These are the key events on day 1,174 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is where things stand on Tuesday, May 13:
Ceasefire
Moscow has yet to say whether Russian leader Vladimir Putin will attend direct talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy slated for Thursday in Istanbul and proposed by Kyiv over the weekend. The leaders have not met since December 2019.
United States President Donald Trump said he is “thinking about flying over” to Istanbul to join the potential Putin-Zelenskyy talks.
“I don’t know where I’m going to be on Thursday – I’ve got so many meetings – but I was thinking about actually flying over there. There’s a possibility of it, I guess, if I think things can happen,” Trump said. “Don’t underestimate Thursday in Turkey.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he held a joint call with Ukrainian and European officials to discuss a “way forward for a ceasefire” on Monday.
Europe will reportedly push the White House for new sanctions on Moscow if Putin either fails to attend the Istanbul meeting, or fails to agree to an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire”, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Germany said it is also preparing sanctions against Moscow if the talks stall.
Fighting
Ukraine says that Russia is “completely ignoring” calls for a 30-day ceasefire made over the weekend by the US and Europe. It was due to begin on Monday.
“Russian shelling and assaults continue,” Zelenskyy said in a nightly address. “Moscow has remained silent all day regarding the proposal for a direct meeting. A very strange silence.”
Ukraine’s military said that there had been 133 clashes with Russian forces along the front lines up to Monday night.
The heaviest fighting continues in the Donetsk region on Ukraine’s eastern front and Russia’s western Kursk region. Ukraine’s military said the intensity remains unchanged since the ceasefire was supposed to begin.
Moscow called the 30-day ceasefire an excuse by Europe to “provide a breather for Kyiv to restore its military potential and continue its confrontation with Russia”.
The latest attacks come as the African Union rejects any ‘interference’ in the civil war, which has killed more than 20,000 people.
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have said the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed seven people in artillery shelling on el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state in western Sudan.
A statement from the military-aligned government said on Monday that the RSF shelling that began late on Sunday targeted residential neighbourhoods, killing seven people, including women and children, and wounding at least 15, who were taken to hospitals.
On Sunday, the army also said the RSF shelling in the city killed nine people.
El-Fasher has witnessed intense fighting between SAF and RSF since May 2024, despite international warnings about the risks of violence in a city that serves as a key humanitarian hub for the five Darfur states.
For more than a year, the RSF has sought to wrest control of it, located more than 800km (500 miles) southwest of the capital, Khartoum, from the Sudanese army, launching regular attacks on the city and two major famine-hit camps for displaced people on its outskirts.
The RSF and the SAF have been locked in a brutal power struggle since April 2023, resulting in thousands of deaths and pushing Sudan into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, according to the United Nations.
More than 20,000 people have been killed and 15 million displaced in the brutal civil war now in its third year, according to UN and local figures. However, some United States-based researchers estimate the actual death toll to be as high as 130,000.
Won’t accept ‘any interference’
Meanwhile, the African Union (AU) said on Monday it would not accept “any interference” in Sudan after the RSF was accused of receiving weapons from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Last week, the Sudanese government severed diplomatic relations with the UAE, accusing it of supplying weapons to the RSF.
Amnesty International has also accused the UAE of supplying weapons to the RSF, in violation of a UN arms embargo.
The UAE has rejected the claims as “baseless”.
“The Commission’s position is that member states are sovereign states, and the AU Commission will not accept any interference in the internal affairs of Sudan,” said AU Chairperson Mahamoud Ali Youssouf.
“We will not support any intervention, any interference in the crisis in Sudan,” he said.
However, Youssouf declined to comment on the UAE’s possible role in the conflict. “It is not the role of the AU. Sudan has accused the Emirates; it is up to Sudan to provide this evidence,” he said.
The foreign minister of Djibouti was elected head of the pan-African organisation in February, inheriting multiple conflicts and a record of ineffectual statements.
Among the top of his priorities coming into the post was the Sudan civil war, which has effectively cleaved the country in two.
Both sides have been accused of committing war crimes.
