"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.
Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko speaks to reporters during the Eurasian Economic Summit in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on Dec. 25, 2023. (Contributor/Getty Images)
Early voting began on Jan. 21 in the Belarusian presidential election scheduled for Jan. 26, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
The previous election, held in August 2020, was accompanied by large-scale voting fraud and the largest protests in Belarusian history. Most Western governments refused to recognize the 2020 election results and do not consider Alexander Lukashenko the country's legitimate leader.
Lukashenko, who has been in power in Belarus since 1994, announced last year that he intended to run again in the Jan. 26 presidential election.
Meanwhile, human rights activists call the early election procedure one of the mechanisms of vote rigging, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
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Belarus Weekly
Up to 40% of voters usually take part in early voting, and the executive branch determines the number of people who are supposed to participate. Early voting plans are distributed among regions and enterprises, effectively forcing citizens to vote during this period, according to the media outlet.
Elections in Belarus "no longer fulfill their functions but are used by the authoritarian government to show a positive picture of general support and thus legalize the authoritarian government," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported, citing human rights activists.
Lukashenko claimed victory in the 2020 presidential election, which was widely denounced as rigged in his favor. It was followed by mass protests across the country, which were brutally suppressed by the authorities. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who leads Belarusian democratic forces in exile, said she had won 60% of the vote.
The Belarusian dictator is also a close ally of Russia and has backed Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, providing Belarusian territory as a staging area for Russian invasion troops in 2022. Russia has also been using Belarus to launch missiles against Ukraine.
Kateryna Hodunova is a News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked as a sports journalist in several Ukrainian outlets and was the deputy chief editor at Suspilne Sport. Kateryna covered the 2022 Olympics in Beijing and was included in the Special Mentions list at the AIPS Sport Media Awards. She holds a bachelor's degree in political journalism from Taras Shevchenko University and a master's degree in political science from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
Kate Tsurkan
