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.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's president, speaks at a news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 12, 2025. (Andrew Kravchenko/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for intensified pressure on Russia, urging the international community to impose tougher sanctions and provide Ukraine with additional air defense systems.
In his March 30 address, he said all possible measures are needed to break Russia’s "capacity to wage war and sustain the system that wants nothing but war."
"The geography and brutality of Russian strikes, not just occasionally, but literally every day and night, show that Putin couldn’t care less about diplomacy," Zelensky added. "For several weeks, there has been a U.S. proposal for an unconditional ceasefire. And almost every day, in response to this proposal, there are Russian drones, bombs, artillery shelling, and ballistic strikes."
A Russian drone attack killed two civilians and injured at least 55 people in Kharkiv, including five children between the ages of 5 and 17, late on March 29, according to the president. A military hospital in Kharkiv was among those deliberately targeted by Russian forces overnight, the General Staff reported.
In total, Russia launched a ballistic missile and 111 drones at Ukraine overnight, the Air Force reported on March 30.
Commenting on the attacks, Zelensky said Ukraine expects the United States, Europe, and all other partners committed to peace and lasting security to use every tool to achieve a ceasefire.
Ukraine has agreed to a U.S.-proposed full 30-day ceasefire, saying on March 11 that Kyiv is ready if Russia also agrees to the terms. So far, Moscow has refused.
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.
Alex Cadier
