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.
Rob Bauer, chair of the military committee at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), during a Bloomberg Television interview on the opening day of the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, on Feb. 16, 2024. (Alex Kraus/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Lieutenant Admiral Rob Bauer, chair of the NATO Military Committee, told reporters on March 29 that there are currently no signs that Russia is planning an attack on a NATO member, warning instead that the alliance must be prepared for future escalation.
"There is no indication that Russia is planning to attack one of the NATO countries. I don't think there is a direct threat," Bauer told reporters in Riga, Latvian outlet LETA reports.
Despite there being no immediate threat to NATO, Bauer warned that "Russia's ambitions extend beyond Ukraine. We know that, so the alliance as a whole needs to become more prepared."
Bauer's warnings come as a number of Western leaders have warned that Russia's expansionist threats may lead to a Russian attack on NATO in the coming years.
Polish President Andrzej Duda said on March 19 that Russia may attack NATO as early as 2026 or 2027. That assessment falls in line with comments made Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen, who estimated on Feb. 9 that Russia may attack NATO within three to five years.
Despite fears of further escalation in Europe, NATO members have issued concernsaboutequipment and manpower shortages its preparation for the potential of all-out war.
U.K. officials admitted on March 26 that the NATO member "couldn't fight (Russia) for more than a couple of months because we don't have the ammunition and reserves of equipment to do it."
The U.S. based think-tank Institute for the Study of War assessed on March 20 that economic and military indicatorssuggest that Russia may be preparing for a large-scale conventional war with NATO, "likely on a shorter timeline than what some Western analysts have initially posited."
When asked about the possibility of hypothetical Russian-installed proxy attack on a NATO member, Bauer said that the principal of resilience under Article 3 of NATO's founding treaty applied, in that each country must be able to defend oneself.
"If something like this happens, it is the responsibility of the respective country to take care of security," Bauer said, adding that NATO members would have to react to proxy operations.
Despite this, Bauer noted that NATO member could invoke Article 4 that states that "members can bring any issue of concern, especially related to the security of a member country, to the table for discussion."
"We will talk about this and agree on how we, as an alliance, will continue to act. I would like to note that cyber activity on the part of another state is a sufficient reason for triggering Article 5. Article 5 can be invoked not only in the event of a direct attack,” Bauer added.
Dmytro Basmat is a senior news editor for The Kyiv Independent. He previously worked in Canadian politics as a communications lead and spokesperson for a national political party, and as a communications assistant for a Canadian Member of Parliament. Basmat has a Master's degree in Political Management from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and a Bachelor of Arts in Politics and Governance from Toronto Metropolitan University.
Dmytro Basmat
