The Council of Europe on May 14 approved the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute Russia's top leadership for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, Ukrainian lawmaker Maria Mezentseva reported.
Viktoria Roshchyna, 27, disappeared in August 2023 while reporting from Ukraine's Russian-occupied territories. Moscow admitted she was in Russian detention the following year.
European foreign ministers approved the creation of a special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine during a meeting in Lviv on May 9. The tribunal, which will operate under the auspices of the Council of Europe, aims to prosecute Russia's top political and military leadership, including President Vladimir Putin. Ukraine expects the tribunal to start work in 2026. The Kyiv Independent’s Kateryna Hodunova spoke with Dutch Justice Minister David van Weel about the future tribunal and its role in bringing justice for Ukraine.
Turkish officials told Bloomberg that while they don't expect Trump to visit Istanbul, they are not ruling it out, and preparations for any scenario are underway.
Melkonyants was arrested in August 2023 in connection with the activities of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO), which was co-founded by Golos's legal predecessor, the Golos association.
Ukraine's underground storage facilities are currently using 19.4% of their capacity. Almost 32%, or 2.79 bcm, less gas is available in the storages than in the previous year, according to the estimates.
The majority of Ukrainians, 71%, do not support holding elections before a full peace deal, even in the case of a ceasefire and security guarantees, according to a poll published by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on May 14.
"He'd like me to be there, and that's a possibility. ... I don't know that he would be there if I'm not there. We're going to find out," U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One while traveling to Qatar, Reuters reported.
Trump has long demanded that NATO allies increase their military spending, previously calling for the alliance to raise its benchmark from 2% to 5% of GDP.
More than 1,000 Russian government entities and 1,200 private companies are involved in the economy of occupied Mariupol, a major southeastern city occupied by Russia after it invaded Ukraine in 2022, according to a research paper published on May 14.
Russian soldiers patrol a street in Volnovakha, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on April 11, 2022. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images)
Russia's ground forces participating in combat against Ukraine amount to almost 580,000 soldiers, Vadym Skibitskyi, the deputy head of Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR), told Interfax Ukraine on Nov. 21.
Russia has been looking to increase the number of personnel to fight its war against Ukraine. The Russian government's recently exempted defendants from criminal liability if they join the Russian army and introduced additional financial rewards for contract service to shore up more manpower.
Skibitskyi clarified that the number of Russian troops includes those serving in Russia's Kursk Oblast as they fight off Ukraine's incursion into the area, Interfax Ukraine reported.
About 60,000 Russian military personnel are currently serving in Kursk, Suspilne reported previously, citing its undisclosed source in the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces.
Skibitskyi added that a grouping of almost 35,000 Russian Guard troops, also known as Rosgvardia, was also deployed to the Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in June that nearly 700,000 Russian troops were fighting in Ukraine. In October, Russian casualties amounted to 600,000 since the start of the full-scale invasion, according to Pentagon estimates.
The figure came at a particularly deadly stage of the war for Russian troops. According to reports from the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces, September was the second-most lethal month for Russian soldiers since February 2022.
As casualties climb, Russian forces continue to press on in eastern Ukraine, focusing on the cities of Pokrovsk and Toretsk in Donetsk Oblast. Outnumbered and outgunned, Ukrainian soldiers are slowly losing ground under Russian pressure.
Kateryna Hodunova is a News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked as a sports journalist in several Ukrainian outlets and was the deputy chief editor at Suspilne Sport. Kateryna covered the 2022 Olympics in Beijing and was included in the Special Mentions list at the AIPS Sport Media Awards. She holds a bachelor's degree in political journalism from Taras Shevchenko University and a master's degree in political science from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
Chris York