In recent days, drone attacks attributed by the army to the RSF have increased, marking a turning point in the two-year conflict.
Drone attacks have also notably targeted strategic sites in Port Sudan, the temporary seat of government and the logistical humanitarian epicentre.
In February, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged a halt to the “flow of arms” into Sudan.
Watch the moment US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announces the tariff reduction
Share markets jumped on Monday after President Trump said weekend talks had resulted in a “total reset” in trade terms between the US and China, a move which goes some way to defuse the high stakes stand-off between the two countries.
The talks in Switzerland resulted in significant cuts to the tit-for-tat tariffs that had been stacked up since January on both sides.
The US will lower those tariffs from 145% to 30%, while China’s retaliatorytariffs on US goods will drop to 10% from 125%.
President Trump told reporters, that, as some of the levies have been suspended rather than cancelled altogether, they might rise again in three months time, if no further progress was made.
However, he said he did not expect them to return to the previous 145% peak.
“We’re not looking to hurt China,” Trump said after the agreement was announced, adding that China was “being hurt very badly”.
“They were closing up factories. They were having a lot of unrest, and they were very happy to be able to do something with us.”
He said he expected to speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping “maybe at the end of the week”.
Investors welcomed the de-escalation. The S&P 500 index jumped more than 3.2% after the announcement, while the Dow climbed 2.8% and the Nasdaq had surged 4.3% by the end of the day.
The gains left the indexes roughly where they started the year, fully recovered from the losses they sustained in the aftermath of the 2 April tariffs announcement, dubbed “Liberation Day” by the Trump administration.
Framed as a campaign to give Americans a fairer deal from international trade, the US announced a universal baseline tariff on all imports to the US.
Around 60 trading partners, which the White House described as the “worst offenders”, were subjected to higher rates than others, and this included China.
Beijing retaliated with tariffs of its own, which led to levies being ratcheted up on both sides, sending shares sharply lower.
Under the new agreement, the US is reducing the “reciprocal” tariff on Chinese goods that it announced on “Liberation day” to 10%. But it said the higher levy rate was being suspended for 90 days, rather than removed permanently.
The US is also keeping in place the extra 20% tariff aimed at putting pressure on Beijing to do more to curb the illegal trade in fentanyl, a powerful opioid drug.
For its part, China is also reducing to 10% the retaliation tariffs they put in place in response to Trump’s “Liberation day” announcement, again suspended for three months.
China has also agreed to “suspend or remove” all non-tariff measures against the US.
Pre-existing tariffs, including higher sector-specific tariffs on things like steel and cars, remain in place.
However, additional retaliatory tariffs, that were added subsequently, have been cancelled altogether on both sides.
The retreat comes as the first impacts from the tariff-war were beginning to show, with US ports reporting a sharp drop in the number of ships scheduled to arrive from China.
Factory output has slowed in China, and there are reports of firms laying off workers, as US orders dried up.
China’s commerce ministry said the agreement was an important step to “resolve differences” which would help to “deepen co-operation”.
Tat Kei, a Chinese exporter of personal care appliances to the US, whose factory employs 200 people in Shenzhen, welcomed the announcement, but said he still feared what else might be to come.
“President Trump is going to be here for the next three-and-a-half years. I don’t think this is going to be the end of it… not by a long shot,” he told the BBC.
Elaine Li, head of Greater China at Atlas Ways, which offers services for Chinese enterprises’ global development, also said she believed many Chinese firms would treat the reprieve as temporary.
“For businesses, the best they can do is build a moat around their company before the next round of tariffs arrives,” she said.
Getty Images
On Wall Street Target, Home Depot and Nike were among companies that saw their share price rise sharply on the news. Tech firms including Nvidia, Amazon, Apple and Facebook-owner Meta also moved sharply higher.
European stocks rose on Monday, and earlier Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index had ended the day up 3%.
The deal has boosted shares in shipping companies, with Denmark’s Maersk up more than 12% and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd jumping 14%.
