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.
Hungary cancelled a meeting planned for May 12 with a Ukrainian delegation on the rights of national minorities, Hungary's Deputy Foreign Minister said on May 11, amid a deepening spying scandal between the two countries.
Three were injured in Russia's Kursk Oblast when the town of Rylsk was allegedly struck by a missile attack on May 11, local governor Alexander Khinshtein claimed.
This week, the world watched in anticipation for Russia’s Victory Day parade after President Volodymyr Zelensky commented that he could not guarantee the safety of those attending. Meanwhile, the European Union moves one step forward to banning Russian gas from the European continent. It is also revealed this week that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has fallen out of step with the White House.
"(Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin... doesn't want to have a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine, but rather wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the bloodbath. Ukraine should agree to this, immediately," U.S. President Donald Trump said.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to to Antalya, Turkey, for a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting from May 14–16, where he is expected to address the war in Ukraine and push for stronger Allied defense commitments.
The Kremlin said the leaders held a detailed discussion about the Russian initiative and Erdogan expressed full support, reiterating Turkey’s readiness to provide a venue and assist in organizing the negotiations.
Erdogan told Macron that international cooperation is critical for initiating peace negotiations and the "sensitive implementation" of Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction processes, the Turkish Presidency reported.
A woman wearing a face mask carries a rainbow flag during the Equality March KyivPride 2021 on Sept. 19, 2021. (Photo by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Russian occupation authorities targeted members of the LGBTQ+ community during the occupation of Kherson back in 2022, Ukrainian public organization Projektor announced on March 28.
Russia occupied parts of the Kherson region between March and November 2022. Throughout the occupation, the Russian military specifically sought out and targeted Ukrainian LGBTQ+ individuals.
Projektor indicates that abuses committed by the Russian military against this community could amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity, including gender-based prosecution.
War crimes include acts such as deliberate attacks on civilians, attacks on cultural sites or medical institutions, torture, and deportations.
The report documented several instances, for example, in which Russian authorities forced men to undress at checkpoints and searched for tattoos of a rainbow image, as well as checked phones for gay dating apps.
Between March and Sept. 2023, Projektor interviewed 107 LGBTQ+ people who were victims or witnesses of these crimes.
LGBTQ+ victims did not contact Ukrainian law enforcement to report abuse by Russian authorities for fear of further ridicule. When the Projektor study began, the Kherson Office of the Attorney General had not investigated any war crimes against LGBTQ+ people living in the occupied territories.
Russia's crackdown on gay rights intensified following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Back in December 2022, the Russian State Duma passed legislation banning the public expression of LGBT identity.
Late last year, Russia's Supreme Court declared the "international LGBT social movement" to be an "extremist organization" and banned its activities.
Accordin to Veronika Plotnikova, the head of the Coordinating Center for Support of Victims and Witnesses of the Prosecutor General's Office, Ukraine has collected pretrial information on over 128,000 victims of war crimes.
Rachel Amran is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked on the Europe and Central Asia team of Human Rights Watch investigating war crimes in Ukraine. Rachel holds a master's degree in Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Regional Studies from Columbia University.
The Kyiv Independent news desk
