The comments came after Trump urged Ukraine to agree to direct negotiations with Putin, who has invited Kyiv to peace talks in Istanbul on May 15, without first agreeing to halt military operations.
A Russian drone hit a civilian freight train in Donetsk Oblast on May 12 and injured its driver, Ukrainian Railways said amid Kyiv's calls for a ceasefire.
Moscow and Hanoi agreed to negotiate and sign agreements to construct nuclear power plants in Vietnam, the two countries said in a joint statement on May 11.
The sanctions appear to be in response to Russia's rejection of a 30-day ceasefire that the U.K., alongside Ukraine, France, Germany, and Poland, demanded during a visit to Kyiv on May 10.
"We now know for sure that the great fire of the Marywilska shopping centre in Warsaw was caused by arson ordered by the Russian special services," Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on X. "Some of the perpetrators have already been detained, all the others are identified and searched for."
The publications' latest report covers the period of February 24, 2022 to May 8, 2025. Since it was last updated at the end of April, 2,857 additional Russian military personnel have been confirmed killed.
Hungary cancelled a meeting planned for May 12 with a Ukrainian delegation on the rights of national minorities, Hungary's Deputy Foreign Minister said on May 11, amid a deepening spying scandal between the two countries.
Three were injured in Russia's Kursk Oblast when the town of Rylsk was allegedly struck by a missile attack on May 11, local governor Alexander Khinshtein claimed.
This week, the world watched in anticipation for Russia’s Victory Day parade after President Volodymyr Zelensky commented that he could not guarantee the safety of those attending. Meanwhile, the European Union moves one step forward to banning Russian gas from the European continent. It is also revealed this week that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has fallen out of step with the White House.
"(Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin... doesn't want to have a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine, but rather wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the bloodbath. Ukraine should agree to this, immediately," U.S. President Donald Trump said.
An American soldier stands on an American battle tank of the latest type Abrams M1A2 SEP v3 during the U.S. Army media day in Hohenfels, Germany, on May 11, 2023. (Photo: Daniel Löb/picture alliance via Getty Images)
About 400 Ukrainian soldiers began training on American M1 Abrams tanks in Germany on May 26, the New York Times reported, as Ukraine readies itself for a much-anticipated counteroffensive.
The May 27 report, citing Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Garron Garn, said that the first group of Ukrainian soldiers began training focused on "how to operate and maintain American M1 Abrams," known to be the most advanced battle tank worldwide.
Half of the group started training in Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels in southern Germany, and their training – which the military labels as combined arms instruction – includes shooting firearms and learning medical skills, eventually growing into larger exercises where battalion-sized groups face off one another, according to the New York Times.
The rest of the group, the New York Times said, learned about the maintenance of the tanks and how to fuel them.
The deployment of Abrams tanks to the battlefield is expected to give Ukraine a major equipment advantage over Russia – which to this day relies on Soviet-era tanks.
Earlier, it was unclear when the Ukrainian training on Abrams would begin. For a while, after U.S. President Joe Biden vowed to supply 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine – which came in parallel with Germany's much-awaited approval on the transfer of Leopard 2 tanks, Washington remained hesitant on the timeframe of the training. Initially, the U.S. had said the promised Abrams wouldn't be sent to Ukraine until 2024.
In a move overturning the initial U.S. position on the Abrams, Washington officials had said on April 21 that Ukrainian troops would start to receive Abrams tank training "in the coming weeks," the Associated Press reported on April 21.
The AP had reported then that 31 older M1A1 tank models would be sent to Germany by the end of May for the training course, which is set to begin "a couple of weeks" after the delivery. It added that the training is set to last for a total of 10 weeks before the tanks are sent to the front line.
The U.S., two months after Biden greenlighted the transfer of Abrams to Ukraine, confirmed that it would supply Ukraine with 31 M1-A1 Abrams tanks instead of the newer M1-A2 version it had pledged before to speed up the delivery.
Asami Terajima is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent covering Ukrainian military issues, front-line developments, and politics. She is the co-author of the weekly War Notes newsletter. She previously worked as a business reporter for the Kyiv Post focusing on international trade, infrastructure, investment, and energy. Originally from Japan, Terajima moved to Ukraine during childhood and completed her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration in the U.S. She is the winner of the Thomson Reuters Foundation's Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism 2023 (Local Reporter category) and the George Weidenfeld Prize, awarded as part of Germany's Axel Springer Prize 2023. She was also featured in the Media Development Foundation’s “25 under 25: Young and Bold” 2023 list of emerging media makers in Ukraine.
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