The phone call comes as Moscow once again rejected a 30-day ceasefire, with Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova claiming that a ceasefire would give "Kyiv a break to restore its military potential and continue its confrontation with Russia."
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.
Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman), Dmytro Lubinets attends an international conference of human rights commissioners in Ankara, Turkey, on Jan. 12, 2023. (Muhammed Abdullah Kurtar/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Ukrainian Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets has confirmed the authenticity of a video in which a Russian soldier is seen using Ukrainian POWs as human shields, New Voice reported on Dec. 27.
"We managed to establish that the video is definitely not edited and it is real. We understand where it was recorded and by whom," Ombudsman Lubinets said in a TV interview. "In advance, we even have an idea as to which of the servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces committed this crime."
The video in question surfaced on Dec. 14, and was republished by RFE/RL, depicting what appeared to be unarmed Ukrainian POWs being forced to walk at gunpoint toward Ukrainian lines. Journalists from RFE/RL said they managed to pinpoint the time and place of the incident but did not share it at the request of the Ukrainian military.
Lubinets had previously said that the practice may be systematic among Russian troops. There have been previous reports that Russian troops forced POWs to walk into minefields, he said.
The use of human shields is prohibited under international law and constitutes a war crime under the Geneva Convention. The Prosecutor General's Office has also opened an investigation into Russia's alleged use of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) as human shields, and Lubinets had already shared details of the alleged crime with the International Criminal Court based on the video evidence.
Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine has been accompanied by numerous war crimes and atrocities, with Ukrainian prosecutors recording more than 110,000 war crime cases to date.
The Kyiv Independent news desk
