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.
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."
"An unconditional ceasefire is not preceded by negotiations," French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters on May 11.
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."
U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, said on Twitter on May 9 that Russia was "again blocking ships from loading grain in Ukraine's ports to feed people who need it around the world."
In the tweet, Brink quoted a similar comment by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said "the world shouldn’t need to remind Moscow every few weeks to stop using people’s hunger as a weapon in its war against Ukraine.”
Earlier on May 8, the United Nations said that no ships had been inspected for two days under the Black Sea Grain Initiative that allows for the export of Ukrainian grain through Ukraine's Black Sea ports. Russia has been accused of deliberately delaying inspections.
The UN and Turkey-brokered deal, first signed in July 2022, has been vital in subduing soaring food prices worldwide and providing much-needed grain to certain countries, given that Ukraine is one of the world's top grain suppliers.
The deal was extended for another 120 days on March 18, after weeks of Russia threatening to back out of it if certain terms were not met. The deal is set to expire next on May 18, but talks to extend the deal are ongoing.
Russia "has signaled it will not allow the deal to continue" given that it believes "a list of demands to facilitate its own grain and fertilizer exports has not been met," Reuters reported.
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