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.
Turkish officials told Bloomberg that while they don't expect Trump to visit Istanbul, they are not ruling it out, and preparations for any scenario are underway.
Melkonyants was arrested in August 2023 in connection with the activities of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO), which was co-founded by Golos's legal predecessor, the Golos association.
Ukraine's underground storage facilities are currently using 19.4% of their capacity. Almost 32%, or 2.79 bcm, less gas is available in the storages than in the previous year, according to the estimates.
The majority of Ukrainians, 71%, do not support holding elections before a full peace deal, even in the case of a ceasefire and security guarantees, according to a poll published by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on May 14.
"He'd like me to be there, and that's a possibility. ... I don't know that he would be there if I'm not there. We're going to find out," U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One while traveling to Qatar, Reuters reported.
Trump has long demanded that NATO allies increase their military spending, previously calling for the alliance to raise its benchmark from 2% to 5% of GDP.
More than 1,000 Russian government entities and 1,200 private companies are involved in the economy of occupied Mariupol, a major southeastern city occupied by Russia after it invaded Ukraine in 2022, according to a research paper published on May 14.
Ukrainian soldiers of the 71th Brigade fire shells in the direction of Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast, on Feb. 18, 2024. (Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Russian forces are concentrating their main efforts on making a breakthrough near the recently fallen town of Avdiivka, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on March 15.
Avdiivka, a city in Donetsk Oblast that has been on the front line of the war since 2014, fell on Feb. 17, in what was Russia’s first major military gain in nine months. Several villages west of Avdiivka were captured soon after as Ukraine faced a severe ammunition shortage while U.S. aid continued to be stalled in Congress.
Ukrainian troops defending the area near Avdiivka face "intense artillery fire, the active use of FPV (first-person-view) drones," "periodic" air strikes, and "daily" assaults from armored vehicles and assault troops.
"In these conditions, the most effective way to conduct defense is to destroy the enemy's armored vehicles and infantry assault groups by artillery fire, the actions of armored groups, the complex use of attack unmanned systems of various types, the protection of one's units from enemy drones by means of EW (electronic warfare) in combination with the destruction of enemy UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) control points by missile strikes and artillery fire," Syrskyi said in a post on Telegram.
Syrskyi added that his main task currently was "dedicated to the organization and provision of these issues."
In its daily intelligence assessment on March 14, the U.K. Defense Ministry said Russia was focusing attacks west of Avdiivka and the town of Marinka, accounting for 60% of all attacks across the front line.
"However, the average number of reported weekly Russian ground attacks on Ukraine has reduced by 13% since late February 2024, when the weekly average reached 600," the ministry wrote.
As U.S. aid continues to be stalled in Congress, Kyiv’s forces face an increasingly perilous situation amid shell shortage.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on March 13 that Ukraine’s ammunition shortage caused by the delays could soon lead to a Russian breakthrough on the front lines.
Ukraine is also battling with a manpower shortage, with the government aiming to ramp up mobilization efforts in 2024.
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
