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.
A 24-hour Yonhapnews TV broadcast at Yongsan Railway Station in Seoul showing a news broadcast of a test launch of new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) "Hwasong-19" on Nov. 1, 2024 (Kim Jae-Hwan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Nov. 21 accused the U.S. of stoking global tensions that could escalate "into the most destructive thermonuclear war."
Speaking at a military exhibition in Pyongyang, Kim claimed his previous experience of negotiating with Washington had proved to him that the U.S. was "aggressive and hostile" towards his country.
"Never before have the warring parties on the Korean peninsula faced such a dangerous and acute confrontation that it could escalate into the most destructive thermonuclear war," he said in comments reported by Reuters.
"We have already gone as far as we can on negotiating with the United States, but what we became certain of from the result is not the superpower's willingness to coexist, but its thorough stance of power and aggressive and hostile policy toward us that can never change."
Kim's comments came on the same day that Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country had launched its "newest missile," an IRBM called "Oreshnik," in an attack on Dnipro, eastern Ukraine that morning.
He said the test was in response to Ukraine targeting facilities in Russia's Kursk and Bryansk oblasts with long-range, Western-supplied ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles on Nov. 19 and 20.
The Oreshnik missile is designed to carry nuclear weapons. However, Putin said it was not armed with a nuclear warhead in this instance.
Putin warned that Russia would use weapons against any country whose arms are used to strike Russian targets.
North Korea has dispatched 10,000 troops to Russia, with most of them deployed in the western Kursk Oblast and taking part in combat, a Pentagon spokesperson said during a press briefing on Nov. 12.
Russia is mustering a force of 50,000 soldiers, including North Korean troops, to launch a counter-offensive against a Ukrainian salient in Russia's Kursk Oblast, the New York Times reported on Nov. 10.
The new force comes as Russia saw its heaviest losses last month, and the North Korean troops could be replacing injured and killed Russian soldiers, according to some experts.
We are the news team of the Kyiv Independent. We are here to make sure our readers get quick, essential updates about the events in Ukraine. Feel free to contact us via email with feedback and news alerts.
Alisa Yurchenko
