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.
"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."
U.S. State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce called for "concrete proposals from both sides" in order for Washington to "move forward" in peace negotiations.
"If they speak to each other in Russian, he doesn't know what they are saying," one Western official told NBC News. Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, called Witkoff's approach "a very bad idea."
Tougher sanctions "should be applied to (Russia's) banking and energy sectors, targeting fossil fuels, oil, and the shadow fleet," the leaders of Ukraine, the U.K., France, Germany, and Poland said in a joint statement.
"Russia is ready for negotiations without any preconditions," Putin claimed in an address marking the end of the three-day Victory Day ceasefire. He invited Ukraine to begin talks in Istanbul on May 15.
While serving as a bishop in Peru, Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, called the full-scale war "a true invasion, imperialist in nature, where Russia seeks to conquer territory for reasons of power."
Speaking to CNN on May 10, Peskov commented on the latest ceasefire proposal from Ukraine and Europe, responding that Russia needs to "think about" it, but is "resistant" to pressure.
Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv on May 10, President Volodymyr Zelensky rebuked the idea of a demilitarized zone in the war and emphasized the importance of first securing a ceasefire.
The United States has shared intel on Russia’s military buildup with European allies, Bloomberg reported on Nov. 21.
Russia may be preparing for “a rapid, large-scale push into Ukraine from multiple locations,” Bloomberg wrote, citing unnamed sources. “The information lays out a scenario where troops would cross into Ukraine from Crimea, the Russian border and via Belarus.”
According to Bloomberg, 100 battalion tactical groups — potentially comprising around 100,000 soldiers — have been deployed for “an operation in rough terrain and freezing conditions, covering extensive territory and prepared for a potentially prolonged occupation.” Russia has also called up tens of thousands of reserve troops, possibly to secure occupied territory behind regular forces.
According to Ukraine’s military intelligence, Russia is preparing a large-scale assault for the end of January or beginning of February.
On Nov. 22, Jean-Yves Le Drian, the foreign minister of France, warned the Kremlin of “extremely grave consequences” for any violation or intrusion of Ukraine’s borders.
The Kremlin had said that preparations for a meeting with the U.S. are underway to discuss the situation. CIA director William Burns traveled to Moscow earlier this month reportedly to warn Russia against invading.
Illia Ponomarenko was a defense and security reporter at the Kyiv Independent in 2021-2023. He has reported about the war in eastern Ukraine since the conflict’s earliest days. He covers national security issues, as well as military technologies, production, and defense reforms in Ukraine. Besides, he gets deployed to the war zone of Donbas with Ukrainian combat formations. He has also had deployments to Palestine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an embedded reporter with UN peacekeeping forces. Illia won the Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellowship and was selected to work as USA Today's guest reporter at the U.S. Department of Defense.
