U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg, will travel to Istanbul for possible peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, Reuters reported on May 13, citing three undisclosed sources.
A captive named Umit allegedly agreed to serve in the Russian army in exchange for Russian citizenship and a monetary reward of 2 million rubles ($25,000).
Russia's Buryatia Republic declared a state of emergency on May 13 over massive forest fires that have engulfed multiple regions in the Russian Far East.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko's statement came as Strong Shield 5 exercises involving military personnel from other NATO countries began in Lithuania.
"Amendments to the Budget Code are needed to implement the provisions on funding the U.S.-Ukrainian Reconstruction Investment Fund," lawmaker Roksolana Pidlasa said.
During reconnaissance in an unspecified front-line sector, Special Operations Forces' operators detected Buk-M3 and Uragan-1 on combat duty, the unit said.
The suspect quit his job at the Rivne NPP before the full-scale war began. In the spring of 2025, a GRU liaison contacted him and offered cooperation in exchange for money.
President Volodymyr Zelensky would not meet any other Russian official apart from Russian President Vladimir Putin in Istanbul this week, presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said on the Breakfast Show program on May 13.
Photo for illustrative purposes: The Russian Navy intelligence collection ship Ivan Khurs is docked at the port of the Sudanese city of Port Sudan on April 10, 2021. (Ibrahim Ishaq/AFP via Getty Images)
The Russian navy began scheduled exercises involving a significant portion of its fleet, including 20,000 personnel and 300 ships, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on July 30.
The drills are designed to assess the military command structures of three fleets and the Caspian Flotilla. The Northern Fleet in Russia's Arctic, the Pacific Fleet in the Pacific Ocean, the Baltic Fleet in the Baltic Sea as well as the Caspian Flotilla in the Caspian Sea will participate in the drills
Russia's Navy consists of a total of four fleets - the Northern Fleet, the Pacific Fleet, the Baltic Fleet, the Black Sea Fleet, as well as the Caspian Flotilla, and various task forces.
Approximately 300 surface ships and boats, submarines, and support vessels, along with around 50 aircraft and over 200 units of military and specialized equipment, will participate in the combat training exercises, according to the ministry's report.
Over several days, the crews of ships, naval aviation units, and coastal troops from the three fleets and the Caspian Flotilla will conduct over 300 combat exercises involving practical weapon use. These exercises will include anti-aircraft missile launches, artillery firing at sea, and targeting training for aerial and maritime targets, the ministry said.
Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has carried out numerous military exercises both independently and in collaboration with countries such as China and South Africa. In the past two months, Russia has also conducted a series of drills involving mobile nuclear missile launchers and the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons.
Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.
The Kyiv Independent news desk
