Performing their song "Bird of Pray," Ukrainian band Ziferblat passed the Eurovision semi-finals on May 13, qualifying Ukraine for the grand final on May 17.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that a Russian delegation will be in Istanbul on May 15 for direct peace talks with Ukraine. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov will likely represent Russia.
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.
The Crimean Titan plant in occupied Armiansk, Crimea, published June 12, 2023. (Source: Main Directorate of Intelligence/Telegram)
Russia is preparing evacuations in the occupied city of Armiansk in northern Crimea amid the Kakhovka dam breach, as well as "sabotage operations" at a factory in the region, Ukraine's military intelligence reported on June 12.
A shortage of water coming through the North Crimean Canal (NCC) has critically disrupted the functioning of the Crimean Titan plant, a factory producing titanium dioxide, according to the report.
Evacuation preparations are reportedly underway for Russian proxy leaders in the area, as well as the local population.
The military intelligence added that Russia may put a full halt on the plant's production, adding that the plant's engineers have been laying explosives in the facility.
"A terrorist attack on the Crimean Titan enterprise, which the Russian invaders are preparing, will mean an artificial man-made catastrophe, terrible in its consequences," Ukraine's military intelligence wrote, as around 200 tons of ammonia, stored in the facility, could be released into the atmosphere.
Such a disaster would threaten Armiansk, the Krasnoperekopsk district in Crimea, and the southern districts of Kherson Oblast, the intelligence report said.
Russian forces destroyed the Kakhovka Dam on June 6, triggering one of the largest man-made environmental and humanitarian disasters in Ukraine's history.
The breach represents a serious water supply crisis for Crimea, disrupting the water flow from through the NCC to the occupied peninsula.
On June 11, the U.K. Defense Ministry reported that NCC draws water from the Kakhovka reservoir "from an inlet higher than the bed of the reservoir." By June 9, however, the water level in the reservoir had "likely dropped below the level of the inlet," and "water will soon stop flowing to Crimea," the ministry added.
The local proxies lack a clear plan for countering the freshwater shortage and instead downplay the crisis, the Ukrainian military's National Resistance Center reported on June 10.
Martin Fornusek
