"According to the participants of the performances, their goal is to remind the civilized world of the barbaric actions of Moscow, which for many years and decades has systematically violated international law," a source in Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) told the Kyiv Independent.
"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.
Photo for illustrative purposes. Russian soldiers patrol a street in Russian-occupied Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, southern Ukraine, on May 1, 2022. (Getty Images)
The Ukrainian resistance orchestrated an explosion near a polling station in occupied Skadovsk, Kherson Oblast, on March 15 as Russia illegally opened polls for a presidential election in occupied territories of Ukraine, the National Resistance Center said on March 16.
Russia began three days of voting on March 15 in a pseudo-democratic presidential election that is expected to grant Vladimir Putin, who has been in power since 1999, six more years in office.
Moscow is also organizing voting in occupied Crimea and parts of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts in violation of international law.
The explosion occurred at 3 p.m. local time on Skadovsk's central square near the polling station while Russian forces were patrolling nearby. Five soldiers were injured and hospitalized as a result, the center said.
Being unable to ensure the safety of its personnel, occupation authorities canceled voting in public spaces, allowing it only at places of residence, according to the center's statement.
Skadovsk, a city with a pre-war population of 17,000, lies at the Black Sea shores of Kherson Oblast. It has been occupied by Russia since March 2022.
Russia declared annexation of partially occupied Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, and Donetsk oblasts in September 2022, a step denounced by Ukraine and the international community as illegal and void.
The Crimean peninsula was illegally annexed in March 2014 following a sham referendum staged by Russia in the absence of any international observers and with armed Russian soldiers present at polling locations.
Katie Marie Davies
