Twenty countries have pledged new military aid to Ukraine in its fight against invading Russian military forces, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced on May 23 after the second meeting of the Contact Group for Ukraine.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin is the only Russian official with whom he is ready to meet with one issue on the agenda - stopping the war, reports Reuters.
Zelensky, speaking via video link to an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, also said that arranging any talks with Russia was becoming increasingly difficult in light of what he said was evidence of Russian actions against civilians under occupation.
He also said that any idea of returning the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, would cause hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Olena Zelenska, wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, told the World Health Organization (WHO) assembly that the impact of the Russian invasion on health care and mental health could last for decades.
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Starbucks has announced that it will close its 130 stores in Russia and exit the market after nearly 15 years due to the war against Ukraine.
The coffee giant based in the US city of Seattle informed its employees on May 23 that it will close its operations in Russia, although the company will continue to pay its nearly 2.000 Russian workers for six months to help them find new jobs.
"Starbucks has made the decision to exit and no longer have a brand presence in the market," the company said in a statement.
In March, it announced the suspension of operations due to the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces.
Dozens of major international companies from a wide range of sectors have left Russia since it began its war against Ukraine on February 24.
McDonald's announced on May 19 that it had signed an agreement to sell its business in Russia to a local licensee that will give it the global fast food giant's entire portfolio in the country and allow it to operate restaurants under the new brand.
Starbucks has been operating in Russia since 2007.
The Government of Montenegro strongly condemns Russia's aggression against a sovereign country and we firmly stand by the people of Ukraine, said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Raško Konjević.
He participated in the second meeting of the Contact Group for Support of Ukraine, which was held at the initiative of US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, and on that occasion he pointed out that the next donation to the Army and the people of Ukraine can be expected soon.
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Ukraine's chief prosecutor Irina Venediktova said that around 13.000 cases of alleged Russian war crimes have been investigated to date, Reuters reports.
"As of this day, we have more than 13.000 cases (being investigated) on war crimes alone," Venediktova said in an interview with the Washington Post.
Kiev has accused Russia of atrocities and brutality against civilians during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russia has denied targeting civilians or involvement in war crimes as it carries out what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine.
The operator of the Ukrainian gas system announced on Monday that gas supplies to the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have been suspended after the main gas pipeline was damaged by Russian shelling, Reuters reports.
Boris Bondarev, who resigned today as Russia's adviser to the United Nations (UN) in Geneva, spoke to the BBC's Russia editor Steve Rosenberg about why he became the country's most senior diplomat to defect because of the war.
"The reason is that I strongly disagree and disapprove of what my government is doing and has been doing since at least February, and I no longer want to be associated with it," he said.
Bondarev said it was a case of when, not if, he would quit. "I don't see any alternative."
Despite being shocked by the Russian invasion, he said he did not believe his sentiments were widely shared in the Foreign Office.
"I think most people, most of them, follow the propaganda and what their superiors tell them. When you work in a ministry, you work in a hierarchy, so you have to listen to what your superiors tell you. And for many years, any critical approach was mostly erased from the ministry." , he said.
While he said his decision to leave was unlikely to change things, he said "it may be one small brick in a bigger wall that would eventually be built".
Asked if he believed he would be considered a traitor, Bondarev said: "I think they already consider me one."
Today, the Kremlin accused Ukrainian nationalists of carrying out a "terrorist attack" against officials appointed by Russia in the south of Ukraine, the BBC reports, citing the AFP agency.
Andrej Ševčik was appointed mayor of Energodar, in the Zaporozhye region, after Russian troops took control of the city.
It is the place where the largest European nuclear power plant is located.
On Sunday, Ševčik and his two guards were wounded in an explosion while entering the building.
Ukrainian "nationalist elements use such methods," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.
Local police official Alexei Selivanov told Russia's state news agency RIA Novosti that Shevchik "suffered burns and injuries" but that his life and that of his bodyguards were not in danger.
He said that the pro-Moscow official was the target of an explosive device placed in a cabinet for the power plant.
A city of almost 50.000 inhabitants, Energodar was built in the XNUMXs around a nuclear power plant located on the Dnieper River.
