"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.
The aftermath of a strike on a postal depot in Kharkiv on June 30. (Photo shared by Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Syniehubov on Telegram)
Russia targeted a postal depot in Kharkiv with a guided aerial bomb on June 30, killing one person and injuring nine others, among them an 8-month-old child, Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Syniehubov reported at 6 p.m. local time.
Earlier on June 30, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia has used over 800 guided aerial bombs against Ukraine in the past week alone.
According to Syniehubov, the strike killed one employee and destroyed eight vehicles parked outside the depot, which belongs to Nova Poshta, Ukraine's largest privately owned postal service.
"Debris analysis is ongoing. There could have been 9 people at the place of the strike, they are being searched for," Syniehubov added.
Nova Poshta said in a statement on X at 6.30 p.m. local time that the strike had hit near the distribution center, but "all shift workers were in the bomb shelter and were not injured."
"There are victims among the population, as well as truck drivers," Nova Poshta said, adding that the depot was damaged.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said the strike was "almost in the city center." An explosion was reported in Kharkiv at around 4:30 p.m. local time.
Russia used a missile to strike a Nova Poshta depot in Korotych in Kharkiv Oblast in October 2023, killing eight people and injuring 17.
The depot had a bomb shelter, but the victims reportedly did not have time to get to it as only 15 seconds passed between the air raid sounding and the strike.
A missile attack on a Nova Poshta depot in Odesa on May 1 injured 14 people and destroyed 15.5 metric tons of post.
None of the 18 employees working in the depot were among the casualties because they managed to reach the bomb shelter in time, Nova Poshta co-owner Volodymyr Popereshniuk said.
Kateryna Denisova
