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.
"Russia is ready for negotiations without any preconditions," Putin claimed in an address marking the end of the three-day Victory Day ceasefire. He invited Ukraine to begin talks in Istanbul on May 15.
Servicemen of the 65th Separate Mechanized Brigade are seen by the destroyed military equipment near Robotyne, Zaporizhzhia Oblast in southeastern Ukraine. (Dmytro Smolienko / Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
The line of contact near the village of Robotyne in Zaporizhzhia Oblast is "in flux," but the situation is "not critical" despite Russian troops assaults in the area, Nataliia Humeniuk, spokesperson of Ukraine's Southern Operational Command said on March 20.
The village of Robotyne, which lies some 15 kilometers (9 miles) south of Orikhiv and 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) southeast of Zaporizhzhia, was liberated by Ukraine during its counteroffensive in the summer of 2023 and has been on the front line since.
Robotyne sits by the main road toward Russian-occupied Tokmak and further to occupied Melitopol, one of the key logistic hubs for Russian forces in southern Ukraine.
"We need to remember that on such open surfaces as this region, the line of contact is in flux. Positions can change even within a day - by a few meters, a few tens of meters. But this is not critical, it is a normal development of combat events," Humeniuk told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) on March 20.
"The enemy is continuing to attack and put pressure (on Ukrainian troops in the area), has a numerical advantage, and uses 'human wave' attacks," she said.
Russian forces actively use counter-battery fire, such as artillery and drones, near Robotyne, according to Humeniuk.
There were six assault attempts by Russia in this area over the past day, all of which were repelled by Ukraine's Armed Forces, she added.
Russian troops are also having trouble gathering groups to assault territories controlled by Ukraine on the east bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast, she said.
Kateryna Hodunova is a News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked as a sports journalist in several Ukrainian outlets and was the deputy chief editor at Suspilne Sport. Kateryna covered the 2022 Olympics in Beijing and was included in the Special Mentions list at the AIPS Sport Media Awards. She holds a bachelor's degree in political journalism from Taras Shevchenko University and a master's degree in political science from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
Asami Terajima
