"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.
Oleksandr Mashlay. (Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech/Facebook)
A former journalist who joined the ranks of Ukraine's Armed Forces at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion was killed in action, a parliamentary committee announced on May 8.
Oleksandr Mashlay was killed on a combat mission in the Avdiivka direction in Donetsk Oblast on May 7, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech said in a post on Facebook.
He is survived by a wife and two sons.
Mashlay was the former editor-in-chief of the Pravyi Postup outlet.
"According to the Institute of Mass Information, Oleksandr became the 80th media worker who died as a result of Russian aggression against Ukraine," the committee said.
"Oleksandr was brought up in Plast - the National Scout Organization of Ukraine, was an activist in Rivne Oblast and Volyn, and a member of the Youth Nationalist Congress. In 2004, he was a co-coordinator of the PORA civic campaign in Rivne Oblast."
Other journalists-turned-soldiers killed in action include Petro Tsurukin, a former editor-in-chief of the One for All project on STB TV channel and a host of Kyiv Live TV channel, who died last month.
Chris York is news operations editor at the Kyiv Independent. Before joining the team, he was head of news at the Kyiv Post. Previously, back in Britain, he spent nearly a decade working for HuffPost UK. He holds an MA in Conflict, Development, and Security from the University of Leeds.
