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.
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Monday, May 12
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.
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"There is no point in prolonging the killings. And I will wait for Putin on Thursday in Turkey," President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
"We cannot allow NATO's military infrastructure to get that close to our borders," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
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.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to to Antalya, Turkey, for a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting from May 14–16, where he is expected to address the war in Ukraine and push for stronger Allied defense commitments.
Preliminary findings suggest that one of the men killed the other before taking his own life.
Western leaders dismissed the Kremlin's proposal for talks in Istanbul on May 15 as insufficient.
The Kremlin said the leaders held a detailed discussion about the Russian initiative and Erdogan expressed full support, reiterating Turkey’s readiness to provide a venue and assist in organizing the negotiations.
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 pope said he was praying to God to grant the world the "miracle of peace."
Ushakov’s comments follow Russian President Vladimir Putin's May 11 invitation for direct talks with Ukraine in Istanbul starting May 15.
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UK defense ministry: Military training program for Russian schools to be drafted by end of 2022
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Russia is currently drafting a military training program to be introduced in schools in a government-run initiative to improve the quality of conscripts, the U.K. defense ministry said in its daily intelligence update on Nov. 13.
The program will be completed by the end of 2022 and then undergo an approval process, according to the report. It says that the Russian Defense Ministry insists on at least 140 hours per academic year being devoted to training. Typically, an academic year averages 800 hours for children worldwide.
The intelligence report comes a few days after Russian Education Minister Sergey Kravstov said on Nov. 9 that military training will return to Russian schools in the following academic year.
The program is likely to mimic a Soviet-era initiative that ended in 1993 where students went through mandatory military training, which “included contingencies for a chemical or nuclear attack, first aid and experience handling and firing Kalashnikov rifles,” according to the report.
Russia has long aspired to improve the quality of its conscripts.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Moscow tried to bring back military programs to schools but much remains unchanged eight years later, according to the U.K. Defense Ministry.
“The quality of Russian conscripts remains poor, with low morale and limited training,” the report said.
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