Ukraine remains the most mined country in the world. Nearly one-third of Ukraine's territory, approximately 174,000 square kilometers, had been mined since Russia began its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
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.
Polish Agriculture Minister Czeslaw Siekierski walks through the parliament corridors ahead of the vote of confidence on Donald Tusk's government cabinet during a session at the parliament on Dec. 12, 2023, in Warsaw, Poland. (Omar Marques/Getty Images)
Ukraine and Poland are negotiating a bilateral agreement that would set conditions on trade in some agricultural goods, Polish Agriculture Minister Czeslaw Siekierski said on Feb. 15, according to the Wprost magazine.
On a technical level, the talks are at the final stage, and quota levels for some agricultural goods coming from Ukraine to Poland could be agreed upon at the end of March, Siekierski said.
The minister's statement comes amid an increasingly tense situation between the two countries. Polish farmers launched a new blockade at the Ukraine border in February, protesting the influx of cheap Ukrainian goods to the EU.
"We are negotiating a bilateral agreement with Ukraine to establish certain principles for this period, which would determine the size of quotas for certain goods that can enter the Polish market so as not to affect the stability of certain markets," Siekierski said after meeting farmers' representatives earlier on Feb. 15.
"Ukraine is not doing this intentionally, but we know that an excessive influx of goods will disrupt the market. We want to introduce certain safeguards so that Ukraine can continue to export."
During the meeting with Siekierski, Polish farmers also demanded the withdrawal from the Green Deal, which includes a plan to halve pesticide use, lower fertilizer use, and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
According to the Polish minister, the talks on agricultural goods from Ukraine are ongoing also on the European level.
Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press. He was also volunteering as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukraïner. Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.
