"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.
Ukrainians are celebrating the New Year in front of the main Christmas tree of Ukraine, installed on Sofia Square, as the air raid alarm sounds in Kyiv, Ukraine, on December 31, 2023, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (STR/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Only 44% of Ukrainians believe that there is unity in society, according to a survey released on July 2 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).
Chief among the reasons for societal disunity were corruption (16%), language issues (14%), and lack of trust in authorities (13%).
There was a slight but noticeable variation in the assessment across Ukraine, with the highest number (50%) in the west saying they believed there was unity in society, and the lowest number (36%) in the east of the country.
There were also discrepancies based on which language respondents said they used at home.
Among those who said Russian is their primary private language of communication, 33% said they thought there was unity in society, compared to 31% who believed there was disunity.
In contrast, 47% of respondents who said that Ukrainian was the primary language they used at home said they thought there was unity in society, and only 11% said they believed there was disunity.
"Considering the objective circumstances of the current situation, the assessment of social unity is at a fairly good level for the country," said Anton Hrushetskyi, the executive director of KIIS.
Previous KIIS polls have found that "consistently more than 70% of Ukrainians claim that they are ready to endure the war as long as it will be necessary for Ukraine to achieve success."
"However, the demand for a fair distribution of the wartime burden among citizens is becoming more and more acute," Hrushetskyi said.
Nate Ostiller is a former News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. He works on special projects as a researcher and writer for The Red Line Podcast, covering Eastern Europe and Eurasia, and focused primarily on digital misinformation, memory politics, and ethnic conflict. Nate has a Master’s degree in Russian and Eurasian Studies from the University of Glasgow, and spent two years studying abroad at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine. Originally from the USA, he is currently based in Tbilisi, Georgia.
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