"We cannot allow NATO's military infrastructure to get that close to our borders," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
"There is no point in prolonging the killings. And I will wait for Putin on Thursday in Turkey," President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
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.
Preliminary findings suggest that one of the men killed the other before taking his own life.
Western leaders dismissed the Kremlin's proposal for talks in Istanbul on May 15 as insufficient.
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.
Erdogan told Macron that international cooperation is critical for initiating peace negotiations and the "sensitive implementation" of Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction processes, the Turkish Presidency reported.
The pope said he was praying to God to grant the world the "miracle of peace."
Ushakov’s comments follow Russian President Vladimir Putin's May 11 invitation for direct talks with Ukraine in Istanbul starting May 15.
The assault began around 2 a.m. on May 11, with Russian forces deploying 108 Shahed-type attack drones and decoy UAVs from multiple directions, Ukraine’s Air Force said.
Zelensky called a ceasefire the essential first step toward ending the war.
The number includes 1,310 casualties that Russian forces suffered over the past day.
"Think of the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be saved as this never ending 'bloodbath' hopefully comes to an end... I will continue to work with both sides to make sure that it happens."
UK Defense Ministry: Russia using its passports as 'Russification' tool in occupied Ukrainian territories
Moscow-installed proxies in occupied Ukrainian territories are "almost certainly" forcing the local population to take Russian passports, the U.K. Defense Ministry reported on April 24.
Residents of Kherson Oblast's occupied part have been threatened with deportation and property seizure in case they don't accept Russian citizenship until June 1, 2023, the ministry wrote in its intelligence update.
"Russia is using passports as a tool in the 'Russification' of the occupied areas, as it did in Donetsk and Luhansk before the February 2022 invasion," reads the update.
Moscow has used a simplified procedure to hand out Russian passports in parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts occupied since its first invasion of Ukraine's Donbas region. Russia has distributed around a million Russian passports on Ukrainian territory since 2019.

"Russia is likely expediating the integration of the occupied areas of Ukraine into the bureaucracy of the Russian Federation to help paint the invasion as a success, especially in the run-up to the 2024 presidential elections," the U.K. Defense Ministry added.
On April 7, the Ukrainian military's National Resistance Center wrote that Moscow-installed proxies in the occupied territories of southern Ukraine had increasingly forced civilians to obtain Russin passports, resorting to violence against those who refused to do it.
Ukraine's Armed Forces liberated the west bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast, including the regional capital, in November 2022. Russian troops fled to the east bank and still hold those territories.
Russia declared the "annexation" of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts in September 2022, after Russia's proxies held sham referendums in the occupied parts of these regions and claimed that 87% to 99% of the participants "voted" to join Russia, depending on the region.
On July 13, European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said the EU wouldn't recognize Russian passports issued to Ukrainian citizens in occupied territories.

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