"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.
Illustrative image: Oil pumping jacks, also known as "nodding donkeys", in an oilfield near Neftekamsk, in the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia, on Nov. 19, 2020. (Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The European Commission is exploring options to legally prohibit EU companies from signing new contracts for the supply of Russian gas, Reuters reported on April 22, citing an undisclosed senior EU official.
The EU is also considering ways to allow companies located in member states to terminate existing gas supply contracts with Russia without penalties, the official told Reuters.
Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Europe began to wean itself off Russian fossil fuels to stifle Russia's revenue that finances its war chest.
The European bloc plans to completely phase out Russian fossil fuels by 2027, and the European Commission is expected to provide a plan by May 6 – a deadline postponed from March amid uncertainty over U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff policies.
The ban on new contracts aims to reduce European companies' spot purchases of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG). Although Russian pipeline gas supplies have declined sharply since the all-out war, the EU increased its imports of Russian LNG last year.
The EU's imports of Russian LNG in 2024 reached a record level, despite the bloc's efforts to reduce its gas dependence after Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine, according to the Financial Times.
Svitlana Romanko
