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Monday, May 12
(Updated: )
"There is no point in prolonging the killings. And I will wait for Putin on Thursday in Turkey," President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
"I invited His Holiness to make an apostolic visit to Ukraine. Such a visit would bring real hope to all believers and to all our people," Zelensky said.
Previously, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk accused the Russian intelligence services of orchestrating a May 2024 arson attack on the Marywilska shopping centre in Warsaw.
Presidential Office chief Andriy Yermak voiced doubt about leading negotiations with anyone from Russia except President Vladimir Putin, implying only the Russian leader can make real decisions.
This includes at least seven people injured in drone attacks overnight on May 12, a date from which Kyiv and its allies put forward a demand for a 30-day unconditional truce, a step that Moscow continues to reject.
"When European unity becomes inconvenient, disinformation goes so far as to make a simple tissue look like drugs," the Elysee Palace reacted to a fake story pushed by Russia.
The comments came after Trump urged Ukraine to agree to direct negotiations with Russia, which 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.
The number includes 1,170 casualties that Russian forces suffered over the past day.
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."
Monday, May 12
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.
Russia's recent offensive in Soledar in Donetsk Oblast does not indicate an imminent encirclement of Bakhmut, contrary to Russian propagandists' claims that Russia had taken Soledar, the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest update.
Russian sources on Jan. 7 claimed that Wagner Group, a Kremlin-controlled mercenary group, had allegedly broken through Ukrainian lines of defense in Soledar, just north of Bakhmut, and was fighting Ukrainian forces in the town.
Wagner's founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russian oligarch, Putin confidant, and former convict, also claimed that the group was about to capture the town.
Later the Ukrainian military said it still controlled Soledar despite Russia's violent assaults on the town.
According to the ISW, even the claims from Russian military bloggers that Russian forces are fighting on the outskirts of Razdolivka, about six kilometers northwest of Soledar, do not signal that Russian forces are close to being within striking distance to be able to encircle Bakhmut.
In order to cut Ukrainian ground lines of communication to access Bakhmut, Russian forces would have to establish control of the T0513 Siversk-Bakhmut highway, located seven kilometers west of the furthest point of confirmed Russian advances in the Soledar area, the ISW said. Russian troops would then have to reach the E40 Slovyansk-Bakhmut highway, 13 kilometers from the furthest point of confirmed Russian advance in the Soledar area.
Considering the recent rate of Russian gains in the area has been around a few hundred meters per day at most, it is highly unlikely that Russian forces will be able to organize themselves to push toward these lines and encircle Bakhmut, the ISW assessed.
At any rate, the ISW said, Ukrainian forces would still have other ground lines of communication available, so any discussion of encirclement is at this moment a moot point.
The battle of Bakhmut has gone on for more than five months as Russian forces throw manpower and artillery at the town in an effort to capture it. Both Ukrainian and Russian forces have sustained major losses, but Bakhmut has remained Ukraine’s main fortress in Donetsk Oblast.
Bakhmut is also major transportation hub, making it a valuable target for Russia.
On Jan. 7, Prigozhin said he wanted to take over the Bakhmut and Soledar area for their rich resources and "underground cities." Soledar is the site of the Soledar Salt Mine. Its scale is vast and includes an underground concert hall.
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