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.
"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.
While serving as a bishop in Peru, Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, called the full-scale war "a true invasion, imperialist in nature, where Russia seeks to conquer territory for reasons of power."
According to the Dec. 23, 2021 statement by Ukraine's top commander of the Armed Forces Lieutenant General Valeriy Zaluzhniy, the Ukrainian military will respond in case of Russia's attacks in the Donbas. (Defense Ministry / Facebook)
The Ukrainian military fully supports the state of ceasefire in the war zone of Donbas, but it will give an appropriate response to any enemy attack, according to Ukraine's top commander of the Armed Forces Lieutenant General Valeriy Zaluzhniy.
"Our military keep serving their duties," the general said on Dec. 23. "They guard their homeland, protect civilians and themselves. Or course, if there's a threat to the life and health of military personnel or civilians, the military must act the same way as they did before."
Ukrainian soldiers aren't banned from opening fire in response to attacks by Russian-led militants, the commander added.
"But then again, we are the military, we absolutely support the state of ceasefire that would, of course, give us a chance to avoid possible fatalities," he said.
Amid the ongoing security crisis with Russia, which massed over 100,000 troops surrounding Ukraine threatening a large-scale military action, an internationally-mediated Russian-Ukrainian talks group agreed on Dec. 22 to continue formally sticking to a state of ceasefire declared by the sides in July 2020.
Despite formal armistice, low-intensity hostilities never completely died down, having claimed the lives of over 60 Ukrainian military servicepersons killed in action since then.
The ongoing period nicknamed "the longest ceasefire" has seen a number of controversies. In September 2020, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry even issued an ill-fated decree introducing fines for military personnel opening fire to respond to enemy attacks without a direct order from their commanding officers.
The decree sparked a huge uproar in Ukraine's military community.
According to international estimates, Russia's war in the Donbas has claimed over 13,000 lives since its start in 2014, including 4,500 Ukrainian combatants.
Illia Ponomarenko was a defense and security reporter at the Kyiv Independent in 2021-2023. He has reported about the war in eastern Ukraine since the conflict’s earliest days. He covers national security issues, as well as military technologies, production, and defense reforms in Ukraine. Besides, he gets deployed to the war zone of Donbas with Ukrainian combat formations. He has also had deployments to Palestine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an embedded reporter with UN peacekeeping forces. Illia won the Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellowship and was selected to work as USA Today's guest reporter at the U.S. Department of Defense.
