Zelenskyy and Erdogan discuss proposed Ukraine peace talks

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov have discussed efforts toward achieving peace between Russia and Ukraine, a Turkish diplomatic source told the Reuters news agency. 

The source provided no further details but noted that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has proposed a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Turkey on Thursday to discuss the possibility of a truce.

Germany has reminded Russia that any failure to join the ceasefire offered by Ukraine would bring further sanctions on Moscow

"The clock is ticking," government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said.

He added that if the ceasefire did not stand by the end of Monday, the European side would keep to its agreement to implement further sanctions.

If Russia does not accept the demand, "preparations will be set in motion" for fresh sanctions, he said.

However, the Kremlin on Monday said it would not accept "ultimatums" set by European leaders to enter a ceasefire with Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that giving ultimatums to Russia was "unacceptable" and wouldn't work. "You cannot talk to Russia in this language," he told reporters.

France on Monday said leaders at a meeting on Ukraine this weekend had asked the European Commission to put together new "massive" sanctions targeting Russia's oil and financial sector if there was no Russian agreement.

The EU is already working on a 17th sanctions package that it is seeking to adopt by the next foreign ministers meeting on May 20.

US President Donald Trump has said he might travel to Turkey for potential talks between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump said he might travel to Turkey if a packed schedule in the Middle East allowed time.

"I don't know where I'm going to be on Thursday, I've got so many meetings," Trump told reporters before departing on a three-nation trip to the Middle East.

"But I was thinking about actually flying over there. There's a possibility of it, I guess, if I think things can happen. But we got to get it done."
Zelenskyy has welcomed Trump's potential involvement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he wants US counterpart Donald Trump to join prospective peace talks with Russia in Turkey.

The negotiations, scheduled for Thursday in Istanbul, would mark the first direct meeting between Ukrainian and Russian officials since the early months of Moscow’s 2022 invasion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed the talks as an alternative to a 30-day ceasefire suggested by Kyiv and its allies. 

However, the Kremlin has remained silent on whether Putin would attend. 

While Zelenskyy confirmed he would participate "personally," the Kremlin declined to reveal whom Russia would send.

Earlier, Trump told reporters he would attend if he "thought it would be helpful."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on all parties to seize the momentum from recent diplomatic contacts to move toward a peace agreement in Ukraine, following his conversation with the country's leader.

"A new window of opportunity has opened with the recent contacts. We hope that this opportunity will not be wasted," Erdogan said after speaking to Zelenskyy.

French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk met Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Saturday and issued a coordinated call for a truce. 

Ukraine's ambassador to Germany has praised newly-appointed Chancellor Friedrich Merz for maintaining secrecy around German weapons deliveries to Kyiv, describing the move as a deliberate act of "strategic ambiguity" designed to obscure Ukraine's capabilities from Russia.

"A good chess player thinks several moves ahead. What he doesn't do is predict these moves to his opponent," Ambassador Oleksii Makeiev told the dpa news agency, welcoming Merz's change of course.

Following his inauguration last week, Merz reached an agreement with Defense Minister Boris Pistorius to halt the detailed publication of military aid to Ukraine, including specific quantities of arms.

The policy marks a return to early-war practices, when former Chancellor Olaf Scholz initially withheld such data during the first months of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. However, Scholz's administration later shifted course under public pressure, beginning to publish detailed shipment lists online from June 2022. The most recent update was posted on May 6 — the day Merz's new government took office.

Ironically, Merz had previously criticized the secrecy when he was opposition leader.

However, former Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk was sharply critical of Merz's change of course. He called the secrecy a "very strange" approach that "brought back bad memories" of Scholz's center-left-led administration, which he accused of using confidentiality to obscure hesitancy in arms support.

The Kremlin did not comment on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's offer for a meetingwith Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Istanbul, but stated it was focused on a "serious search" for a "peaceful settlement" to the war in Ukraine.

"We are focused on a serious search for ways to achieve a long-term peaceful settlement," said Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson for the Russian President.

Peskov also criticized EU leaders' "ultimatums" to agree to a ceasefire, calling them "unacceptable."

"You cannot talk to Russia in such a language," he said.

Britain's defense minister, David Lammy, has called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to step up to the negotiating table for talks about ending Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

"This is the time for Vladimir Putin to get serious about peace in Europe, to get serious about a ceasefire, and to get serious about talks," he said.

But Europe's leaders are "prepared if this is not the moment of seriousness from Putin," he added.

Russia has rejected a 30-day ceasefire proposal put forward by allies of Ukraine.

Lammy, who is hosting talks with his European counterparts on the continent's security, also praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for showing "willingness to engage in talks."

His remarks are at odds with those of US President Donald Trump, who on Sunday said he was "starting to doubt" whether Kyiv is willing to make a deal with Russia.

Zelenskyy has offered to meet Putin face to face for negotiations in Turkey on Thursday.
 

