Zoriana Stepanenko is a correspondent for Current Time and RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.
U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith, commenting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has said that "Russia could stop the war tomorrow if it wanted to." Speaking to RFE/RL, she continued: "We are trying to apply all the pressure that we can on Moscow to change Putin's strategic calculus."
Polish and Lithuanian leaders have expressed support for Ukraine and stressed the need for additional military assistance to Kyiv in the face of the ongoing Russian invasion. Andrzej Duda and Gitanas Nauseda talked to RFE/RL on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid on June 29.
Despite a new plea from Kyiv, Washington is not prepared to support a no-fly zone over Ukraine as it would escalate the conflict with Russia “to a whole new level,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price says.
Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya said she had been "extremely surprised" by the news of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's recent phone call to Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka over the migrant crisis on the Belarusian-Polish border.