Ukraine's armed forces have warned of an increase in military activity and troop levels by Belarus near the border.
"The Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus are intensifying reconnaissance, additional units are being deployed in the border areas of the Homel region," the Ukrainian General Staff said in a May 23 situation report.
"The threat of missile and airstrikes from the territory of the Republic of Belarus remains," it added.
After Ukraine's statement, the Belarusian defense ministry said it had begun what it called "another phase of checks" of military equipment to determine their mobility and capacity.
Belarus did not officially take part in the war that Moscow launched against Ukraine on February 24, but has allowed its territory to be used by Russian forces as a staging ground for attacks on Ukrainian soil.
But in a sign that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin have closed ranks in the face of international isolation, the two met for the third time in the past month on May 23.
The meeting, in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, focused on the ongoing war in Ukraine, with Lukashenko thanking the West for "giving impetus to our own development".
Russia's adviser to the United Nations (UN) in Geneva has resigned over the "bloody, senseless and absolutely unnecessary" fighting in Ukraine, making him the country's most senior diplomat to defect because of the war, the BBC reports.
In his resignation letter, Boris Bondarev said that during his 20-year career he had seen "various twists and turns" in his country's foreign policy, "but I have never been so ashamed of my country as on February 24," when Russia launched an attack.
Calling the level of "lies and unprofessionalism" in Russia's Foreign Ministry "catastrophic", he said Vladimir Putin's war was "not only a crime against the Ukrainian people, but also, perhaps, the most serious crime against the people of Russia".
In March, Anatoly Chubais became the most prominent Kremlin official to resign over the war. Chubais, who was Putin's special envoy for relations with international organizations for sustainable development, not only left his post, but also Russia.
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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday he was concerned about what he said were moves by the West to "dismember" Ukraine, and accused Poland of wanting to seize the western part of the country.
As Reuters reports, in a televised meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said that Kiev would eventually have to ask for help in preventing the seizure of western Ukraine.
He offered no evidence for his claims.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for "maximum" sanctions against Russia in a virtual address on the first day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which gathers CEOs of large companies, state officials and other prominent figures.
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Eighty-seven people were killed in a Russian airstrike on the village of Desna last Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday during a speech to global business leaders in Davos.
Ukrainian authorities announced last week that eight people were killed in the attack on Desna, located in the northern Ukrainian region of Chernihiv.
A Ukrainian court on Monday sentenced a Russian soldier to life in prison for killing an unarmed civilian in the first war crimes trial since Russia's February 24 invasion.
Vadim Shishimarin, a 21-year-old tank commander, pleaded guilty to killing a 62-year-old man in the northeastern Ukrainian village of Chupahyvka on February 28 after being ordered to shoot at him from a car.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Monday that it fired four Kalibr missiles from a submarine in the Black Sea to destroy the military equipment of the Ukrainian Mountain Assault Brigade, TASS reported.
The report could not be immediately verified.
The Kremlin said on Monday that the West had caused a global food crisis by imposing the toughest sanctions in modern history on Russia over the war in Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said, agreed with the United Nations assessment that the world was facing a food crisis that could cause famine.
"Russia has always been a fairly reliable grain exporter," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "We are not the source of the problem."
They added that Russian soldiers would have to be alerted to "terrorist attacks" after the Russian-appointed mayor of the occupied southern Ukrainian town of Enerhodar was injured in an explosion on Sunday.
"Our soldiers must be alert and take measures to prevent such terrorist attacks," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Russia will be ready to return to negotiations with Ukraine "as soon as Kiev shows a constructive attitude", said Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrey Rudenko, reports Reuters.
Speaking about the fact that Russia is exchanging prisoners from the Azovstal steel plant, Rudenko said that he did not rule out the possibility of discussions on that topic.
The leader of the breakaway Donetsk People's Republic, Denis Pushilin, said on Monday that fighters who surrendered at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol will be tried in the separatist region, Reuters reports.
"Prisoners from Azovstal are on the territory of the Donetsk People's Republic," Denis Pushilin said, as reported by Interfax. "It is also planned to organize an international tribunal on the territory of the republic."
The report did not specify what charges the fighters will face.
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