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.
Victims of Russia's attack against a grocery store and a cafe in Hroza, Kharkiv Oblast, on Oct. 5, 2023. (Volodymyr Zelensky/Telegram)
Russian troops launched a missile attack on a grocery store and a café in the village of Hroza in Kharkiv Oblast on Oct. 5, where a funeral reception was being held on the occasion of the reburial of a Ukrainian soldier, said Dmytro Chubenko, a spokesman for the regional prosecutor's office.
"A memorial service was held because of the reburial of a fallen Ukrainian soldier," Chubenko said, according to Interfax. "He was originally buried in Dnipro, and his relatives wanted to rebury him in the village where he came from. The burial was organized by the family of the deceased soldier, his son and the widow. The son of the reburied man was also a soldier."
The strike occurred at around 1:15 p.m. when at least 60 people gathered at a local cafe for a memorial service for a deceased resident, interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on national television.
The son, along with his wife and mother, were among the 51 people killed in the attack that wiped out over half of the village's population. It is the single deadliest Russian attack against civilians in 2023.
While Klymenko initially said the population of Hroza was over 300 people, a Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutor's Office spokesman later clarified that the number of people living in the village just before the attack didn't exceed 100.
The attack was likely carried out with an Iskander ballistic missile and was targeted, according to local police.
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.
Daria Shulzhenko
