"We have a plan B and a plan C. But our focus is plan A, the essence of which is to get everyone's support" for Ukraine's accession, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.
"(T)he presence at the Victory Parade of a country that bombs cities, hospitals, and daycares, and which has caused the deaths and injuries of over a million people over three years, is a shame," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.
"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.
Illustrative purposes only: Polish lawmakers attend a voting session in the lower house during the last session of the 86th sitting of the Sejm on October 16, 2019, in Warsaw, Poland. (Omar Marques/Getty Images)
Sejm, the lower chamber of Poland's parliament, passed a resolution on July 12 to commemorate the victims of the Soviet genocide of Crimean Tatars in 1944.
"The deportation of Crimean Tatars from Crimea in 1944 and its consequences were an act of genocide against the Crimean Tatar nation," reads the resolution.
Crimean Tatars are the indigenous people of Crimea.
The Soviet authorities forcibly deported nearly 200,000 Crimean Tatars, including women, children, and the elderly, across thousands of kilometers from Crimea to Central Asia and Siberia in May 1944. An estimated 8,000 Crimean Tatars died in the process. Estimates of total deaths from harsh exile conditions range from 34,000 to over 100,000.
The resolution was supported by 414 deputies, 16 voted against, and two abstained, according to a statement on the Sejm's website.
The resolution also mentioned the Russian illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, after which "Russia began to persecute the Crimean Tatars living on the peninsula systematically."
"In 2016, Russia, under false allegations, banned the activities of the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatar parliament," reads the resolution.
"Dozens of (Crimean) Tatar activists, including the long-time chairman of the Mejlis Mustafa Dzhemilev, were again expelled from their land, and others found themselves in Russian prisons for many years."
The Sejm stressed that the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 was a violation of Ukraine's territorial integrity and the provisions of international law and the United Nations Charter.
Kateryna Hodunova is a News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked as a sports journalist in several Ukrainian outlets and was the deputy chief editor at Suspilne Sport. Kateryna covered the 2022 Olympics in Beijing and was included in the Special Mentions list at the AIPS Sport Media Awards. She holds a bachelor's degree in political journalism from Taras Shevchenko University and a master's degree in political science from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
