The sanctions appear to be in response to Russia's rejection of a 30-day ceasefire that the U.K., alongside Ukraine, France, Germany, and Poland, demanded during a visit to Kyiv on May 10.
"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.
A photo shared by the Security Service of Ukraine shows two agents holding the alleged saboteur. (Security Service)
A Ukrainian man suspected of working with Russian military intelligence and planning to blow up a railway in Kharkiv Oblast has been detained, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced on March 14.
The alleged saboteur is accused of trying to destroy power lines and rolling stock using a homemade improvised explosive device, in an attempt to disrupt fuel and ammunition supplies headed for Ukrainian forces in the Lyman direction.
The SBU said in a post on Telegram that the man’s plans were discovered before he had a chance to carry them out and the identities of his Russian contacts had been established.
“As a result of the special operation, an enemy saboteur who tried to detonate power lines of railway tracks and rolling stock near the junction station was detained,” the SBU said.
The attacker turned out to be a local resident who worked for the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (known as GRU),” the agency added.
“In addition, during the investigation, evidence was obtained of the defendant's performance of another task – he collected information about the locations of the bases of the Armed Forces units in Kharkiv and Pavlograd, in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.”
Chris York is news operations editor at the Kyiv Independent. Before joining the team, he was head of news at the Kyiv Post. Previously, back in Britain, he spent nearly a decade working for HuffPost UK. He holds an MA in Conflict, Development, and Security from the University of Leeds.
Francis Farrell
