"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.
Singer Jamala at the Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards (Ukrinform)
The Ukrainian documentary "Jamala. Songs of Freedom" won the Gold Dolphin at the Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards, in the Human Concerns and Social Issues category.
"I'm reading this and I can't believe it... Out of almost 800 applications from 46 countries, the Cannes jury selected this particular film," Jamala posted on Facebook.
The documentary focuses on her work and support for Ukraine at the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion.
"This film is about us... about these three years of losses, pain, suffering, and our desperate fight for freedom," Jamala said.
The singer previously gained international recognition by winning the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest with her song 1944, about the deportation of Crimean Tatars.
Her family, like that of Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, was deported to Central Asia in 1944 by the Soviet authorities on the false accusation that all Crimean Tatars had collaborated with the Nazis.
Up to 200,000 Crimean Tatars – mostly women, children, and the elderly – were deported to Central Asia and Siberia, while Crimean Tatar men who were fighting for the Red Army at the time were sent to labor camps.In the 1980s, Jamala and her family returned to Crimea, where she went on to study in Kyiv.
Sonya Bandouil is a North American news editor for The Kyiv Independent. She previously worked in the fields of cybersecurity and translating, and she also edited for various journals in NYC.
Sonya has a Master’s degree in Global Affairs from New York University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Music from the University of Houston, in Texas.
Uilleam Blacker
