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.
Flag with the logo of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on March 29, 2022, in The Hague, Netherlands. (Photo: Alex Gottschalk/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Center for Civil Liberties (CCL), and the Kharkiv Human Rights Group have jointly submitted a report to the International Criminal Court (ICC) detailing hate crimes perpetrated by Russian propagandists against Ukrainians.
Five prominent Russian propagandists and Alexei Gromov, the First Deputy Chief of Staff of Russia’s Presidential Administration, are implicated by the human rights groups.
The report, prepared by Ukrainian NGOs and an undisclosed Russian NGO, focuses on hate speech violations under Article 7 of the Rome Statute. The submission also seeks to justify Gromov’s responsibility for ordering or permitting such actions under Articles 25 or 28 of the Rome Statute.
Media personalities Vladimir Solovyov, Margarita Simonyan, Dmitry Kiselyov, Sergey Mardan, and deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev are listed as key propagators of hatred. The report also holds Gromov accountable for his role in disseminating such messages.
Through meticulous analysis of over 500 hours of broadcast, the authors identified more than 300 instances of hate speech, urging the ICC to investigate these crimes.
While certain sensitive materials will remain confidential, the public portion of the submission will be accessible on the FIDH website.
"For each of these people, we specified in the submission about 5-7 main narratives that this or that person constantly promoted. For some, more; for some, less. But all of them definitely have called for violence and so on,” Volodymyr Yavorsky, program director of the Center for Civil Liberties, said. Yavorsky emphasized the significance of this investigation in challenging the normalization of hate speech and violence.
Previously, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian official allegedly overseeing the forced deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia.
Sonya Bandouil is a North American news editor for The Kyiv Independent. She previously worked in the fields of cybersecurity and translating, and she also edited for various journals in NYC.
Sonya has a Master’s degree in Global Affairs from New York University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Music from the University of Houston, in Texas.
Martin Fornusek
