“I am calling to let you know an important message. I do not know if rather a lot about what is definitely occurring proper now in Ukraine,” Stonyte says within the name final month, her voice trembling as her 1-year-old daughter babbles within the background.
There’s silence on the opposite finish of the road.
That is certainly one of dozens of chilly calls that Stonyte and her husband make on daily basis to folks in Russia from their residence in Lithuania as a part of a volunteer initiative geared toward penetrating Russia’s so-called digital iron curtain.
Russia’s ongoing onslaught in Ukraine has seen cities bombarded, civilians killed, and greater than 4 million flee the nation. However at residence, many Russians know little about what’s unfolding.
Russia has banned state media from calling Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “particular navy operation” an “invasion” or a “battle,” and people who criticize the offensive can face extreme punishment.
A Moscow courtroom banned Fb and Instagram for finishing up “extremist exercise,” and a brand new censorship regulation made publishing “pretend” details about the invasion punishable by as much as 15 years in jail. The stress has pressured unbiased information shops to drag out or shut down, leaving a void for state media to fill with propaganda and disinformation.
Determined to interrupt by way of, folks around the globe try inventive methods to attach with Russians. On-line activists Anonymous claim to have hacked Russian TV channels to broadcast footage from Ukraine.
Others, like Stonyte, try a extra particular person method. They’re chilly calling or messaging strangers in Russia, hoping their private pleas will disrupt the Kremlin’s propaganda — and doubtlessly even assist put an finish to the lethal battle.
‘Make a very powerful name of your life’
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When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, documentary filmmaker Stonyte and her husband Mantas Kazlauskas watched the information from their residence within the Lithuanian port metropolis of Klaipeda.
Stonyte, 30, grew up in Lithuania after the Baltic state declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. Whereas she does not bear in mind Russia’s occupation, the Russian menace by no means actually went away, she stated.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Stonyte stated she felt “a way of desperation and helplessness.”
The couple started calling companies, museums and eating places in Moscow and St. Petersburg, hoping to inform them about what was occurring. Days later they stumbled throughout CallRussia.org, an initiative launched March 8 with the tagline: “Make a very powerful name of your life.”
Co-founded by Lithuania-based inventive company director Paulius Senūta, the initiative goals to chilly name 40 million cellphone numbers throughout Russia. The workforce gathered publicly out there cellphone numbers in Russia and created a platform that randomly generates a cellphone quantity from the listing. A person can decide to name over the cellphone, Telegram, or WhatsApp, and on the finish of the decision, a web site pop-up asks the person whether or not they received by way of, and if that’s the case, if the decision went effectively.
The concept relies on Senūta’s perception that Russian folks have the facility to finish the battle if they’ve entry to free data and perceive the human struggling in Ukraine.
“There’s a variety of help (in Russia) for this (battle),” Senūta informed CNN final month. “However the humorous factor about it’s they do not know this battle. They do not know, a whole lot, hundreds of individuals killed, bombs dropped, kids killed, ladies giving delivery in metros — they know nothing about it.”
With the assistance of psychologists, Senūta’s workforce of about 30 folks put collectively a script to information the calls. They did not need to get right into a confontation — as an alternative the purpose is to “convey the human tragedy and the truth that they do not know about it.”
In only one week after the CallRussia launch, hundreds of volunteers made 84,000 cellphone calls, he stated.
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Stonyte says few folks hold up. As a substitute, most fall into certainly one of two classes — those that argue again, and people who pay attention, she stated. Stonyte believes many individuals could not need to reply out of worry the decision could possibly be monitored they usually may face punishment.
One name to a museum in Moscow caught together with her, Stonyte stated, although the one who picked up the cellphone stated little or no. Her husband — who speaks some Russian — helped to translate the phrases conveying the horror of Putin’s battle.
“I imagine that even silence between my husband and that girl was actually essential,” Stonyte stated. “I imply, she did not hold up the cellphone. She waited for a very long time, she needed to listen to each single phrase.”
‘They exist in one other actuality’
It is not simply strangers that Ukrainians try to achieve.
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A few days into the battle, Ukrainian restauranteur Misha Katsurin puzzled why his father, who lives in Russia, hadn’t known as to test on him.
However when he known as his father himself, Katsurin discovered one thing disturbing: his father merely did not imagine there was a battle.
At the same time as Katsurin described being woken by blasts and hiding in a bomb shelter, his father remained incredulous. “They exist in one other actuality,” he stated. “He needs to imagine me, however he can not,” he stated.
