"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 banner featuring bloodied Olympic rings and the hashtag #boycottssiansport hangs on the fence of an outdoor sports ground while boys play basketball in Lviv, Ukraine on March 11, 2023. (Yuriy Dyachyshyn /AFP via Getty Images)
Kirsty Coventry, the newly elected president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), has said that she opposes banning countries from the Olympics over conflicts.
In an interview with Sky News, she questioned why Russia remains singled out while conflicts continue in other regions, particularly in Africa. Coventry announced plans to establish a task force to create a framework for handling such situations, arguing that all athletes should be able to compete.
Coventry's approach contrasts with the policies of outgoing IOC president Thomas Bach, who oversaw restrictions on Russian athletes following the invasion.
"...Ultimately, I believe that it's best for our movement to ensure that we have all athletes represented," she told Sky News.
Her stance raises concerns about Russia’s potential return to the Olympics.
After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian athletes could only compete as neutrals in the Paris 2024 Games. Now, with the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo less than a year away, Coventry has signaled her intention to discuss Russia’s reinstatement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated her on her victory, further fueling speculation about the IOC’s direction under her leadership.
"We are waiting, in this era of a new leader, for the Olympic movement to become stronger, more independent and more prosperous and that Russia will return to the Olympic podium," Russia's sports minister Mikhail Degtyarev wrote on Telegram on March 20.
Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.
Kateryna Hodunova
