Hungary cancelled a meeting planned for May 12 with a Ukrainian delegation on the rights of national minorities, Hungary's Deputy Foreign Minister said on May 11, amid a deepening spying scandal between the two countries.
Three were injured in Russia's Kursk Oblast when the town of Rylsk was allegedly struck by a missile attack on May 11, local governor Alexander Khinshtein claimed.
This week, the world watched in anticipation for Russia’s Victory Day parade after President Volodymyr Zelensky commented that he could not guarantee the safety of those attending. Meanwhile, the European Union moves one step forward to banning Russian gas from the European continent. It is also revealed this week that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has fallen out of step with the White House.
"(Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin... doesn't want to have a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine, but rather wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the bloodbath. Ukraine should agree to this, immediately," U.S. President Donald Trump said.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to to Antalya, Turkey, for a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting from May 14–16, where he is expected to address the war in Ukraine and push for stronger Allied defense commitments.
The Kremlin said the leaders held a detailed discussion about the Russian initiative and Erdogan expressed full support, reiterating Turkey’s readiness to provide a venue and assist in organizing the negotiations.
Erdogan told Macron that international cooperation is critical for initiating peace negotiations and the "sensitive implementation" of Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction processes, the Turkish Presidency reported.
Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba speaks during a press conference after the Security Council meeting concerning the war in Ukraine at United Nations headquarters on February 24, 2023, in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images)
According to Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, two more countries joined the Core Group on the Special Tribunal for the Russian crime of aggression on March 14.
"Thirty-two states are now working together to hold Russia’s top political and military leadership accountable. Putin and his associates will stand trial," Kuleba said on Twitter.
The minister didn't specify which two states have joined the group. On March 7, Kuleba reported that Greece was becoming a coalition member.
The European Parliament on Jan. 19 adopted a resolution calling on member states to back the creation of a special international tribunal to judge Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine, specifically the crime of aggression. The resolution urged the EU member states to "immediately" prepare for the tribunal's creation in cooperation with Ukraine.
The Core Group held the first meeting on Jan. 26, and its participants will gather again on March 21-22 in Strasbourg, according to the Ukrainska Pravda publication.
According to The New York Times, the International Criminal Court (ICC) plans to open two cases investigating war crimes conducted by Russian forces against Ukraine. The cases are related to the Russian abduction of Ukrainian children and teenagers who were sent to Russian so-called "reeducation" camps and the deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure. These will be the first international charges brought forward since Russia's full-scale war began in February 2022.
While the ICC can investigate war crimes committed by individuals, it does not have jurisdiction to prosecute the crime of aggression, thus the need to create the Special Tribunal.
From the time it was first conceived as a concept, the crime of aggression was considered a leadership crime — that of leaders who devise state policies that exclude followers, among others, from criminal liability. It was prosecuted for the first time at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal after World War II.
Commenting on the ICC's alleged intentions to open the cases, the Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on March 14, cited by Russian state-controlled news agency TASS, that Moscow didn't recognize the jurisdiction of this court.
Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office is investigating some 70,000 cases of war crimes and crimes of aggression allegedly committed by Russian troops since the beginning of the full-scale invasion a year ago.
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