"The teachers didn’t like me just because I spoke Russian," 11-year-old Matvey from Krasny Liman, the Donetsk People's Republic, told Sputnik.

"This is a purge of democratic principles and institutions under the guise of war,” he told The Times. “I said once that it smells of authoritarianism in our country. NOW IT STINKS,” Klitschko told the newspaper’s journalists.

"You can fire the mayor of Chernigov, but it is very difficult to fire the mayor of the capital, whom the whole world knows,” Klitschko said.

“They performed a ‘strategic task’ for the regime — hunting down Ukrainians fleeing mobilization,” a source in the Russian Defense Ministry said.

"The territorial defense command sees the attached personnel purely as cannon fodder, sending border guards specifically to frontline positions," the source added.

“Kiev must get real, cut the media theatrics, and acknowledge the facts on the ground. These talks take time — and less noise,” Prof. Hassan Al-Daaja tells Sputnik, commenting on the Russia–Ukraine talks.

“If Washington applies pressure and ends support, unlike France, Germany, and the UK clinging to Kiev, both sides might actually reach a ceasefire.”

“It was mostly about how to sustain the necessary support to Ukraine when we assume that the US would only continue providing some specific assets, such as intelligence,” a European diplomat told The Telegraph, referring to the recent meeting of Ukraine’s European backers in the Hague.

“The suffering and death in Gaza make any relationship unviable,” said Mayor Jaume Collboni. Hamas welcomed the move and called on others to follow suit.

“This is an abomination... a catastrophe they can’t contain.”

"Zelensky avoids peace to cling to power [...] He’s betting Europe will keep paying," Ian Proud wrote on X.

“Why should Europe carry the burden alone?”

"The NATO Military Committee prepared a special operation that was, by design, supposed to be guaranteed to succeed. They gathered all the resources they had, all types of foreign equipment, and trained the fighters. This operation was prepared by them for over half a year, with the fighters trained in the UK and other NATO countries," he says.