Maersk told the BBC the US-China agreement was “a step in the right direction” and that it now hoped for “a permanent deal that can create the long-term predictability our customers need.”
In the US, the National Retail Federation (NRF) said it was encouraged by the “constructive” negotiations.
“This temporary pause is a critical first step to provide some short-term relief for retailers and other businesses that are in the midst of ordering merchandise for the winter holiday season,” said NRF president Matthew Shay.
The International Chamber of Commerce said the deal sent a clear signal that the US and China both wanted to avoid a “hard decoupling”.
“Ultimately, we hope this weekend’s agreement lays the foundation to lift the cloud of trade policy uncertainty that continues to weigh on investment, hiring, and demand across the world,” said deputy secretary-general, Andrew Wilson.
The gold price – which has benefited from its safe-haven status in recent weeks given the disruption caused by the tariffs – fell 3.1% to $3,223.57 an ounce.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy agrees to meeting proposed by Vladimir Putin – if he attends in person.
A glimmer of hope to end the more than three-year war in Ukraine that has killed thousands of civilians – and hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has agreed to attend a meeting proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Istanbul on Thursday, as long as Putin is there in person.
Putin wants the talks to first discuss the root causes of the conflict and deal with ceasefire negotiations later.
His plan is also supported by US President Donald Trump, who says the meeting will help Ukraine’s allies, the US and European powers, decide whether a ceasefire is possible – and also the future of the war effort against Russia’s invasion.
Is the Russian leader trying to deflect growing Western pressure to agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire or face “massive sanctions”?
And are the talks hosted by Turkiye likely to make any progress at all?
Presenter: Cyril Vanier
Guests:
Olesia Horiainova – Co-founder of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Centre
Vasily Kashin – Expert at Russian International Affairs Council
Barin Kayaoglu – Assistant professor and chair of American Studies, Social Sciences University of Ankara
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he will be waiting to meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Turkiye to talk face-to-face, as part of peace negotiations scheduled for May 15. It’s not clear however if Putin will attend.
Former British Home Secretary Charles Clarke has expressed little faith that United States President Donald Trump’s “combination of bullying and flattering” will produce a lasting ceasefire in Ukraine.
Trump, on April 17, presented Russia and Ukraine with a “final” ceasefire offer, which forces Kyiv to legally cede Crimea to Moscow, without offering it security guarantees.
“My picture from the outset, which is essentially pessimistic, is that Trump wanted his big moment and in the same way as with North Korea, he thought he could [coax Russia] into a situation,” said Clarke.
Trump had similarly tried to force North Korea into nuclear disarmament in 2019.
“I don’t myself see how [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy or Ukraine as a whole could ever concede de jure control of Crimea to Russia. They could concede de facto control, but Trump didn’t seem to take that distinction,” Clarke said.
“He’s shaken things up, but I think he’s been obviously far too credulous to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and to Russia in the whole process.”
Clarke spoke to Al Jazeera on the sidelines of the 16th Conference on Baltic Studies in Europe, hosted recently by Cambridge University’s Centre for Geopolitics, which Clarke co-directs with Brendan Simms, a professor of European geopolitics.
Can Europe face Russia?
The prospect of a possible ceasefire is rarely out of the headlines.
Over the weekend, Putin said Russia would engage in direct talks with Ukraine “without preconditions” – a rare offer throughout the conflict – after European leaders met Zelenskyy in Kyiv to call for a 30-day truce.
Ukraine and Europe have presented a ceasefire document, which, unlike Trump’s plan, makes no territorial concessions to Russia three years after it invaded Ukraine. The question is whether they are willing and able to back it with continued military effort if Russia and the US reject it.
“The scenario of a complete American withdrawal may be overly bleak right now, but it’s definitely a possibility,” said Simms.
Should Europe then offer Ukraine an independent security guarantee?
“I do think we should do that, but I think we should only do it if we are genuinely committed to going the full mile with Ukraine,” said Simms.
