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.
Peter Szijjarto's announcement came after Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) allegedly dismantled a Hungarian military intelligence network operating in Zakarpattia Oblast.
The seal of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is seen outside of a headquarters building in Washington, DC on April 7, 2021. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
A delegation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) arrived in Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian authorities and other stakeholders on strengthening Ukraine's financial capabilities, Vahram Stepanyan, the fund's resident representative to Ukraine, said on Feb. 12.
An IMF team led by Uma Ramakrishnan, the deputy directorof the Fund's European Department, will start the talks with a focus on the authorities' economic objectives and the challenges facing the Ukrainian economy, according to Stepanyan.
The team will also reportedly participate in the inaugural meeting of the Steering Committee of the IMF's Ukraine Capacity Development Fund (UCDF) on Feb. 13.
This meeting will gather Ukrainian authorities, development partners, and IMF staff to discuss Ukraine's capacity development priorities and IMF support in this area, Stepanyan said in a statement.
Following these meetings, an IMF mission led by Gavin Gray will begin policy talks with the Ukrainian authorities in Warsaw on Feb. 17 on the third review of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) Arrangement, added Stepanyan.
The EFF is a four-year funding agreement that will allow Ukraine to access $15.6 billion in financial aid in regular installments.
In December 2023, the IMF authorized the disbursement of another $900 million tranche of funding for Ukraine under the EFF following approval of the second review of the agreement.
The EFF funds are meant to lend Ukraine stability amid the disruptions of war, support the country's postwar recovery, and promote economic growth as Ukraine moves forward on the path to EU membership.
Dominic Culverwell
