Latest news with #UkrainianGovernment
Russia Today
5 hours ago
- Business
- Russia Today
Zelensky and Kiev mayor ‘at war'
Vladimir Zelensky's longstanding feud with Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko has escalated into 'war,' The Times has reported. The Ukrainian leader has 'forced' the former world champion heavyweight boxer – who is said to harbor presidential ambitions – into a 'political clinch,' the British daily wrote on Friday. Zelensky is reportedly seizing power from the capital's civilian government, having taken control of its military administration away from Klitschko in the early months of the conflict. Ukraine's anti-corruption bureau has made seven arrests among Klitschko's subordinates, with a further three under investigation, The Times wrote. In turn, the Kiev mayor has accused the Zelensky administration of paralyzing the city council with 'raids, interrogations, and threats of fabricated criminal cases' that prevent his team from meeting the legal quorum required for decision-making. 'This is a purge of democratic principles and institutions under the guise of war,' The Times cited Klitschko as saying. 'I said once that it smells of authoritarianism in our country. Now it stinks.' The dispute is as much personal as it is political, according to the newspaper. Zelensky made personal attacks against Klitschko after the mayor criticized his approach to peace negotiations. The Kiev mayor has accused Zelensky of overreach, playing into fears that his use of wartime powers has come at the expense of democracy, The Times said. Despite his presidential term expiring last May, the Ukrainian leader has repeatedly postponed elections, citing martial law. Klitschko said that Zelensky is also usurping power from other mayors in the country, but that his celebrity status grants him some protection. While boxing champion has brushed off allegations against him as mudslinging, arrests in the Kiev administration are real manifestations of corruption in the capital, the Times wrote, citing analysts. Kiev's flourishing corruption would be 'impossible without the city government,' Zelensky-appointed city military administration head Timur Tkachenko told The Times. Corruption has been a serious and long-standing issue in Ukraine. Top officials in Washington, which has been Kiev's biggest military sponsor, have expressed concern that US aid has been systematically misappropriated during the Ukraine conflict.
Al Arabiya
a day ago
- General
- Al Arabiya
Kremlin says only to consider summit with Putin if Ukraine talks yield ‘results'
Kremlin says Russia will only consider having a summit with Putin if Ukraine talks yield 'results.'
Arab News
2 days ago
- General
- Arab News
Russia says no response from Ukraine on Istanbul talks
MOSCOW: Russia on Thursday said it was still waiting for Ukraine to say whether it would attend peace talks in Istanbul on Monday, after Kyiv demanded Moscow send its peace terms before agreeing to the meeting. Diplomatic efforts to end the three-year conflict have gained pace in recent months, but Moscow has shown no signs of easing its bombardment of Ukraine while rebuffing calls for an immediate ceasefire. Moscow has offered to hold a second round of direct talks with Ukraine in Istanbul on June 2, where it wants to present a so-called 'memorandum' outlining its conditions for a long-term peace settlement. But Ukraine said the meeting would not yield results unless it saw a copy of the memorandum in advance, a proposal that the Kremlin dismissed. 'As far as I know, no response has been received yet... we need to wait for a response from the Ukrainian side,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, calling Kyiv's demand that Russia provide peace conditions up front as 'non-constructive.' Ukraine said it had already submitted its peace terms to Russia and demanded Moscow do the same. Turkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Russia and Ukraine not to 'shut the door' on dialogue ahead of the anticipated meeting in Istanbul. The warring sides previously met in Istanbul on May 16, their first direct talks in over three years. Those talks failed to yield a breakthrough, but the two sides did agree to trade 1,000 prisoners each — their biggest POW swap since the beginning of the conflict. Erdogan's foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, who met Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday, was expected to travel to Kyiv on Thursday to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. US President Donald Trump, who has been pushing for a peace deal, has become increasingly frustrated with Moscow's apparent stalling and warned Wednesday he would determine within 'about two weeks' whether Putin was serious about ending the fighting. Moscow's offensive, launched in February 2022, has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the destruction of large parts of eastern and southern Ukraine. Ukraine on Thursday criticized Russia's refusal to provide the memorandum. 'The Russians' fear of sending their memorandum to Ukraine suggests that it is likely filled with unrealistic ultimatums,' foreign ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy said. The Kremlin has been grinding forward on the battlefield for over a year while pushing its demands for peace, which include Ukraine abandoning its NATO ambitions and ceding territory it already controls. Local authorities in Ukraine said Thursday that Russia had fired 90 drones overnight, killing at least five people across the country. In southern Ukraine, a drone strike killed two civilians in the Kherson region, while a ballistic missile attack claimed the life of a farm worker in the Mykolaiv region. In the eastern Donetsk region, shelling killed one civilian, according to a 24-hour tally from the National Police. A 68-year-old man was killed by a drone strike on his home in the northeastern Sumy region, which borders Russia. In his comments on Wednesday, Trump told reporters he was 'very disappointed' at Russia's deadly bombardment during the negotiating process, but rebuffed calls to impose more sanctions on Moscow. Kyiv has accused Russia of deliberately stalling the peace process to pursue its offensive. Zelensky said Russia was 'amassing' more than 50,000 troops on the front line around Sumy, where Moscow's army has captured a number of settlements as it seeks to establish what Putin has called a 'buffer zone' inside Ukrainian territory. On Thursday, the Russian army said it captured three villages in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions and had repelled 48 Ukrainian drones, including three over the Moscow region. A retired Russian commander who led air strikes on the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol died in a blast early Thursday in Stavropol in southern Russia, authorities said, adding that they did not rule out Ukrainian involvement.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Germany confirms Zelensky's Berlin visit for high-level talks
The German government has confirmed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will visit Berlin on Wednesday for talks with Chancellor Friedrich Merz, focusing on military support and efforts to achieve a ceasefire. Zelensky will be received with military honours at the Chancellery, government spokesman Stefan Kornelius said. The two leaders will hold talks followed by a working lunch and a joint press conference. Later in the day, Zelensky is expected to meet with German business representatives before heading to Bellevue Palace for a meeting with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The visit had been widely reported in local media, though neither Kiev nor Berlin had confirmed it earlier, as Zelensky's trips are often kept confidential for security reasons. It is Zelensky's first visit to Berlin since Merz became chancellor. His last trip to the German capital was in October 2024.
The Independent
5 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
AP PHOTOS: More than 200 Ukrainian POWs have died in Russian prisons. This is one soldier's story
'Everything will be all right.' Ukrainian soldier Serhii Hryhoriev said this so often during brief phone calls from the front that his wife and two daughters took it to heart. His younger daughter, Oksana, tattooed the phrase on her wrist as a talisman. Even after Hryhoriev was captured by the Russian army in 2022, his anxious family clung to the belief that he would ultimately be OK. After all, Russia is bound by international law to protect prisoners of war. When Hryhoriev finally came home, though, it was in a body bag. A Russian death certificate said the 59-year-old died of a stroke. But a Ukrainian autopsy and a former POW who was detained with him tell a different story about how he died – one of violence and medical neglect at the hands of his captors. Hryhoriev is one of more than 200 Ukrainian POWs who have died while imprisoned since Russia's full-scale invasion three years ago. Abuse inside Russian prisons was likely a contributing factor in many of these deaths, according to officials from human rights groups, the U.N., the Ukrainian government and a Ukrainian medical examiner who has performed dozens of POW autopsies. - This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.
