"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.
Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive officer of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), speaks at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Friday, June 4, 2021. (Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Kremlin negotiator Kirill Dmitriev has been visiting not only the United States but several other countries in an effort to unlock frozen Russian assets, President Volodymyr Zelensky said at a briefing on April 4.
Since 2022, G7 nations have frozen roughly 300 billion euro ($310 billion) in Russian central bank assets, with the majority—around 190 billion euro ($200 billion) —held in Belgium’s Euroclear.
“He (Dmitriev) was not only in the U.S.—we are monitoring the movements of our adversaries,” Zelensky said during the briefing.
Dmitriev, who heads the state-controlled Russian Direct Investment Fund, met with U.S. officials in Washington on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 2 and 3.
He played a role in backchannel diplomacy between Moscow and Trump when he was first elected in 2016.
According to Zelensky, Moscow is pressuring foreign governments to help release the funds by offering deals involving high-tech goods such as aircraft construction.
Zelensky also noted that Russia is actively trying to have sanctions lifted, but as of now both Europe and the U.S. remain firm in their stance of continuing to impose them.
The EU has already begun leveraging proceeds from frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine. In January, Ukraine received 3 billion euros ($3.09 billion) as part of the EU's Ukraine Facility, funded through interest earned on the frozen reserves.
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.
Martin Fornusek
