The disclosure follows a warning from Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski, who on May 6 said Moscow was carrying out an "unprecedented" interference campaign.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva claimed that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha had appealed to his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira, to ask Putin if he was willing to conclude a peace agreement.
Earlier reporting from the Washington Post cited a former Russian official who claimed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, would represent Moscow in the talks.
The Council of Europe on May 14 approved the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute Russia's top leadership for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, Ukrainian lawmaker Maria Mezentseva reported.
Viktoria Roshchyna, 27, disappeared in August 2023 while reporting from Ukraine's Russian-occupied territories. Moscow admitted she was in Russian detention the following year.
Dutch Justice Minister David van Weel speaks about the future of the EU-led special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine and its role in bringing Russia to justice.
Turkish officials told Bloomberg that while they don't expect Trump to visit Istanbul, they are not ruling it out, and preparations for any scenario are underway.
Melkonyants was arrested in August 2023 in connection with the activities of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO), which was co-founded by Golos's legal predecessor, the Golos association.
Ukraine's underground storage facilities are currently using 19.4% of their capacity. Almost 32%, or 2.79 bcm, less gas is available in the storages than in the previous year, according to the estimates.
The majority of Ukrainians, 71%, do not support holding elections before a full peace deal, even in the case of a ceasefire and security guarantees, according to a poll published by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on May 14.
"He'd like me to be there, and that's a possibility. ... I don't know that he would be there if I'm not there. We're going to find out," U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One while traveling to Qatar, Reuters reported.
Trump has long demanded that NATO allies increase their military spending, previously calling for the alliance to raise its benchmark from 2% to 5% of GDP.
NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General James Appathurai addresses the participants of the 9th Kyiv Youth Security Forum dedicated to the integration of Ukraine into NATO, Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 11, 2021. (Evgen Kotenko/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
There is a real possibility that Russia could inflict "substantial" casualties by carrying out arson or sabotage operation against a NATO country, NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General James Appathurai told Sky News in an interview published on Dec. 29.
"What really worries me is that one of these attacks, as I say, will break through in a big way," Appathurai said. Warnings about Russian hybrid attacks against allied countries have mounted since Moscow launched its full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022.
NATO pledged to step up security measures to counter hybrid attacks as the Finnish authorities recently seized the Eagle S tanker transporting Russian oil on suspicion it cut an undersea cable between Finland and Estonia.
"So there is a real prospect of one of these attacks causing substantial numbers of casualties or very substantial economic damage," the NATO official overseeing an updated allied strategy on countering hybrid attacks told Sky News.
Appathurai said that the current volume of attacks would have been "unacceptable" five years ago, presenting it as Russia's response to the Western support for Kyiv. The official stressed that NATO must be clearer about what kind of an attack would trigger a joint response.
NATO's Article 5 says that an attack against one ally represents an attack against the alliance as a whole and warrants a joint response. The application of this rule on Russian hybrid attacks has been hotly debated over the past few years.
"We can definitely count dozens. Up to 100 for sure. But then there's a lot of foiled plots," Appathurai said when talking about a surge in Russian kinetic hybrid attacks since 2022.
These operations have not been limited to cutting cables, as Russian intelligence services have been connected to flammable parcels smuggled onto cargo planes and sent out to European airports.
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.
Olena Goncharova
