"We now know for sure that the great fire of the Marywilska shopping centre in Warsaw was caused by arson ordered by the Russian special services," Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on X. "Some of the perpetrators have already been detained, all the others are identified and searched for."
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.
Novatek takes part in the 26th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in St. Petersburg, Russia on June 14, 2023. (Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Russian gas producer Novatek is considering scaling back a major liquefied natural gas (LNG) project due to the impact of Western sanctions, Reuters reported on April 4, citing sources in the industry.
Novatek is Russia's largest LNG producer and the country's second-largest natural gas producer.
The company has a 60% share in the Arctic LNG-2 project, a planned LNG extraction site in northern Siberia that intends to produce 19.8 million metric tons of LNG annually.
The US imposed sanctions on the Arctic LNG-2 project at the end of 2023, which prompted foreign shareholders to freeze participation and Novatek to issue force majeure declarations to multiple clients.
According to Reuters, sanctions also meant that Novatek could not purchase enough ice-class tankers needed for the project, leading the company to "focus instead on developing its project at the ice-free port of Murmansk."
The scaling back of the Arctic LNG-2 project may complicate Russia's aim to increase its share of the global LNG market from 8% to 20% by 2030, offsetting the economic impact of sanctions on Russian pipeline gas exports.
The company's Murmansk LNG project, however, is set "to be even larger than Arctic LNG-2, with an eventual output of 20.4 million tons per year," Reuters said.
The project also has access to an ice-free port in the Barents Sea, unlike the Arctic project.
While the flow of Russian pipeline gas into the EU dropped in 2022, several European countries saw record purchases of Russian LNG last year.
While the EU has banned the supply of equipment to Russia for the production of LNG, no EU-wide ban has been imposed on buying LNG from Russia.
Martin Fornusek
