The majority of Ukrainians, 71%, do not support holding elections before a full peace deal, even in the case of a ceasefire and security guarantees, according to a poll published by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on May 14.
"He'd like me to be there, and that's a possibility. ... I don't know that he would be there if I'm not there. We're going to find out," U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One while traveling to Qatar, Reuters reported.
Trump has long demanded that NATO allies increase their military spending, previously calling for the alliance to raise its benchmark from 2% to 5% of GDP.
More than 1,000 Russian government entities and 1,200 private companies are involved in the economy of occupied Mariupol, a major southeastern city occupied by Russia after it invaded Ukraine in 2022, according to a research paper published on May 14.
The measures target almost 200 ships of Russia's "shadow fleet," 30 companies involved in sanctions evasion, 75 sanctions on entities and individuals linked to the Russian military-industrial complex, and more.
The government has approved "reform roadmaps in the rule of law, public administration, and democratic institutions, as well as Ukraine’s negotiation position," Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
The statement did not name the ex-official by name, but details of the case indicate it relates to Oleh Hladkovsky, a former deputy secretary of Ukraine's top security body who has been wanted since mid-April.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva claimed that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha had appealed to his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira, to ask Putin if he was willing to conclude a peace agreement.
"Trump needs to believe that Putin actually lies," Zelensky told journalists in Kyiv. "And we should do our part. Sensibly approach this issue, to show that it’s not us that is slowing down the process."
The EU plans to significantly increase tariffs on Ukrainian goods after the current duty-free deal lapses on June 6, the Financial Times reported on May 14, citing undisclosed diplomatic sources.
Victoria Amelina, Ukrainian novelist, essayist, and human rights activist, speaks at a public discussion during the 29th Lviv Book Forum on October 9, 2022 in Lviv, Ukraine. (Photo by Les Kasyanov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
The writers' association PEN Ukraine said in a statement that Ukrainian writer and war crimes researcher Victoria Amelina died on July 1 after she was critically injured in a Russian missile strike on Kramatorsk.
Amelina was in Kramatorsk with a delegation of Colombian writers and journalists on June 27 when Russian forces fired two Iskander missiles at the city, hitting a popular restaurant downtown.
Kramatorsk lies some 55 kilometers from the front lines and Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast. It has been a way station for Ukrainian troops, making it a frequent target of Russian missiles.
At least 12 people were originally reported killed, and 60 more were injured in the Kramatorsk attack. Several media subsequently wrote that Amelina was among the wounded. Amelina's passing brings the official death toll up to 13 people.
PEN Ukraine released its statement on July 2. "Doctors and paramedics in Kramatorsk and Dnipro did everything they could to save her life, but the injuries were fatal," the statement reads. "In the last days of Victoria’s life, her closest people and friends were with her."
Victoria Amelina was born on January 1st, 1986, in Lviv. While still in school, she moved to Canada with her father, but soon decided to come back to Ukraine. In 2007, she graduated from Lviv Polytechnic University with a master's diploma. She published her first novel, "The November Syndrome, or Homo Compatiens",in 2014 which explored the importance of the Euromaidan Revolution.
Her novel "Dom’s Dream Kingdom" was recently translated into Spanish. First published in 2017, it was shortlisted for a number of national and international awards.
Amelina was one of Ukraine's most popular young writers. Her work has been translated into numerous languages, including English, Polish, Italian, Spanish, German, Croatian, Dutch, Czech, and Hungarian.
She also founded the New York Literature Festival in 2021, which took place in the front-line town of New York in Donetsk Oblast. It was postponed in 2022 due to Russia's full-scale invasion.
Amelina made the decision to train to become a war crimes researcher after the start of the full-scale invasion and joined the human rights organization Truth Hounds. She had been documenting Russian war crimes on de-occupied territories in the eastern, southern, and northern parts of Ukraine up until her death.
Last September, Amelina also traveled to the liberated village of Kapytolivka in Kharkiv Oblast and found the occupation diary of her colleague, the children's book author Volodymyr Vakulenklo, along with his father.
Vakulenko had buried the diary under a cherry tree in his yard before being abducted by Russian occupation forces that March. The diary is now kept in the Kharkiv Literary Museum for posterity.
Vivat publishing house later released a print edition of the diary and some of Vakulenko's poems. Amelina wrote the forward to the book, noting that, "As long as a writer is read, he’s alive."
Amelina was working on completing her first non-fiction book in English titled "War and Justice Diary: Looking at Women Looking at War" about the women documenting Russian war crimes and their experiences of living through the war.
Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.
Kate Tsurkan
