Ukraine remains the most mined country in the world. Nearly one-third of Ukraine's territory, approximately 174,000 square kilometers, had been mined since Russia began its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
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.
Aftermath of Russian strikes in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Aug. 24, 2024. (Internal Affairs Ministry/Facebook)
A Russian strike destroyed the historic house and family estate of the Ukrainian anarchist fighter Nestor Makhno in Huliaipole, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, the National Police reported on Aug. 24.
The house, which served as a museum to the 20th-century revolutionary, burnt to the ground after Russia launched 306 strikes on nine front-line settlements in Zaporizhzhia Oblast overnight on Aug. 23.
Russian forces carried out the attacks with drones, aircraft, tanks, artillery, and multiple-launch rocket systems. Several houses, infrastructure, and farm buildings were also damaged or destroyed. No civilians were injured or killed.
Makhno hailed from a poor peasant family in Huliaipole and led Ukraine’s Revolutionary Resurgent Army from 1918-1921 during the War of Independence. Although briefly siding with the Bolsheviks, Makhno fought against the Reds and the Whites and established an anarchist stronghold in southeastern Ukraine that eventually fell.
The Bolshekivs drove Makhno out of Ukraine, and he sought sanctuary in Paris where he publicly criticized the Reds before dying of tuberculosis in 1934.
The Kyiv Independent news desk