Misha Katsurin calls his father in Russia. Source: Papapover
Katsurin’s father consumes Russian state media, which has been presenting a really completely different narrative of how the battle is unfolding. On March 2, for example, when Russian navy strikes hit colleges and cathedrals in Ukraine’s second largest metropolis, Kharkiv, banners on Russian state TV channel RT claimed 40 Ukrainian cities and villages had been liberated.
Even the impacts of Western sanctions — which at the moment are being felt by atypical folks in Russia — aren’t talked about in Russian each day information stories.
To assist others in an analogous place, Katsurin began an internet site known as Papa Consider which provides tips about the way to discuss to family and friends concerning the battle in Ukraine. For individuals who falsely declare, as Putin has completed, that Ukrainian authorities leaders are “Nazi,” he recommends telling them Zelensky is from a Ukrainian-Jewish household. When folks declare the invasion shouldn’t be a battle, however a “particular operation,” he recommends explaining that one nation has crossed the border of the opposite and is shelling and capturing cities.
In a recording of a subsequent name along with his father, revealed to his web site, Katsurin tries to counter his father’s concepts — that Russians in Ukraine are oppressed, that america is making Slavic folks kill one another.
Firstly of the decision, Katsurin appears harm. “I am calling to let you know what’s been occurring in my life and in my nation, issues that I see with my very own eyes, however you do not imagine me.” By the tip of the decision, his father appears swayed. “I sincerely perceive your emotions and I am so anxious for you,” he tells his son.
However convincing a stranger might be even more durable.
Henkka, a Finnish man primarily based in Estonia, who requested to solely be recognized by his first identify, set his location on courting app Tinder to St. Petersburg, received tipsy, and went on a mission to inform Russians concerning the battle in Ukraine.
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Though Instagram and Fb have been blocked, courting apps are nonetheless accessible. “How To” guides have sprung up on social media platform Reddit, advising folks the way to use Tinder’s passport characteristic — which permits customers to attach with folks in different nations — to share details about Ukraine with Russians. Customers share tips about the way to create a reputable pretend account and match with as many individuals as potential with out getting banned by the Tinder algorithm — Tinder says it could delete accounts utilizing the app to advertise messages.
With every match, Henkka opened the dialog with “Hello! Have you ever heard the information about Ukraine?” Henkka stated he was shocked by how lots of the folks he spoke to knew concerning the invasion however remained lukewarm concerning the situation or had been merely confused by conflicting accounts in Russian and Western media.
“They really did not know what to belief,” Henkka stated.
‘Some adjustments goes to occur’
Chilly calling does not all the time have the specified impact.
Serge Kharytonau, a Belurusian now primarily based within the US, the place he works as a media knowledgeable on the Worldwide Strategic Motion Community for Safety, says he has made about 120 calls to Russia since early March as a part of the CallRussia initiative — however thus far, he hasn’t had the influence he hoped for.
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Fewer than a handful of the calls he is made have been profitable, Kharytonau says. Usually the respondent turns into aggressive or shortly ends the decision. Kharytonau says that what’s been most stunning is that Russians he has spoken to do not simply reject different data — however deny the actual fact it exists in any respect.
He says that whereas Russian persons are victims of the propaganda that is imposed upon them, it will be “an amazing mistake” to suppose they bear no duty.
“On one facet, they’re the victims of the propaganda. However on the opposite facet, it is their determination to belief the propaganda and to disclaim even not simply the choice Data, however even the truth that different data exists.”
The fact, although, is that talking out in Russia can doubtlessly include heavy penalties.
A Russian journalist, for example, was discovered responsible of organizing an unauthorized public occasion and fined 30,000 rubles ($370) after protesting the Ukraine invasion throughout a reside tv broadcast. Greater than 14,763 protesters have been detained in 151 Russian cities because the begin of Russia’s invasion, in line with OVD-Data, an unbiased human rights protest-monitoring group.
Stonyte, the Lithuanian chilly caller, is extra sympathetic to the difficulties for Russians. Her hope is that Russians unfold the reality of what’s occurring in personal, and ultimately, they may be capable of protest in opposition to Putin’s regime.
“In the meanwhile, the issue is that solely a comparatively small share of persons are in opposition to battle,” she says. “The federal government can simply silence and arrest them. They could not arrest the entire nation (if the Russians had been united).”
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For now, she’s simply targeted on calling. And the decision with the Russian girl final month is likely one of the extra profitable she has made.
Hearken to extra of Marija Stonyte’s name
Word: Voices have been altered to guard the identification of the particular person interviewed. Source: Marija Stonyte
In the course of the name, as Stonyte begins recounting what’s occurred in Ukraine, the lady seems to agree with what she’s listening to, in line with a recording of their name shared with CNN. She tells Stonyte she is aware of every part however is afraid to behave on it as a result of she has a child. She and her accomplice are fascinated with leaving Russia, she says.
