"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.
A fire at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on Aug. 11, 2024. (Screenshot / President Volodymyr Zelensky / Telegram)
Editor's note: The article was corrected to clarify that according to Ukrainian authorities, Russia started the fire by setting tires ablaze in a cooling tower rather than by shelling.
The fire at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, reportedly started by Russia the day before, has been extinguished, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Governor Serhii Lysak said on Aug. 12.
The previous day, Yevhen Yevtushenko, the head of the military administration in Nikopol, said that Russian forces set fire to tires inside a cooling tower, causing a blaze to break out.
"Perhaps this is a provocation or an attempt to create panic in the settlements on the right bank of the former reservoir," Yevtushenko said at the time.
In a Telegram message at 7:30 a.m. local time, Lysak said the fire at the plant had been put out and that radiation levels in the area were normal.
"As long as Russian terrorists retain control of the nuclear power plant, the situation is not and cannot be normal," Zelensky said in a Telegram post on Aug. 11.
"We are waiting for the world's reaction, waiting for the IAEA's reaction."
The ZNPP, Europe's largest nuclear power station, has been under Russian occupation since March 2022. Its position near the front line has led to heightened nuclear safety risksthroughout Russia's full-scale war.
Kateryna Hodunova