“I could quite easily see, for instance, a discourse in a country like Germany, which would say something like, ‘Well, it’s awful what’s happening in Ukraine, Trump is awful, [but] no we’re not going to do anything to help Ukraine, and we are going to use Trump as an excuse to walk away from supporting Ukraine’,” Simms said. “That is very much a discourse you’re beginning to hear in German public opinion.”
Both Clarke and Simms believed the Russian army’s ability to win an uncontestable military victory in Ukraine has been overestimated thanks to narratives touted by the Kremlin.
“There’s been far too much belief that the Russians have got an effective military and economic machine,” said Clarke, citing the Russian failure to take Kyiv in 2022 and losing control of the Black Sea to an adversary without a navy.
Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine have slowed down dramatically, two separate analyses found last month.
The Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom estimated that Russian forces seized 143sq km (55sq miles) of Ukrainian land in March, compared with 196sq km (75sq miles) in February and 326sq km (125sq miles) in January.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, DC-based think tank, spotted the same trend, estimating Russian gains of 203sq km (78sq miles) in March, 354sq km (136sq miles) in February and 427sq km (165sq miles) in January.
This pattern of diminishing returns had started in 2024, a year when Russia wrested away just 4,168sq km (1,610sq miles) of fields and abandoned villages – equivalent to 0.69 percent of Ukraine, the ISW determined in January.
Those meagre gains came at the cost of 430,790 soldiers, the equivalent of 36 Russian motorised rifle divisions, outnumbering Russia’s losses in 2022 and 2023 combined, said Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence.
As Russia prepared to celebrate the 80th anniversary of victory in World War II, its losses in Ukraine were approaching the one million mark, Ukraine’s Defence Ministry said.
Al Jazeera is unable to independently verify casualty tolls.
“They do have weight of numbers on their side, but weight of numbers only counts if you’ve got willing fighters,” said Clarke. “And there’s a great deal of evidence that there’s real problems for the Russian leadership in terms of the attitude of Russian troops and Russian positions.”
While Europe could ultimately step up defence industrial capacity, Clarke cautioned that Europe would nonetheless struggle to replace US intelligence, political coherence and command and control.
A European force for the Baltic
These issues have recently come to the fore, as Europe grappled with the possibility of fielding a peacekeeping ground force in Ukraine.
Simms argued in favour of creating it, but against deploying it in Ukraine as a peacekeeping force.
One reason is that European militaries are not trained for the drone warfare now being developed in Ukraine and will not be effective, he said.
“The other consideration is that the Ukrainian army is our most effective ally. If we deploy forces as part of a peace deal, which will end the war in Ukraine by definition and take the Ukrainians out of the conflict, we will end up in a situation where our mobile force, our only deployable force, the preponderance of it will be fixed in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin will no longer be fixed in Ukraine. He can pivot to face the Baltic states in the high north, and the Ukrainians will no longer be in the field. So that will be almost like … a self-inflicted wound.”
A European mobile force should keep its powder dry for deployment wherever Putin strikes next, said Simms, most likely in the Baltic states, while Europe helps Ukraine in long-range fires – drones and missiles – and provides air cover.
Russia’s psyops: Nuclear blackmail
Clarke said it is “absolutely possible” that Europe and Kyiv can win the war without Washington’s support, but warned of a “high risk strategy” should Ukraine “hold on so long that Russia would fall over”.
Europe and Ukraine could win if Europe overcame its fear of nuclear blackmail, said Simms.
Putin threatened the use of nuclear weapons from the outset, he said, but did not use them when Ukraine claimed back 20,000sq km (7,720sq miles) of its territory in September 2022, nor when Ukraine counter-invaded Russia in August 2024.
An injured woman near her house, damaged by a Russian air attack, in a Kyiv neighbourhood, Ukraine, April 24, 2025 [Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo]
Yet fear of nuclear retaliation prevented Germany from giving Ukraine its 500km-range (310-mile) Taurus missile, which carries a 450kg warhead and impacts at high speed, devastating its targets.
“It’s not at all clear that if a power station in Moscow were destroyed by a Taurus, that [Putin] would use nuclear weapons. In fact, I think it is unlikely,” said Simms.
