Beijing supports all efforts toward achieving peace in Ukraine, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on May 12 when asked about Kyiv and Europe's proposal for a 30-day truce.
"I invited His Holiness to make an apostolic visit to Ukraine. Such a visit would bring real hope to all believers and to all our people," Zelensky said.
Previously, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk accused the Russian intelligence services of orchestrating a May 2024 arson attack on the Marywilska shopping centre in Warsaw.
Presidential Office chief Andriy Yermak voiced doubt about leading negotiations with anyone from Russia except President Vladimir Putin, implying only the Russian leader can make real decisions.
This includes at least seven people injured in drone attacks overnight on May 12, a date from which Kyiv and its allies put forward a demand for a 30-day unconditional truce, a step that Moscow continues to reject.
"When European unity becomes inconvenient, disinformation goes so far as to make a simple tissue look like drugs," the Elysee Palace reacted to a fake story pushed by Russia.
The comments came after Trump urged Ukraine to agree to direct negotiations with Russia, which has invited Kyiv to peace talks in Istanbul on May 15, without first agreeing to halt military operations.
A Russian drone hit a civilian freight train in Donetsk Oblast on May 12 and injured its driver, Ukrainian Railways said amid Kyiv's calls for a ceasefire.
Moscow and Hanoi agreed to negotiate and sign agreements to construct nuclear power plants in Vietnam, the two countries said in a joint statement on May 11.
The sanctions appear to be in response to Russia's rejection of a 30-day ceasefire that the U.K., alongside Ukraine, France, Germany, and Poland, demanded during a visit to Kyiv on May 10.
"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.
A Tupolev Tu-142 M3 maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft is flanked by two Sukhoi Su-33 fighter jets during a fly past on the Russian Navy day in St. Petersburg, Russia, on July 28, 2019. (Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Two Russian SU-27 fighter jets intercepted two Typhoon fighter jets and a RC-135 reconnaissance plane from the U.K.'s Royal Air Force (RAF), Russia's Defense Ministry told the state-run Tass media outlet on Oct. 19.
The RAF planes were nearing Russia's border from the Black Sea, the ministry said, before Russian fighter jets approached and forced the RAF planes to turn around.
At the time of publication, the RAF has not commented on the incident or confirmed its veracity.
The Black Sea has become an increasingly important front in Russia's war against Ukraine, as well as a zone of competition between Russia and the West. Both NATO and Russian aircraft operate over the Black Sea.
Russian military planes have engaged in a number of aggressive actions in the Black Sea, such as allegedly attempting to shoot down an RAF plane in September 2022.
In that incident, which was not revealed until nearly a year later, unnamed Western officials claimed that a Russian SU-27 fired missiles at an RAF reconnaissance plane, which either missed or malfunctioned.
At the time, the Russian Defense Ministry tried to explain the whole incident as a result of a "technical malfunction." Then Defense Secretary Ben Wallace called it a "potentially dangerous engagement" but accepted Moscow's explanation.
In March 2023, a Russian Su-27 Flanker jet deliberately flew into the flight path of an unmanned U.S. Reaper drone over international waters in the Black Sea, damaging it and forcing it to crash.
Nate Ostiller is a former News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. He works on special projects as a researcher and writer for The Red Line Podcast, covering Eastern Europe and Eurasia, and focused primarily on digital misinformation, memory politics, and ethnic conflict. Nate has a Master’s degree in Russian and Eurasian Studies from the University of Glasgow, and spent two years studying abroad at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine. Originally from the USA, he is currently based in Tbilisi, Georgia.
The Kyiv Independent news desk
