The publications' latest report covers the period of February 24, 2022 to May 8, 2025. Since it was last updated at the end of April, 2,857 additional Russian military personnel have been confirmed killed.
Hungary cancelled a meeting planned for May 12 with a Ukrainian delegation on the rights of national minorities, Hungary's Deputy Foreign Minister said on May 11, amid a deepening spying scandal between the two countries.
Three were injured in Russia's Kursk Oblast when the town of Rylsk was allegedly struck by a missile attack on May 11, local governor Alexander Khinshtein claimed.
This week, the world watched in anticipation for Russia’s Victory Day parade after President Volodymyr Zelensky commented that he could not guarantee the safety of those attending. Meanwhile, the European Union moves one step forward to banning Russian gas from the European continent. It is also revealed this week that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has fallen out of step with the White House.
"(Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin... doesn't want to have a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine, but rather wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the bloodbath. Ukraine should agree to this, immediately," U.S. President Donald Trump said.
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.
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.
Former Major General Ivan Popov in an undated photo. (Russian Defense Ministry)
Ivan Popov, a disgraced ex-commander of Russia's 58th Army fighting in Ukraine, was sentenced by a Russian military court to five years imprisonment over a large-scale fraud, Interfax news agency reported on April 24.
Popov was also stripped of his military rank as major general and fined 800,000 rubles ($9,600).
The ex-commander was arrested in May 2024 on suspicion of taking part in the theft of 1,700 metric tons of metal intended for building fortifications in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Oblast. The fraud reportedly caused damages of 115 million rubles ($1.4 million).
Popov's co-defendant, businessman Sergei Moiseyev, was sentenced to four years and fined 600,000 rubles ($7,200).
Popov has pleaded not guilty and plans to appeal the verdict. The Russian media reported that he sought to avoid a prison sentence by requesting permission to return to the front in Ukraine.
He was expected to lead one of the Storm-Z detachments, a front-line assault group largely composed of convicts and known for high casualty rates, Kommerstant's source in security services claimed.
The court has denied this request, Popov's lawyer Sergei Buinovsky said, according to Interfax.
Popov was dismissed from his command in 2023 after he reportedly bypassed the command of Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov and attempted to directly appeal to the Kremlin over poor battlefield conditions.
Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press. He was also volunteering as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukraïner. Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.
Natalia Yermak
