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.
Soldiers of the 68th Jaeger Brigade "Oleksa Dovbush" walk in the newly liberated village on June 10, 2023 in Blahodatne, Ukraine. The village Blahodatne is located on the border between Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. (Serhii Mykhalchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
Ukraine faces "major" territorial losses and a "gloomy overall picture" for the rest of 2024, according to a new Western intelligence assessment, German media reported on May 25.
According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS) newspaper, a report seen by German MPs says Ukraine will not be able to regain the initiative this year and is likely to lose more land than it already has since January.
It highlights Russia's current superiority in artillery as a major factor as well as Moscow's ability to absorb far more losses of men and materiel.
According to Ukrainian figures, Russian losses in Ukraine passed the grim milestone of 500,000 on May 25. The figure could not be independently verified.
The new report says that Kyiv's mobilization efforts will only "have an impact at the end of the summer" because recruits need to undergo training, meaning Ukraine is not in a position to "compensate for losses and build up reserves."
According to the German newspaper Welt, the report has been met with a mixed reaction among the country's politicians.
Roderich Kiesewetter of the Christian Democratic Union said such pessimistic reports were being published in order to "subtly but cruelly" pressure Kyiv to "cede territory."
But Ralf Stegner of the Social Democratic Party said the contents of the report were correct and "consistent with what I know."
Russia has held the battlefield initiative for much of 2024 so far and earlier this month launched a new offensive in northern Kharkiv Oblast though, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, at a high cost.
Russia's losses during the offensive are eight times higher than those suffered by Ukraine's armed forces, he said in an interview published on May 25.
The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify the claim.
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
