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 production process at ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine’s largest steel mill owned by Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, Ukraine's biggest foreign investor. The company accused the Prosecutor General’s Office of unlawfully blocking its bank accounts on Jan. 4, 2022. (ArcelorMittal)
The standoff between the Prosecutor General's Office and ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, the country's largest steel mill, reached new heights on Jan. 4 when the company's bank accounts were frozen by the state.
According to the Prosecutor General's Office, the non-cash funds of the steel mill were frozen as part of a tax evasion probe launched in November.
The Ukrainian steel mill, owned by Luxembourg based ArcelorMittal, called the investigation "political pressure." The mill is located in the southeast city of Kryvyi Rih – President Volodymyr Zelensky's hometown.
On Nov. 17, the Prosecutor General's Office and Ukraine’s Security Service charged the financial director of ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih with tax evasion. The law enforcement agencies didn't publish the suspect's name, however, Ukrainian media reported that CFO Serhiy Plychko is the one being charged in the case.
According to the investigation, between 2017 and 2019, the financial director and the company’s chief accountant forged the sum received from the extraction of minerals, thus not paying Hr 2.24 billion ($82 million) in rent fees.
The frozen sum is now considered case evidence, according to the prosecution.
The company says that these accusations are baseless and allege “political pressure on the largest foreign investor.”
ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih accused the Prosecutor General's Office of unlawfully blocking the company’s funds that will paralyze the mill’s future operations.
"The Office has taken aggressive measures against the company, which are against the law," Artem Filipyev, deputy director of the company, said in a statement on Jan. 5.
The General Prosecutor's Office said on Jan. 5 that it arrested funds on accounts that weren't used to pay salaries.
However, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih accused the prosecutors of lying in a Jan. 6 letter to the Kyiv Independent. The company said that one of its frozen accounts was used for payroll. The company also said that the account freeze will endanger more than 20,000 of the company’s employees, who won't receive their salaries on time.
According to the company, the Prosecutor General's Office demanded that Ukrainian banks comply with the decision of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court in Kyiv from Nov. 30 regarding the seizure of its accounts.
However, the company argues that there are no legal grounds to block the accounts since it wasn’t found guilty by the court and the company itself isn’t officially charged in the tax evasion case.
According to ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, the same goes for the two other cases involving the company that are currently pending in courts.
After Zelensky criticized the company for failing to decrease its environmental damage in his native city in 2019, the Security Service probed the company.
According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih is the second biggest polluter in the country. In September, the State Environmental Inspectorate fined the company $16.5 million for environmental damage, which was challenged by the company in court.
In a separate case, the Kyiv District Administrative Court rejected a civil lawsuit against ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih filed by the State Tax Service on Nov. 4. The company filed an appeal with the tax authorities to drop all charges against it.
The company, led by Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, bought the mill for $4.8 billion after it was put up for re-privatization in 2005, becoming the country’s most expensive privatized asset to date.
Artur Korniienko is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent, currently on a leave to serve in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He previously reported on Ukrainian literature, art, music, film and social issues for the Kyiv Post, including the controversial Babyn Yar memorial and other development projects opposed by the community. In 2021, he ran a podcast about Ukrainian migrant workers for RFE/RL on the Vaclav Havel Fellowship in Prague. With a Master's in Journalism from the Ukrainian Catholic University, Korniienko had also worked as a freelance journalist and a TV correspondent.
