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.
Transmission towers and power lines near a missile-damaged high-voltage electricity substation, operated by a state-owned company Ukrenergo, in central Ukraine, on March 1, 2023. Photo for illustrative purposes only. (Andrew Kravchenko/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The project to synchronize the state grid operator Ukrenergo to its counterparts in continental Europe has been completed, the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) reported on Nov. 28.
The project, which began in 2017, originally stipulated a set of conditions that Ukrenergo would need to fulfill in order to establish the "permanent interconnection between the power systems of Continental Europe and Ukraine."
The Nov. 28 announcement was an indication that all the conditions had been fulfilled.
ENTSO-E represents 39 different operators in 35 European countries, and its interconnected electrical grid is the largest in the world.
"This achievement will help to significantly increase the flexibility and reliability of our grid operation and create conditions for expanding cooperation. This is the result of many years of persistent work, which has been particularly challenging since the outbreak of full-scale war," said Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the CEO of Ukrenergo.
Ukrenergo and other Ukrainian energy companies have faced significant stress as a result of Russia's full-scale invasion and subsequent attacks on the energy grid.
Nate Ostiller is a former News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. He works on special projects as a researcher and writer for The Red Line Podcast, covering Eastern Europe and Eurasia, and focused primarily on digital misinformation, memory politics, and ethnic conflict. Nate has a Master’s degree in Russian and Eurasian Studies from the University of Glasgow, and spent two years studying abroad at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine. Originally from the USA, he is currently based in Tbilisi, Georgia.
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