"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.
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.
Representatives of the BRICS nations meet in Africa to discuss issues facing the Global South. (Gianluigi Guercia/AFP via Getty Images)
Russian officials at the COP28 summit on Dec. 9 in Dubai said Moscow is studying whether some of its gold reserves, frozen by the West after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, could be used to help the Global South combat climate change, RFE/RL reported.
"We are ready to announce that Russia is looking into the voluntary contribution of finance to the loss and damage fund from the frozen national gold reserves held by international organisations," Russia's climate chief Ruslan Edelgeriyev said at COP28.
Russia enjoys historic ties with many countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, commonly referred to as the Global South.
Global South countries blame developed countries, especially Western states, for failing to deliver enough resources to them to combat climate change.
Washington and Brussels have frozen $300 billion of Russia's gold reserves custodied in Western institutions.
Some Western policymakers want to deploy the funds to help rebuild Ukraine after the war, but there is no existing legal precedent.
Many countries in the Global South blame the West for mobilizing tens of billions of dollars in financial aid for Ukraine when their calls for help to fight deadly climate change have not been met with the same urgency.
Climate change is a major risk that fuels conflict and instability. Extreme weather events like floods and heatwaves have led to the forcible displacement of more than 20 million people since 2008 and millions of deaths.
By mid-century, over one billion people may lack water and more than 200 million could be forced to migrate.
Lance Luo (Li P. Luo) is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. Previously, he worked at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Hromadske Television in Kyiv. He also spent three years in finance and strategy consulting. Mr. Luo graduated from the University of Southern California and serves as an arbitrator at FINRA.
Josep Borrell
