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.
A captive named Umit allegedly agreed to serve in the Russian army in exchange for Russian citizenship and a monetary reward of 2 million rubles ($25,000).
Russia's Buryatia Republic declared a state of emergency on May 13 over massive forest fires that have engulfed multiple regions in the Russian Far East.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko's statement came as Strong Shield 5 exercises involving military personnel from other NATO countries began in Lithuania.
"Amendments to the Budget Code are needed to implement the provisions on funding the U.S.-Ukrainian Reconstruction Investment Fund," lawmaker Roksolana Pidlasa said.
During reconnaissance in an unspecified front-line sector, Special Operations Forces' operators detected Buk-M3 and Uragan-1 on combat duty, the unit said.
The suspect quit his job at the Rivne NPP before the full-scale war began. In the spring of 2025, a GRU liaison contacted him and offered cooperation in exchange for money.
A general view of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine on March 29, 2023. (Andrey Borodulin / AFP via Getty Images)
The U.S. Department of the Treasury on Jan. 15 sanctioned Russia's Federal State Unitary Enterprise Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, a Moscow-created entity that took control of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia power plant in the partially occupied oblast.
The updated sanctions list also targets Vladislav Isaev, the company’s CEO since April 2024.
In October 2022, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed a decree establishing the Russian entity to oversee the captured power plant. This followed an order from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who declared the facilities of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant as Russian federal property.
Russian forces have occupied the Zaporizhzhia plant, the largest nuclear station in Europe, since March 2022, and have been using the site in ways that increase the risk of a nuclear disaster. Throughout its occupation, the plant has been repeatedly disconnected from the Ukrainian power grid due to Russian attacks on the country's energy infrastructure.
The region, particularly the city of Zaporizhzhia and the areas around the nuclear power plant, has endured regular missile strikes, artillery shelling, and drone attacks.
On Jan. 8, Russian forces targeted an industrial facility in Zaporizhzhia, killing 13 people and injuring 122, including a child, according to State Emergency Service.
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.
Francis Farrell