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As they discuss, their kids might be heard chattering within the background — and each ladies are moved to tears.
“I actually hope you can find a method and you can be secure on this scenario,” Stonyte tells the lady.
“We’re each moms and we perceive how essential is the security of our youngsters. Once we reside with these sorts of governments, it’s inconceivable to be fully secure, to really feel secure in your individual residence. So I simply actually hope that some adjustments goes to occur.”
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Israel said on Saturday that it was expanding a new ground offensive in Gaza, with troops closing in on the enclave after days of air strikes that have killed hundreds of Palestinians.
Defence minister Israel Katz said the renewed fighting was forcing Hamas to soften its stance in talks being held in Qatar to secure the release of the remaining hostages being held in captivity in Gaza — part of an Israeli strategy of “negotiations under fire”.
A Hamas official told Reuters that a new round of talks was under way on Saturday.
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Palestinians fear the new offensive is the precursor to a plan approved on May 5 by Israel’s security cabinet, under which most of the besieged enclave would be occupied by the Israeli military and 2.1mn Palestinians would be forced into a small area by the border with Egypt.
“The Palestinian cause is navigating one of its gravest and most perilous junctures,” Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told an Arab League summit. Israel is engaged in a “deliberate endeavour to forcibly displace [Gaza’s] inhabitants under untold horrors of war”, he said.
Egypt fears an exodus of Palestinians into its territory. NBC News reported that the US is negotiating with Libya to take in as many as 1mn Palestinian refugees.
At least 250 Palestinians have been killed in the last two days, health officials in Gaza said, with hundreds more wounded.
Israel has blocked any food, medicine or fresh water from entering Gaza for the last two and half months, pushing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into starvation, a UN panel said earlier this week.
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The full extent of the offensive was unclear on Saturday. Residents reported machine gun fire in parts of Gaza and Israeli media said tanks had been massed on the border. Israeli warplanes dropped flyers over some parts of Gaza with a reference to the biblical story about Moses parting the sea.
“The Israeli army is coming,” the flyer, shared widely on social media, said.
Israel stepped up the intensity of its air strikes earlier this week as US President Donald Trump wrapped up his Gulf tour.
Israeli officials had earlier referred to his trip as a “window of opportunity” to broker a swap of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners that would be acceptable to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies.
In the event, Trump only negotiated the release of a single Israeli soldier, who is also an American national.
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An estimated 20 hostages and the bodies of as many as 38 more are still being held by Hamas, which has refused to release them without a complete ceasefire and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces.
Katz said Hamas’s return to negotiations was evidence that neither a ceasefire nor the resumption of humanitarian assistance to Gaza was necessary for negotiations to succeed.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that Israel’s siege was “beyond description, beyond atrocious and beyond inhumane”.
“A policy of siege & starvation makes a mockery of international law,” he said on X.
His remarks came days after UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher warned of a looming “genocide” in Gaza — the first time a senior UN official has publicly used such language.
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Israel rejects Fletcher’s characterisation. It says it has blocked the aid to prevent it from being stolen by Hamas.
More than 53,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, most of them women and children, according to local health officials.
At least 1,200 people were killed in Israel in Hamas’s cross-border attack on October 7 2023 and 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.
Storm damage is surveyed in Laurel County, Ky., after tornadoes brought destruction to the region Friday night.
Laurel County, Ky. Fiscal Court/Facebook/Screenshot by NPR
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Laurel County, Ky. Fiscal Court/Facebook/Screenshot by NPR
Powerful storms and tornadoes tore through several Midwestern and Southern states overnight Friday, leaving carnage and flattened buildings in their wake.
In Kentucky at least 24 people have died. Authorities say 23 of those deaths occurred in London, Ky., in the southeastern part of the state, with some people still unaccounted for.
A message shortly after 8 a.m. ET from Gov. Andy Beshear called for prayers for the affected families. But less than an hour later, the number of known deaths had already risen by 10.
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Kentucky, we’re starting today with the tough news that we lost at least 14 of our people to last night’s storms, but sadly, this number is expected to grow as we receive more information. Please pray for all of our affected families.
— Governor Andy Beshear (@GovAndyBeshear) May 17, 2025
In Missouri, there are at least seven dead — five in the St. Louis area and two others in a more rural part of the state, south of the capital.
Responders there are still searching homes and buildings for survivors, and officials are asking people to stay out of the impacted areas to allow crews to do their work.
