In an interview with French broadcaster TF1 on May 13, Macron discussed new Russia sanctions and stationing French nuclear weapons in other European countries as a deterrent against Russia.
Performing their song "Bird of Pray," Ukrainian band Ziferblat passed the Eurovision semi-finals on May 13, qualifying Ukraine for the grand final on May 17.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that a Russian delegation will be in Istanbul on May 15 for direct peace talks with Ukraine. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov will likely represent Russia.
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 man digs a grave near tombs of Russian soldiers at a cemetery in the town of Yefremov in the Tula region on March 23, 2023. (Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images)
Russia's contract soldier recruitment rate may have dropped in the third quarter of 2024 compared to the previous quarter, the Meduza news outlet reported on Dec. 4, citing its analysis of Russia's federal budget.
Based on the conclusions from expenditures for sign-on bonuses and earlierresearch, Meduza estimates that the Russian military signed between 500 and 600 new contracts per day. This would be less or barely enough to cover Russia's irreversible battlefield losses, estimated by Meduza at 600-750 per day, including 200-250 fatalities.
The figures could not be verified as Russia does not disclose its casualty rates.
If accurate, these figures indicate a tipping point in Moscow's ability to compensate its casualties in its full-scale war in Ukraine. Despite the war being Russia's deadliest conflict since World War II, observers believed the country could substitute them through volunteers and limited "covert" mobilization.
According to the analysis's more liberal estimates, Russia may have signed up to 82,000 new contracts in the third quarter if bonuses had been budgeted with delays and, therefore, according to earlier lower levels.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hiked the sign-on bonuses earlier this year to attract more recruits for the war. The lump-sum payment went from 195,000 rubles (now $1,900) to 400,000 rubles (now $3,900) in August.
The figure of 82,000 would still decrease from roughly 93,000 contracts concluded in the previous quarter. The most conservative scenario, disregarding possible delays, put the number of contracts in the third quarter at 49,000, which could come down to the said 500-600 losses per day.
Federal budget reports show that Russia spent 48.56 billion rubles ($472.6 million) on one-time sign-on bonuses between the start of the year and Oct. 1.
The Kremlin has avoided instituting likely unpopular full-scale mobilization, seeking instead to find recruits among volunteers, migrant workers, and residents of poorer regions. More recently, Russia's manpower capacity was boosted by a dispatch of 10,000-12,000 North Korean troops.
Russian forces have advanced in eastern Ukraine at a long-unseen pace over the past few months, albeit at the cost of record losses. In turn, Ukraine struggles more with offsetting its losses, with Ukrainian commanders complaining about understaffed units on the front as the mobilization drive slows.
These factors are likely to play a role in any negotiations, a possibility discussed increasingly frequently in the world's capitals.
Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press. He was also volunteering as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukraïner. Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.
Chris York
