The move follows Ukraine's ratification of the minerals agreement, deepening U.S.-Ukraine economic ties and signaling expanded U.S. involvement in Ukraine's long-term recovery.
"Ukraine has initiated a coordinated campaign to vilify Hungary in order to undermine our initiative to hold a poll on (Kyiv's) EU membership," Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that further concessions from Ukraine during negotiations would be unreasonable if Russia continues to attack civilian targets.
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.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said he will meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, but said both leaders are ready to fly to Istanbul if Russian President Vladimir Putin chooses to attend the talks there.
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.
Illustrative purposes only: Barbed lines a wall of a Lefortovo prison wall in Moscow, Russia, on April 4, 2023. (Vlad Karkov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
A Russian military court sentenced a Krasnodar Krai resident to 14 years in prison for allegedly preparing to sabotage railway relay cabinets and for purported links with an anti-Kremlin militia, the court's service said on July 30.
The court called Artem Sanzharaev a "convinced ideological opponent of the state" who "voluntarily joined" the Freedom of Russia Legion through Telegram.
The legion, established in March 2022 in Ukraine, is an armed group made up of ethnic Russians fighting alongside Kyiv's forces against Russia.
According to the Russian court, Sanzharaev was instructed by the legion to carry out the sabotage. For that purpose, he "acquired the necessary weapons and equipment, after which he arrived at the indicated relay cabinets and began making Molotov cocktails," the court said.
Sanzharaev did not manage to carry out his tasks as he was detained by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) officers, the statement read.
The Kyiv Independent cannot verify this information, and the Russian judicial system is widely thought to be systematically unfair. Torture and forced confessions are also commonplace practices among law enforcement officers, human rights organizations have found.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's crackdown on dissent since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine has seen thousands of his citizens arrested and many jailed.
Nate Ostiller
