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.
The assault began around 2 a.m. on May 11, with Russian forces deploying 108 Shahed-type attack drones and decoy UAVs from multiple directions, Ukraine’s Air Force said.
"Think of the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be saved as this never ending 'bloodbath' hopefully comes to an end... I will continue to work with both sides to make sure that it happens."
U.S. State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce called for "concrete proposals from both sides" in order for Washington to "move forward" in peace negotiations.
"If they speak to each other in Russian, he doesn't know what they are saying," one Western official told NBC News. Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, called Witkoff's approach "a very bad idea."
Tougher sanctions "should be applied to (Russia's) banking and energy sectors, targeting fossil fuels, oil, and the shadow fleet," the leaders of Ukraine, the U.K., France, Germany, and Poland said in a joint statement.
A view of Google headquarters in California, United States, on March 23, 2024. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)
A Moscow court has found Google, owned by U.S. tech giant Alphabet, guilty of disclosing personal data of Russian servicemen killed in Ukraine, Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported on April 21.
The ruling reportedly stems from a YouTube video that allegedly revealed both casualty figures and personal details of Russian soldiers killed during the full-scale invasion.
The court found Google guilty under Article 13.41(2) of Russia’s administrative code, which covers the "violation of procedures for restricting access to information that must be limited under Russian law." The company was fined 3.8 million rubles (approximately $45,000), according to the court ruling.
Russia has long pressured foreign tech platforms to remove content it considers illegal, including what it describes as "fakes" about the war in Ukraine. Authorities have routinely issued fines—often relatively small but persistent—against companies they accuse of non-compliance.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously accused Google of acting as a political instrument of the United States. In December, he claimed the platform was used by then-President Joe Biden’s administration to "score political points."
In April, a Russian independent media outlet, Mediazona, in collaboration with the BBCRussian service, confirmed the identities of 101,833 Russian military personnel killed in Ukraine.
Mediazona's latest report covers the period from February 24, 2022, to April 7, 2025. Since it was last updated at the end of March, 1,882 additional Russian military personnel have been killed.
Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.
Abbey Fenbert