The EU's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, has said there must a ceasefire before any talks to end the war in Ukraine.

 "In order to go into any peace talk, there has to be a ceasefire," Kallas said ahead of a meeting of European ministers in London.

"We need to put the pressure on Russia because they are playing games," she said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday held his first phone call with the newly elected pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, with the pair discussing issues including the abduction of Ukrainian children by Russia and the proposal for a 30-day ceasefire that has been rejected by Moscow.

Zelenskyy said in a social media post that he had also thanked the pope for urging peace in Ukraine and invited him to come to the country on an official visit.

"I invited His Holiness to make an apostolic visit to Ukraine. Such a visit would bring real hope to all believers, to all our people," Zelensky said in a post on social media platform Telegram, calling the conversation "very warm and truly substantive."

In his first traditional Sunday blessing in the Vatican, held just this week, Pope Leo said he carried in his heart the "suffering of the beloved people of Ukraine" and appealed for negotiations to reach an "authentic, just and lasting peace."

Andrius Kubilius, the European Union's defense commissioner, has said the bloc must step up production and innovation in the defense sector in collaboration with Ukraine to confront Russia's aggression.

"To stop [Russia President Vladimir] Putin, we need to produce more, we need to innovate more, and we need to do that together in the European Union and with Ukraine," Kubilius, a former Lithuanian prime minister, told a defense industry forum in Brussels on Monday.

He said an EU-Ukraine task force would convene for the first time on Monday "to assist integration of our defense industries, to facilitate development of joint projects or joint procurement processes."

The commissioner said Ukraine's innovations in the fields of drone production and artificial intelligence could be a spur to Europe's own defense industry.

“In the future, when Europe will need to take the whole responsibility for the defense of [the] European continent, Ukraine will be the most important part of the new European security architecture,” he said.
 

China has called for a "binding peace agreement acceptable to all parties" to end the war in Ukraine, as Kyiv and its allies put pressure on Russia to agree to a ceasefire. 

"We support all efforts conducive to peace and hope that the relevant parties will continue to resolve the issue through dialogue and negotiation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said in a press briefing.

Zelenskyy has previously accused China of helping Russia's war in Ukraine. In April, Ukraine said Kyiv's troops had captured two Chinese citizens fighting alongside Russian forces in the eastern Donetsk region. Zelenskyy then claimed some 155 Chinese nationals were fighting against Ukrainians on their soil, but China has denied these claims. 

Ukraine said Russia fired 108 drones overnight, despite attempts from Ukraine and its allies to reach a 30-day ceasefire agreement by Monday. 

"From 11:00 pm on May 11, the enemy attacked with 108 Shaheds and other types of drones," the Air Force said, adding that "as of 08:30 am, 55 drones were confirmed downed."

The attack also included 30 stimulator drones which were lost along the way without hitting anything, the message on Telegram said.

The attacks wounded one person and damaged residential buildings in the southern Odesa region, the military administration said. The country's state railway company had earlier said two other people had been injured in the Donetsk region.
 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in separate calls to reaffirm Washington's stance on the war in Ukraine. 

Rubio told Lammy, "our top priority remains bringing an end to the fighting and an immediate ceasefire," according to a statement. 

In the other call, Rubio congratulated Merz on his recent appointment as chancellor. As for Ukraine, they "discussed the meeting between the Chancellor, President Macron, Prime Minister Starmer, Prime Minister Tusk and President Zelenskyy in Kyiv and our shared goal of ending the war in Ukraine," a different statement said.

Russian drones attacked Ukraine's railway infrastructure in the eastern Donetsk region, damaging a freight train, according to Ukraine's state railway company.

The locomotive's driver and a civilian were injured, according to the report.

"Truce proposals are being ignored, hostile attacks on railway infrastructure ... continue," Ukrainian Railways said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

Large swathes of the Donetsk region are under Russian control.

The United Kingdom is set to host European ministers on Monday for talks on the war in Ukraine.

London's Foreign Office said that the "critical talks" would focus on "repelling Russian aggression and bolstering European security and securing a just and lasting peace for Ukraine."

The talks come two days after European leaders threatened Russian President Vladimir Putin with sanctions if he did not agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Representatives from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the EU will join British Foreign Secretary David Lammy in London. This is the sixth meeting of the so-called "Weimar+" group, which was set up in February in response to Washington's policy shift under the new term of President Donald Trump. 

Lammy is likely to announce sanctions targeting those backing the Russian invasion, his ministry said.

The UK's foreign secretary will be joined by his German, Spanish, and Polish counterparts. France will be represented by its minister for Europe, Benjamin Haddad. The EU's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, will also attend.

Ahead of the meeting, Lammy said the leaders were facing a "once-in-a-generation moment for the collective security of our continent."

"I have brought our friends and partners to London to make clear that we must stand together, allied in our protection of sovereignty, of peace and of Ukraine," he added.