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.
Police use a water cannon to disperse protesters near the Georgian parliament during a rally against a controversial "foreign agents" bill in Tbilisi on April 30, 2024. (Giorgi Arjevanidze / AFP via Getty Images)
Georgian police on April 30 attacked protesters with tear gas and water cannons outside the parliament building in Tbilisi, where demonstrators gathered to protest the government's controversial "foreign agents" law, Reuters reported.
The bill, which must be passed in three readings before it becomes law, would require organizations that receive foreign funding to be labeled as "foreign agents." The law mirrors repressive Russian laws used to crack down on Kremlin regime critics.
Reuters witnesses reported that some officers physically attacked protesters, throwing eggs and bottles at them before dispersing the crowd forcibly with tear gas and water cannons.
Riot police also reportedly targeted demonstrators with pepper spray and batons as protesters tried to block legislators from leaving the parliament's back entrance. Protesters called the police "Russians" and "slaves" in their chants.
The foreign agents bill was first introduced in 2023 by Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze's ruling Georgian Dream party, but was abandoned after it sparked mass demonstrations.
The Georgian Dream party recently reintroduced the legislation in parliament, renaming it a bill on the "transparency of foreign influence" but keeping the intent of the previous law essentially identical.
The bill is widely known in Georgia as the "Russian law" for its resemblance to similar legislation passed in Russia. If passed, the law would permit authorities to more strictly monitor communications, including internal discussions, by any organizations that receive foreign funding.
The European Parliament passed a resolution condemning the foreign agents law on April 25.
Crowds of anti-government protesters have convened in central Tbilisi on a regular basis since April 17, when parliament approved the bill's first reading. The government on April 29 staged its own anti-Western rally, bussing in tens of thousands of people from around the country to support the government's authoritarian turn.
Tina Khidasheli, former Georgian defense minister, joined the protestors on April 30.
"The government is just prolonging the inevitable. We might have serious problems, but at the end of the day, the people will go home with victory," she told Reuters.
David Kirichenko
