"I am waiting to see who will come from Russia, and then I will decide which steps Ukraine should take. So far, the signals from them in the media are unconvincing," President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The air raid was announced at around 2:30 p.m. local time, while the explosion sounded around 2:50 p.m. The number of victims killed rose to three, Sumy Oblast Governor Oleh Hryhorov reported at 8:42 p.m.
If confirmed, the decision would mark the first time since Russia's full-scale invasion that President Volodymyr Zelensky is absent, either physically or virtually, from a NATO summit.
The disclosure follows a warning from Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski, who on May 6 said Moscow was carrying out an "unprecedented" interference campaign.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva claimed that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha had appealed to his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira, to ask Putin if he was willing to conclude a peace agreement.
Earlier reporting from the Washington Post cited a former Russian official who claimed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, would represent Moscow in the talks.
The Council of Europe on May 14 approved the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute Russia's top leadership for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, Ukrainian lawmaker Maria Mezentseva reported.
Viktoria Roshchyna, 27, disappeared in August 2023 while reporting from Ukraine's Russian-occupied territories. Moscow admitted she was in Russian detention the following year.
Dutch Justice Minister David van Weel speaks about the future of the EU-led special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine and its role in bringing Russia to justice.
A Bank of China branch in Moscow on Aug. 24, 2022. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images)
The Russian subsidiary of the Chinese state-run Bank of China has stopped accepting payments from Russian banks, the state-controlled media outlet Kommersant reported on June 24, citing unnamed sources.
The U.S. and other countries unveiled a new wave of sanctions earlier in June that targeted Russian financial institutions, as well as entities and individuals based in China and elsewhere that help Moscow circumvent the existing restrictions.
Trade between Russia and China has surged by 121% since 2021, underscoring the Chinese role as Moscow's economic lifeline. A functioning payment system is necessary for maintaining trade relations, and Russia was cut off from the international SWIFT system in 2022.
According to Kommersant's sources, Bank of China will refuse to accept payments from any sanctioned Russian bank starting on June 24.
"This is not very good news for the Russian market," a source told Kommersant.
"There will be additional costs, both in terms of time and cost of payment processing."
The Russian subsidiary of Bank of China is ranked second in terms of assets of Chinese banks operating in the Russian market, at 592.4 billion rubles ($6.8 billion) at the end of the first quarter of 2024.
The problems associated with the suspension of payments will likely "go beyond the banking sector, resulting in the state having less and less control over it, creating rising risks of fraud."
After the new U.S. sanctions were announced earlier in June, the Russian state-run media outlet RIA Novosti published an interview with a Chinese economics expert, who conceded that the sanctions would have a "certain impact on the Russian economy," but claimed that it would not be "serious."
At the same time, Peter Harrell, who served as White House senior director for international economics in 2021 and 2022, said the new sanctions were a "paradigm shift" that could lead to a "major retreat" of the remaining non-Western banks that still do business with Russia.
Nate Ostiller
