"According to the participants of the performances, their goal is to remind the civilized world of the barbaric actions of Moscow, which for many years and decades has systematically violated international law," a source in Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) told the Kyiv Independent.
"I have great hope that an agreement for a ceasefire in Ukraine will be reached this weekend," German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on May 9, shortly before traveling to Kyiv alongside the leaders of France, Poland, and the U.K.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk will arrive in Kyiv early on May 10.
The United States embassy in Kyiv on May 9 issued a warning that Russia could launch "a potentially significant" attack in the coming days, despite Putin's self-declared Victory Day "truce."
The sanctioned oil tankers have transported over $24 billion in cargo since 2024, according to Downing Street. The U.K. has now sanctioned more shadow fleet vessels than any other country.
Washington and its partners are considering additional sanctions if the parties do not observe a ceasefire, with political and technical negotiations between Europe and the U.S. intensifying since last week, Reuters' source said.
The Kyiv Independent’s contributor Ignatius Ivlev-Yorke spent a day with a mobile team from the State Emergency Service in Nikopol in the south of Ukraine as they responded to relentless drone, artillery, and mortar strikes from Russian forces just across the Dnipro River. Nikopol is located across from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Enerhodar.
Alleged damage from a sabotaged railway line in Russia's Smolensk Oblast, on March 23. (Telegram)
The Atesh partisan group sabotaged a railway line in Russia's Smolensk Oblast, disrupting the transport of military cargo toward Bryansk and the Kursk Oblast, the group claimed via Telegram on March 23.
An operative destroyed a transformer cabinet on the railway, causing logistical delays for Russian forces on the front line, Atesh reported.
"We will keep striking targets in Russia and passing intelligence to the Ukrainian Defense Forces," the group said in a statement on social media.
The Kyiv Independent could not verify the group's claims.
The Atesh movement regularly conducts sabotage attacks in Russia and Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.
On March 9, the group sabotaged a railway line linking parts of occupied Crimea with the front line in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, disrupting Russian supply lines.
Sonya Bandouil is a North American news editor for The Kyiv Independent. She previously worked in the fields of cybersecurity and translating, and she also edited for various journals in NYC.
Sonya has a Master’s degree in Global Affairs from New York University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Music from the University of Houston, in Texas.
The Kyiv Independent news desk
