Ukraine remains the most mined country in the world. Nearly one-third of Ukraine's territory, approximately 174,000 square kilometers, had been mined since Russia began its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
The phone call comes as Moscow once again rejected a 30-day ceasefire, with Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova claiming that a ceasefire would give "Kyiv a break to restore its military potential and continue its confrontation with Russia."
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.
A Russian fishing trawler was hit by a missile during Russia’s Baltic Fleet military exercises, killing three and injuring four others, a relative of one of the dead men claimed to the Russian TV Rain on March 21, 2024. (TV Rain/Telegram)
A Russian fishing trawler was hit by a missile during Russia’s Baltic Fleet military exercises, killing three and injuring four others, a relative of one of the dead men claimed to the Russian TV Rain on March 21.
After the incident, which reportedly occurred on March 19, Russian authorities blamed it on a fire onboard the “Captain Lobanov” boat and said only one person had died, TV Rain reported.
The media published a video allegedly showing the vessel on fire.
“When the survivors were taken away, everyone knew perfectly well that three people had died and everyone knew perfectly well that a rocket had hit,” the relative said to TV Rain.
“But they decided to write that there was a ‘fire.’ I wonder what kind of fire this is, if the captain’s cabin is completely gone – it was simply demolished.
After being taken to a hospital, the survivors were reportedly interrogated by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) officers who asked them “not to talk about the incident.”
Russian state media reports confirm that Baltic Fleet exercises were underway when the incident occurred.
According to Russian state-owned media TASS, the Baltic Fleet press service said in a statement that during training the crew of the corvette Boikiy worked on “searching, detecting and destroying a mock enemy submarine using an anti-submarine weapon system.”
The corvette also “performed practical firing from artillery systems at sea and air targets” and “practiced the actions of striking a detachment of mock enemy ships with the Uran missile system,” according to the press statement cited by TASS.
The Kyiv Independent couldn’t independently verify the reports.
Chris York is news operations editor at the Kyiv Independent. Before joining the team, he was head of news at the Kyiv Post. Previously, back in Britain, he spent nearly a decade working for HuffPost UK. He holds an MA in Conflict, Development, and Security from the University of Leeds.
Chris York
