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.
A local boy inspects an art installation in memory of the killed Ukrainian civilians in Lviv on July 10, 2023. (Photo by Mykola Tys/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
The Prosecutor General's Office reported on Aug. 19 that 502 Ukrainian children have been officially reported killed since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion last year.
More than 1,100 children have also sustained injuries of varying degrees of severity.
On Aug. 18, a 17-year-old girl was injured by Russian shelling in the village of Virivka in Kherson Oblast.
Four hundred eighty-five children in Donetsk Oblast have either been injured or killed by Russia, making it the most heavily-impacted region in Ukraine in terms of child casualties.
Additionally, 299 children in Kharkiv Oblast have been affected, as well as 129 in Kyiv Oblast, 121 in Kherson Oblast, 99 in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, 97 in Mykolaiv Oblast, 95 in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, 71 in Chernihiv Oblast, and 67 in Luhansk Oblast.
However, the actual numbers regarding child casualties may be much higher since they do not fully account for territories still under Russian occupation, recently liberated by Ukrainian forces, or experiencing heavy fighting, the Prosecutor General's Office added.
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Daria Shulzhenko
