U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg, will travel to Istanbul for possible peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, Reuters reported on May 13, citing three undisclosed sources.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said he will meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, but said both leaders are ready to fly to Istanbul if Russian President Vladimir Putin chooses to attend the talks there.
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.
Service members of the 117th Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces operate a Ukrainian-made 120 mm mortar toward Russian positions on March 9, 2025, in Sumy Oblast, Ukraine. (Diego Fedele/Getty Images)
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed on March 29 that its troops had captured Veselivka, a village in Ukraine's Sumy Oblast at the border with Russia.
The Ukrainian military has not commented on the claims, which could not be independently verified. The Kyiv Independent has contacted military representatives for comment.
The news comes amid steady Russian attempts to cross the border in small groups and gain a foothold in the northeastern Ukrainian region.
President Volodymyr Zelensky also warned that Moscow is preparing to launch a large-scale offensive into Sumy Oblast and neighboring Kharkiv Oblast this spring.
Veselivka, a tiny settlement with a pre-war population of over 60 people, lies just across the border with Russia's Kursk Oblast, where the fighting continues despite recent rapid advances by Russian forces.
The battlefield situation in Veselivka, Sumy Oblast, Ukraine, as of March 28, 2025, according to DeepState. (DeepState/OpenStreetMaps)
The village lies some 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of the regional center, Sumy.
DeepState, a Ukrainian group monitoring battlefield developments, marked parts of Veselivka as a "gray zone," denoting them as a contested area between Ukrainian and Russian forces.
Russian reconnaissance and sabotage groups have been intensifying efforts to penetrate into Sumy Oblast, focusing on other border settlements like Novenke and Zhuravka, Ukraine's State Border Guard Service previously said.
The development follows a Russian counterattack in Kursk Oblast launched in early March, which saw Ukraine lose most of its positions in the Russian region, including the town of Sudzha.
Kyiv launched the Kursk incursion last August to divert Russian troops fighting in Ukraine's east and to disrupt Russian plans for a new offensive in Sumy Oblast.
Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press. He was also volunteering as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukraïner. Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.
Martin Fornusek
