always a high-risk area due to limited space, train schedule and high passenger traffic," it added.
Meanwhile in Russia, the country's Supreme Court declared "the international LGBT social movement" to be "an extremist organization" on Nov. 30, 2023 and banned all its activities.
Since then, several cases have been recorded of individuals convicted of "extremism" for displaying LGBT+ symbols.
Abbey Fenbert