“But he has achieved through his rhetoric and through, I think, a misunderstanding of the nature of deterrence, a chilling effect on the West, which has cost the Ukrainians dear and has wasted three years that we had to sort this out – before Donald Trump appeared on the scene.”
Some ‘reciprocal’ tariffs and duties are being rolled back in favour of ‘mutually beneficial’ talks.
China and the United States have agreed to suspend some of the heavy trade tariffs imposed against one another as they prepare to extend negotiations aimed at lowering trade war tensions.
The two countries issued a joint statement on Monday, following two days of trade talks in Geneva, Switzerland. They described the negotiations, which came after US President Donald Trump’s nationalist agenda prompted a spiral of increasingly heavy duties, as positive.
Global markets reacted positively to the news, with stock markets in Hong Kong, the US and Europe rising.
In the statement, Beijing and Washington said they recognise the importance of their bilateral economic and trade relationship to both countries and the global economy.
They said they would move forward “in the spirit of mutual opening, continued communication, cooperation, and mutual respect”.
As part of the agreement, the US will suspend its additional ad valorem rate of duties – tax based on the value of goods – by 24 percent for an “initial” period of 90 days. This will leave a 10 percent tariff rate in place.
China will reduce its duties on US imports by a similar amount, also retaining a tariff of 10 percent.
Washington will also roll back tariffs imposed by two executive orders signed by Trump in early April, affecting a wide range of US imports of goods from China, including Hong Kong and Macau.
Beijing will suspend tariffs imposed in response and “suspend or remove the non-tariff countermeasures” taken against the US.
‘Neither side wants to be decoupled’
The world’s two largest economies also agreed to establish a mechanism to continue discussions on economic and trade relations, and named officials to lead the talks.
Vice Premier of the State Council He Lifeng will be China’s top negotiator. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will lead the talks for the White House.
“These discussions may be conducted alternately in China and the United States, or a third country upon agreement of the Parties. As required, the two sides may conduct working-level consultations on relevant economic and trade issues,” the joint statement reads.
Bessent told reporters in Geneva that “both sides will move down reciprocal tariffs” by up to 115 percent on some goods after successful meetings during which the two delegations exhibited “great respect” for each other.
“The consensus from both delegations is neither side wants to be decoupled,” Bessent said, adding that the tariffs were the equivalent of an embargo, something neither side favoured.
Global markets had fallen considerably amid the trade wars launched by the Trump administration as uncertainty grew over the potential impact of the tariffs.
However, signs of a pullback have been seen in recent weeks.
The agreement with China comes days after the US reached a framework for a trade agreement that would reset most of Washington’s tariffs on imports from the United Kingdom.
These are the key events on day 1,172 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is where things stand on Sunday, May 11:
Fighting:
Politics and diplomacy:
Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed direct talks with Ukraine in Istanbul, Turkiye, on Thursday “without preconditions” to achieve “lasting peace” and “eliminate the root causes” of the three-year conflict.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Russia to confirm an unconditional 30-day ceasefire beginning on Monday, saying Ukraine would then be ready to meet for direct talks with Russia.
United States President Donald Trump described the talks offer as a “potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine”.
On Saturday, Zelenskyy received the backing of Europe’s major powers and Trump for the unconditional 30-day ceasefire beginning on Monday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his Russian and French counterparts that a “historic turning point” has been reached in efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war and Ankara was ready to host talks between the two warring parties, his office said.
Macron said Putin’s offer to start direct talks with Ukraine is “a first step but not enough”, arguing that an unconditional ceasefire that Kyiv and its allies have called for should happen first. Macron accused Putin of “looking for a way out, but he still wants to buy time”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Putin’s proposal for direct talks with Kyiv a “serious proposal” that is a step towards “lasting peace”.
Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal said the US and Europe are collectively ramping up pressure on Russia to push through a ceasefire. “I think the American administration is also getting a little bit impatient with these Russian games,” Michal said, accusing Russia of dragging its feet in implementing a truce.
