A captive named Umit allegedly agreed to serve in the Russian army in exchange for Russian citizenship and a monetary reward of 2 million rubles ($25,000).
Russia's Buryatia Republic declared a state of emergency on May 13 over massive forest fires that have engulfed multiple regions in the Russian Far East.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko's statement came as Strong Shield 5 exercises involving military personnel from other NATO countries began in Lithuania.
"Amendments to the Budget Code are needed to implement the provisions on funding the U.S.-Ukrainian Reconstruction Investment Fund," lawmaker Roksolana Pidlasa said.
During reconnaissance in an unspecified front-line sector, Special Operations Forces' operators detected Buk-M3 and Uragan-1 on combat duty, the unit said.
The suspect quit his job at the Rivne NPP before the full-scale war began. In the spring of 2025, a GRU liaison contacted him and offered cooperation in exchange for money.
President Volodymyr Zelensky would not meet any other Russian official apart from Russian President Vladimir Putin in Istanbul this week, presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said on the Breakfast Show program on May 13.
U.S. and European officials held talks on May 12, during which Washington made it clear that it wanted to allow talks between Russia and Ukraine before increasing pressure on Vladimir Putin, sources told Bloomberg.
According to Steve Witkoff, the key topics in the peace discussions are the fate of the five partially or fully occupied Ukrainian regions, the status of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, and Ukraine's access to the Dnipro River and the Black Sea.
Protestors wave the Ukrainian, Georgian, and European Union flags outside Georgia's parliament in Tbilisi on March 8, 2023, amid a demonstration against the Georgian government's plan to introduce a "foreign agent" law reminiscent of Russian legislation used to silence critics. (Vano Shlamov/AFP via Getty Images)
While Ukraine and Moldova have made significant steps toward the EU-mandated reforms required for accession to the bloc, Georgia has made only minimal progress and runs the risk of drifting toward Russia, a report by the EU's Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (EaP CSF) released on Jan. 24 found.
Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova all applied for EU membership after the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The European Commission offered Georgia candidate status in November 2023, while Moldova and Ukraine were granted official recommendations to begin accession talks.
Of the 12 reform priorities laid out following Georgia's initial application, the report found moderate progress had only been made on two of the required reforms. Georgia took limited steps forward on seven others and made no progress on the remaining three.
“Basically in every area, there was a decrease (since 2022) in spite of the fact that the EU rewarded it with the candidate status,” said EaP CSF head Alexandra Sabou.
Georgia is "trending downward," according to the report's summary.
"The contradiction between Georgia’s aspirations for EU membership and its reluctance to adhere to the EU’s foreign policy consensus is glaring," the report's conclusion reads.
"While the Georgian government presents its foreign policy as pragmatic, its voting patterns clearly suggest a departure from an EU-style values-based normative approach."
Chief among the EU's concerns about Georgia's foreign policy are its inconsistent relations with Russia. Georgia has declined to take a strong stance against Russia or join in international efforts to strengthen Russia's isolation after the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili drew widespread criticism in May 2023 after he said that Ukraine was partially to blame for Russia's full-scale war.
Representatives from the ruling Georgian Dream party did not vote for the Oct. 14 Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) resolution that declared Russia a dictatorship.
Georgia also tried to enact a foreign agents law, which Sabou characterized as a "kind of a copy-paste from Russia, with some … local elements."
The law, which was withdrawn from consideration after massive street protests in March 2023, would have likely restricted the ability of independent media to operate freely by requiring any organization receiving funding from abroad to register as a foreign agent.
Sabou said Georgia's government is taking a page from Russia's authoritarian system.
“Dictatorships or autocratic regimes, they learn from each other. And I think there is definitely a learning curve that we see in some of the countries. We also saw it in Georgia,” she said.
Georgian citizens remain overwhelmingly in favor of joining the EU, with a poll released in November 2023 showing that 86% of respondents supported EU accession. Another 55% said they were in favor of joining the EU even if it meant "cutting trade ties with Russia."
David Kirichenko
