"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.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk appears to give a fascist salute while speaking during the inaugural parade at Capitol One Arena in Washington, DC, U.S. on Jan. 20, 2025. (Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images)
Elon Musk will likely uncover billions of dollars in wasteful and fraudulent spending at the U.S. Defense Department, U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Feb. 9.
Musk, currently the world's richest man, heads the Trump-established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an organization tasked with eliminating waste from the federal budget.
Trump praised Musk's work — which has thus far included mass government layoffs and unprecedented cuts to humanitarian aid — as "terrific."
"I'm going to tell him very soon… to go check the Department of Education. He's going to find the same thing. Then I'm going to go into the military. Let's check the military," he told Fox News on Feb. 9.
"We're going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse, and the people elected me on that."
The remarks come amid Trump and Musk's joint efforts to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), America's chief foreign aid distributor. Musk has called USAID "a criminal organization."
USAID funds critical reconstruction efforts in Ukraine amid Russia's full-scale war. It also supports a range of humanitarian initiatives worldwide, such as clean water access, energy security, and anti-corruption programs.
The Trump administration has frozen all foreign aid for 90 days and plans to lay off most of USAID's global workforce. While Trump and Musk have repeatedly denounced widespread fraud at the agency, they have not provided any evidence to support these claims.
The White House has also taken steps in the last two weeks to dismiss government officials and replace them with Trump loyalists.
Musk's attempts to slash funding at the Pentagon may further threaten the already tenuous future of U.S. military support for Ukraine. Previously allocated weapons packages from the U.S. are about to run out, and neither Trump nor Congress have approved new arms shipments to Kyiv.
Abbey Fenbert is a senior news editor at the Kyiv Independent. She is a freelance writer, editor, and playwright with an MFA from Boston University. Abbey served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine from 2008-2011.
Olena Goncharova