According to PowerOutage.us, the storms left nearly a half million customers without power in dozens of states from Missouri to Maryland.
In parallel to a brutal war along a 1,000km front, Russia and Ukraine are locked in a titanic diplomatic battle to persuade Donald Trump that the other is the real impediment to peace.
So Vladimir Putin took a big risk over the last week, slow rolling US negotiators over a peace proposal, according to officials familiar with the discussions, then refusing to turn up for talks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Turkey that he himself had publicly initiated.
So far, the Russian leader’s refusal to engage on terms set by others has been met with little resistance — and certainly not enough to compel concessions or alter the course of his war.
The clearest sign of that came when US President Donald Trump seemed to excuse the Russian leader’s no-show on Thursday and simultaneously questioned the whole point of the Russia-Ukraine talks, saying: “Nothing’s gonna happen until Putin and I get together.”
It was a gift to Putin, who has long sought a one-on-one meeting with a president determined to normalise US-Russian relations. For the Ukrainians, it revived their worst fears — that Trump will seek to cut a deal with Putin over their heads and sell Ukraine down the river.
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“Putin is doing just enough to convince Trump that he is engaged in this effort to find peace in Ukraine, while also doing as much as possible to make sure it goes nowhere,” said a senior European diplomat involved in the negotiations between western capitals. “And Trump is falling for it.”
That suspicion is shared by some of America’s closest allies. Putin, German defence minister Boris Pistorius said this week, was “trying to lead the American president down the garden path” by refusing to come to Istanbul. “I’m pretty sure that the American president can’t be happy about that,” he told reporters in Berlin.
Putin’s reluctance to take part in substantive peace negotiations has become clearer in recent days, even to those in the Trump administration who had been inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
On Thursday last week, senior Russian officials told Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, that Putin did not want to discuss the 22-point peace plan that Witkoff had drawn up with Ukrainian and European input, three people briefed on the discussions told the FT.
Those 22 points were discussed at length the following day on a call between Ukrainian and US officials, according to people familiar with the matter. Ukraine was represented on the call by Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, and Ukrainian defence minister Rustem Umerov; the US by Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also currently serving as national security adviser, and Gen Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Kyiv.
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Russia’s response resulted in Witkoff, who has met Putin for talks four times since February, postponing provisional plans to meet the Russian leader this week, the people said. A person close to Witkoff said no trip had been planned.
In the days that followed, the pace of diplomatic activity picked up. European and Ukrainian leaders met to call for an unconditional, 30-day ceasefire in the war, warning Putin of tough new sanctions if he failed to comply — a demand supported by the US.
Putin rejected the demand but came back with his own counterproposal — direct Russia-Ukraine talks, to be held on Thursday in Istanbul. Trump welcomed the idea and urged Zelenskyy to take part. The Ukrainian leader acceded to his request and challenged Putin to come to Turkey himself for what would have been only the second in-person meeting between them.
But the Russian leader refused and sent a low-level delegation instead, led by his former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky.
The meeting, held on Friday, wrapped up after less than two hours, without a breakthrough. The two sides agreed to swap thousands of prisoners-of-war, but made no progress on a lasting ceasefire.
European leaders expressed their frustration. “The past few hours have shown that Russia has no interest in a ceasefire and that, unless there is increased pressure from the Europeans and Americans to achieve this outcome, it will not happen spontaneously,” said French President Emmanuel Macron said, referring to new sanctions.
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“People in Ukraine and across the world have paid the price for Putin’s aggression in Ukraine and across Europe, now he must pay the price for avoiding peace,” said UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Starmer, Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk ended up issuing a joint statement saying Putin’s position was “unacceptable”.
The four leaders, together with Zelenskyy, also held a joint phone call with Trump. Starmer said there was now “a high level of co-ordination” between a core of four countries — the UK, France, Germany and Poland — “and the US administration of President Trump” on Ukraine.
“It is just drip, drip, drip,” said one European foreign minister, referring to Europe’s messaging to the Trump administration in the hope the president eventually shifts position on Russia.
But so far that European rhetoric has not been matched by anyone in the Trump administration, which has continued to express frustration with both sides in the conflict, without singling out Russia, and hint that it could walk away.
Rubio said on Thursday that Trump was “willing to stick with this as long as it takes to achieve peace”. “What we cannot do, however, is continue to fly all over the world and engage in meetings that are not going to be productive,” he said.
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A senior Ukrainian official described the situation as Putin and Zelenskyy being locked in a geopolitical game of “blackjack” — with Trump as the dealer.
Putin held a “strong but risky” hand, the official said. Ukraine is betting that if he draws one more card, the Russian president could go “bust”.
