"(T)he presence at the Victory Parade of a country that bombs cities, hospitals, and daycares, and which has caused the deaths and injuries of over a million people over three years, is a shame," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.
"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.
Russian ultranationalist Alexander Dugin attends the plenary session of the 2024 Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum in Russia on June 7, 2024. (Contributor/Getty Images)
Ultranationalist Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin pinned hopes on Moscow's relations with the U.S. under Trump's administration in an interview with CNN aired on March 30.
Dugin, a fervent supporter of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has long been an advocate of Russian imperialism and a leading figure of Russia's turn toward hardline nationalism and authoritarian rule.
The ideologue is also a suspect and wanted in Ukraine under the articles of genocide and encroachment on the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
In an interview with CNN, Dugin praised U.S. President Donald Trump, saying he represented an ideology that "changes the balance in the world."
"In these new conditions, I think Putin's Russia and Putin personally stops to be the main enemy, the main evil guy," Dugin claimed.
"Trumpists and followers of Trump will understand much better what Russia is, who Putin is, and the motivation of our politics," he added.
According to Dugin, Washington and Moscow have now discovered many common points. He said, however, that it may be too early to talk about an alliance between the U.S. and Russia against Europe.
"If, for example, Trump would withdraw the U.S. from the war against us in Ukraine, there could be a situation that we will fight against European globalists, European liberals in Ukraine without America," Dugin claimed, parroting long-standing Russian narratives about Washington's involvement in Russia's all-out war against Ukraine.
Dugin became widely known after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine was justified partly by some of his earlier works on Russia’s superiority and its mission to create a "Eurasian Union," a plan for the integration of Russia with the countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union.
In the early stages of the Moscow-instigated war in Donbas in 2014, Dugin told Russian state television that "Ukrainians need to be killed, killed, killed."
The same year, Dugin said on the VK social network that "Ukraine needs to be cleansed of idiots. A genocide of cretins is a given."
"I don't believe that these people are Ukrainians... They are some race of bastards that crept up from the sewers."
In August 2022, he lost his daughter in a car explosion that was most likely intended to target him.
The Kyiv Independent news desk
