The move follows Ukraine's ratification of the minerals agreement, deepening U.S.-Ukraine economic ties and signaling expanded U.S. involvement in Ukraine's long-term recovery.
"Ukraine has initiated a coordinated campaign to vilify Hungary in order to undermine our initiative to hold a poll on (Kyiv's) EU membership," Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that further concessions from Ukraine during negotiations would be unreasonable if Russia continues to attack civilian targets.
U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg, will travel to Istanbul for possible peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, Reuters reported on May 13, citing three undisclosed sources.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said he will meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, but said both leaders are ready to fly to Istanbul if Russian President Vladimir Putin chooses to attend the talks there.
A captive named Umit allegedly agreed to serve in the Russian army in exchange for Russian citizenship and a monetary reward of 2 million rubles ($25,000).
Russia's Buryatia Republic declared a state of emergency on May 13 over massive forest fires that have engulfed multiple regions in the Russian Far East.
The flag of NATO and the European Flag during a meeting between Johannes Hahn, European Commissioner for Budget and Administration Krisjanis Karins, Prime Minister of Latvia (both not pictured) on June 9, 2023 in Riga, Latvia. (Photo by Gints Ivuskans/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
NATO defense ministers will convene with the heads of 25 major defense manufacturers on June 15 to discuss Ukraine's need for more ammunition, as well as the need to replenish allies' stockpiles, Euractiv reported on June 12.
One NATO official told Euractiv that the meeting "will have a specific focus on battle-decisive munitions."
While the EU has taken a more active role in ammunition procurement for Ukraine, NATO has favored "focusing its support on non-lethal equipment and political messaging," Euractiv wrote.
NATO is also looking into establishing a Defense Production Action Plan to better determine investment objectives for members' defense needs, according to the publication.
As part of the military alliance, each member is already expected to allocate a certain portion of their budget to defense spending. However, meeting Ukraine's defense needs since the start of Russia's all-out war has prompted many countries to reevaluate the extent of their own stockpile investments.
Kate Tsurkan is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent who writes mostly about culture-related topics in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Her newsletter Explaining Ukraine with Kate Tsurkan, which focuses specifically on Ukrainian culture, is published weekly by the Kyiv Independent. The U.S. publisher Deep Vellum published her co-translation of Ukrainian author Oleh Sentsov’s Diary of a Hunger Striker in 2024. Some of her other writing and translations have appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Harpers, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She is the co-founder of Apofenie Magazine.
Daria Shulzhenko
