"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.
The body of Oleksandr Plakhotnik, the former deputy mayor of Kamianske, was found on the side of the road in the city of Kamianske in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast on March 28, 2025. (Ukraine's National Police)
Ukraine's National Police detained a 54-year-old man suspected of murdering Oleksandr Plakhotnik, the former deputy mayor of Kamianske in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, law enforcement authorities said on April 2.
A man's body with a gunshot wound to the head was found by the side of a road in the city of Kamianske on March 28.
Multiple Ukrainian media outlets reported, citing law enforcement sources, that the victim was Plakhotnik, a member of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party.
The suspect was found in Lviv Oblast. The 54-year-old man burned the car he was using and fled to another region to hide the traces of the crime, the police said.
According to prosecutors, the suspect decided to kill the former deputy mayor of Kamianske to avoid paying back a debt.
The suspect followed Plakhotnik for several months and collected detailed information. He also installed video cameras near the former official's house to track his movements.
On the morning of March 28, the suspect arrived at the ex-official's place of residence and shot him at least 10 times with a firearm, killing the victim on the spot, prosecutors said.
On April 1, the detainee was charged with premeditated murder for personal gain and illegal handling of weapons.
Plakhotnik, 49, ran for the Verkhovna Rada on the Batkivshchyna party ticket in 2014 and 2019 but was not elected to parliament. He was elected to the Kamianske City Council in 2015 and served until 2020.
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.
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