The EU on Monday imposed sanctions on 16 officials accused of helping Russia to abduct tens of thousands of children from Ukraine and force many to change their identities or be put up for adoption. Sanctions were also slapped on seven centres suspected of indoctrinating the children or training them to serve in the armed forces, either for Russia or pro-Russian militias inside Ukraine. More than 130 people and “entities” are now under EU travel bans and asset freezes over the abductions.
EU headquarters said the measures target “those responsible for the systematic unlawful deportation, forced transfer, forced assimilation, including indoctrination and militarised education, of Ukrainian minors, as well as their unlawful adoption and removal to the Russian Federation and within temporarily occupied territories.” Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, about 20,500 children have been unlawfully deported or forcibly transferred to Russia or Russian-held territories in eastern Ukraine.
EU officials say many of the children are stripped of their Ukrainian identity and culture, given Russian passports and put up for adoption. Some are forced into schools for indoctrination or into military camps. “Russia is trying to erase their identity,” Latvian foreign minister Baiba Braže said Monday at a meeting with EU counterparts in Brussels. “When you look at the Genocide Convention, it’s one of the features of the genocide crime. So, it’s very serious.”
Ukrainian authorities served president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s powerful former chief of staff with an official notice of suspicion as part of a major corruption investigation, Kyiv’s anti-corruption agencies said on Monday. The agencies did not name the official, in line with Ukrainian law, but local media widely identified him as Andriy Yermak, who resigned late last year amid a corruption scandal. Yermak was Zelenskyy’s closest aide and one of Ukraine’s most powerful men, before he resigned in November 2025 after his home was raided by anti-corruption officers. He had served as Zelenskyy’s right-hand man throughout much of the Russian invasion.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Monday the “dynamics” of the Ukraine war were changing in Kyiv’s favour as Russia suffers record casualties and strikes on key oil facilities. “Moscow’s record battlefield losses, Ukraine deep strikes into Russia, and Moscow’s shrinking military parade, these things all show that the dynamics of the war are changing,” Kallas said after a meeting of EU foreign ministers. “Ukraine is in a much better position than a year ago,” she said. “But of course, there is no time for complacency.”
Zelenskyy said Monday that fighting with Russia was ongoing despite a three-day US-brokered ceasefire, accusing Russia of not wanting to end the four-year war. Both Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of violating the ceasefire, announced by Donald Trump, over three days from 9 May. “Today there was no silence at the front, there was fighting. We have recorded all of this,” Zelenskyy said in his daily address. “We also see that Russia has no intention of ending this war; unfortunately, it is preparing new attacks,” he added.
European governments on Monday rejected a suggestion by Russian president Vladimir Putin that former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder could represent them in possible future talks with Moscow. They dismissed any role for Schröder, who has worked for Russian state companies and cultivated a close relationship with Putin. “It’s clear why Putin wants him to be the person – so that actually … he would be sitting on both sides of the table,” Kallas told reporters. “If we give the right to Russia to appoint a negotiator on our behalf … that would not be very wise,” she said.
Russia has cut its economic growth forecast for 2026 and the following three years but left unchanged the projected oil price despite the spike in global prices driven by the war in the Middle East, deputy prime minister Alexander Novak told Vedomosti daily in an interview on Tuesday. Russia’s $3tn economy, hit by the war in Ukraine, western sanctions, and high interest rates, contracted by 0.3% in the first quarter, marking its first quarterly decline since early 2023.