"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.
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.
In this photo illustration, a Telegram App was placed in the IOS App Store on May 3, 2021, in Bargteheide, Germany. (Katja Knupper/Die Fotowerft/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
Telegram chatbots of Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR), the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and the Digital Transformation Ministry were restored on April 29 after being previously blocked.
The chatbots, which are primarily used to gather information on Russian troops in occupied territories, disappeared from Telegram on April 28.
Ukraine's Center for Strategic Communicationsand Information Security reported on their restoration at around 10 a.m. local time the following day.
In total, three of Ukraine's government Telegram chatbots were blocked. This included the chatbot of Ukraine's military intelligence agency, t.me/gur_official_bot, whose purpose is to cooperate with people on the Russian-occupied territories to oppose Russian forces.
This chatbot allows people to pass on information about the Russian military positions, equipment, air defenses, movement of troops, and more.
The chatbots of the SBU and the Digital Transformation Ministry, t.me/stop_russian_war_bot and t.me/evorog_bot, which perform similar functions, were also temporarily unavailable.
Ukraine's military intelligence agency reacted to the blocking of its channel, calling the decision by Telegram's management "unreasonable."
The agency also added that Russia could create chatbots with similar names for disinformation purposes.
Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, the head of the Ukrainian parliament's Committee on Freedom of Speech, claimed that the Russian Federal Security Service's (FSB) pressure was behind the block.
According to Yurchyshyn, Ukraine previously "found a solution" to blocking Russian propaganda on Telegram in collaboration with Apple, and it could lead to the introduction of the restrictions.
Pavel Durov, the Russian-born founder of Telegram, said last week that Ukrainian users of iPhone would face "inevitable changes" in Telegram operations allegedly due to updated Apple policies.
Durov also suggested at the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, restricting "Telegram channels in Russia and Ukraine because they were being used for military propaganda," but Russian and Ukrainian users "vehemently opposed restrictions."
According to Durov, Telegram blocks accounts and chatbots that collect data aiding strikes or call for violence.
Ukraine's military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said in March that Telegram poses risks because "any person can create a channel and start writing whatever he wants on it," but it also presents certain benefits, namely, in communicating with people from occupied regions.
Kateryna Hodunova is a News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked as a sports journalist in several Ukrainian outlets and was the deputy chief editor at Suspilne Sport. Kateryna covered the 2022 Olympics in Beijing and was included in the Special Mentions list at the AIPS Sport Media Awards. She holds a bachelor's degree in political journalism from Taras Shevchenko University and a master's degree in political science from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
Daria Shulzhenko
