"We have a plan B and a plan C. But our focus is plan A, the essence of which is to get everyone's support" for Ukraine's accession, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.
"(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.
Oleksii Danilov, the National Security and Defense Council's secretary, speaks with the Kyiv Independent on Jan. 30, 2023. (Danilo Pavlov)
Ukraine's losses in the Battle of Bakhmut were lower than Russia's by a factor of 7.5, National Security and Defense Council chief Oleksiy Danilov told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
According to an article published on June 4, Danilov said that Russia had lost 22,816 people in Bakhmut since Sept. 1, 2022, around the time when convicted criminals recruited from prisons began augmenting Russia's front-line troops.
The Wagner Group mercenaries and their prison recruits played the leading role in Russia's 10-month-long assault on the city.
When asked why Ukraine defended Bakhmut so tenaciously, Danilov said that Ukraine's defenders must defend their cities and have no right to abandon them.
According to multiple accounts, Ukraine also took many losses in Bakhmut. Multiple soldiers fighting there described a brutal environment with a very high chance of death or injury in conversations with the Kyiv Independent.
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Francis Farrell
