The publications' latest report covers the period of February 24, 2022 to May 8, 2025. Since it was last updated at the end of April, 2,857 additional Russian military personnel have been confirmed killed.
Hungary cancelled a meeting planned for May 12 with a Ukrainian delegation on the rights of national minorities, Hungary's Deputy Foreign Minister said on May 11, amid a deepening spying scandal between the two countries.
Three were injured in Russia's Kursk Oblast when the town of Rylsk was allegedly struck by a missile attack on May 11, local governor Alexander Khinshtein claimed.
This week, the world watched in anticipation for Russia’s Victory Day parade after President Volodymyr Zelensky commented that he could not guarantee the safety of those attending. Meanwhile, the European Union moves one step forward to banning Russian gas from the European continent. It is also revealed this week that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has fallen out of step with the White House.
"(Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin... doesn't want to have a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine, but rather wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the bloodbath. Ukraine should agree to this, immediately," U.S. President Donald Trump said.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to to Antalya, Turkey, for a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting from May 14–16, where he is expected to address the war in Ukraine and push for stronger Allied defense commitments.
The Kremlin said the leaders held a detailed discussion about the Russian initiative and Erdogan expressed full support, reiterating Turkey’s readiness to provide a venue and assist in organizing the negotiations.
Erdogan told Macron that international cooperation is critical for initiating peace negotiations and the "sensitive implementation" of Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction processes, the Turkish Presidency reported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his meeting with African leaders at the Konstantin Palace in Strelna on June 17, 2023, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. (Photo by Contributor/Getty Images)
Russian President Vladimir Putin falsely told a visiting delegation of African leaders that international rights are on his side, and it is Kyiv that started a war against Russia in 2014.
Putin said that Russia's logic — supporting proxy occupation zones Moscow claims are independent breakaway states — is "flawless from the point of view of international rights and the UN Charter."
In fact, Russia violated international law when it invaded Ukraine's Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts in 2014 and followed up with a much larger invasion of the entire country in 2022.
Putin's argument that Russia had the right to recognize the independence of the "breakaway regions" dashes against his country's attempt to annex these territories and absorb them into itself through fake referendums in the fall of 2022.
Putin also claimed that Russia's forcible abduction of Ukrainian children was legal. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Putin, as well as Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian official overseeing the forced deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia, for these abductions.
According to the Ukrainian national database, about 19,500 Ukrainian children have been abducted from the occupied territories and sent to other Russian-controlled areas or Russia since February 2022.
The delegation, consisting of the leaders of South Africa, Senegal, the Comoros Islands, Zambia, and Egypt, visited Kyiv on June 16 for talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky, after which they proceeded to St. Petersburg to discuss the African states' attempt at a peace plan between Ukraine and Russia.
Zelensky's office adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said the African leaders' plan mostly focused on trying to suspend Putin's arrest warrant as a sign of trust.
Zelensky criticized the African leaders for referring to the full-scale invasion in diminished terms like "crisis" or "conflict."
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Alexander Khrebet
