"I am waiting to see who will come from Russia, and then I will decide which steps Ukraine should take. So far, the signals from them in the media are unconvincing," President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The air raid was announced at around 2:30 p.m. local time, while the explosion sounded around 2:50 p.m. The number of victims killed rose to three, Sumy Oblast Governor Oleh Hryhorov reported at 8:42 p.m.
If confirmed, the decision would mark the first time since Russia's full-scale invasion that President Volodymyr Zelensky is absent, either physically or virtually, from a NATO summit.
The disclosure follows a warning from Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski, who on May 6 said Moscow was carrying out an "unprecedented" interference campaign.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva claimed that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha had appealed to his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira, to ask Putin if he was willing to conclude a peace agreement.
Earlier reporting from the Washington Post cited a former Russian official who claimed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, would represent Moscow in the talks.
The Council of Europe on May 14 approved the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute Russia's top leadership for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, Ukrainian lawmaker Maria Mezentseva reported.
Viktoria Roshchyna, 27, disappeared in August 2023 while reporting from Ukraine's Russian-occupied territories. Moscow admitted she was in Russian detention the following year.
Dutch Justice Minister David van Weel speaks about the future of the EU-led special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine and its role in bringing Russia to justice.
Turkish officials told Bloomberg that while they don't expect Trump to visit Istanbul, they are not ruling it out, and preparations for any scenario are underway.
Palestinians take control of an Israeli tank after crossing the border fence with Israel from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023 (Photo by SAID KHATIB/AFP via Getty Images)
In a recent development, senior members of both Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran-backed militant groups, have claimed that Iranian security officials played a pivotal role in planning and authorizing Hamas' surprise attack on Israel.
According to these sources, the Wall Street Journal reports, officers from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) collaborated closely with Hamas for several months, beginning in August, to strategize and coordinate air, land, and sea incursions into Israeli territory — a significant breach not witnessed since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
These alleged details emerged from meetings held in Beirut, where IRGC officers reportedly met with representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
Hamas currently holds power in Gaza, while Hezbollah is a prominent Shiite militant group and political faction in Lebanon.
The U.S. officials have yet to find concrete evidence supporting these claims of Iranian involvement. In a recent interview with CNN, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: "We have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack, but there is certainly a long relationship."
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.
The Kyiv Independent news desk
