The Kyiv Independent’s contributor Ignatius Ivlev-Yorke spent a day with a mobile team from the State Emergency Service in Nikopol in the south of Ukraine as they responded to relentless drone, artillery, and mortar strikes from Russian forces just across the Dnipro River. Nikopol is located across from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Enerhodar.
Peter Szijjarto's announcement came after Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) allegedly dismantled a Hungarian military intelligence network operating in Zakarpattia Oblast.
Moscow and Washington discuss the potential resumption of Russian gas supplies to Europe, among other issues related to the peaceful settlement of Russia's war in Ukraine, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov confirmed to the Russian state-run Interfax news agency.
"This is a historic decision, as weapons for Ukraine will be purchased at the expense of the proceeds from frozen Russian assets through the European Peace Fund," Denys Shmyhal said.
The approval marks a key step in international efforts to hold Moscow accountable for what is considered the gravest violation of international law committed against Ukraine.
Although Moscow declared on April 28 that it would halt all military actions from May 8 to midnight on May 11 to mark Victory Day, strikes on civilian areas have continued.
Ukrainian Crimean Tatar singer Jamala shows off her trophy at a press conference after winning the Eurovision Song Contest final at the Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm on May 15, 2016. (Maja Suslin/TT/AFP via Getty Images)
The Moscow Prosecutor's Office announced charges against Ukrainian singer Jamala on Nov. 29 for spreading "false information" about the Russian army in relation to a social media post she made in April 2022, Russian media reported.
Russia has used the charge of spreading "false information" about the military as a blanket method of suppressing all contradictory information about the war and the regime.
Jamala was put on a federal wanted list in mid-October and arrested in absentia by a Russian court earlier in November. At the time, it was unclear for what specifically she was wanted.
The reports did not say exactly what "false information" she shared but noted that the prosecutor's office said it was motivated by "national hatred" of the Russian army.
The singer was born Susana Jamaladinova to a Crimean Tatar family in Kyrgyzstan in 1983.
Her family, like that of Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, was deported to Central Asia in 1944 by Soviet authorities on the false accusation that all Crimean Tatars had collaborated with the Nazis.
Up to 200,000 Crimean Tatars – mostly women, children, and the elderly – were deported to Central Asia and Siberia, while Crimean Tatar men who were fighting for the Red Army at the time were sent to labor camps.
In the 1980s, Jamala and her family returned to Crimea, and she went on to study in Kyiv.
She won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2016 with a song about the 1944 deportation of Crimean Tatars, singing the chorus in the Crimean Tatar language.
According to the organization OVD-Info, between the Feb. 24 invasion and October 2023, Russian authorities have detained 19,834 people at anti-war protests. Over 700 criminal cases have been brought against demonstrators.
Katie Marie Davies
