"Our involvement in the war was justifiable, and this belongs to our sovereign rights," North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un said. "I regard this as part of the sacred mission we must execute for our brothers and comrades-in-arms."
"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.
Ukrainian police officers detain a suspect in the case of an illegal border crossing scheme. Photo published on Jan. 11, 2025. (Police)
The Ukrainian National Police broke up nearly 50 schemes for draft-age Ukrainian men to illegally cross the border, the police said on Jan. 11 after a large-scale operation.
The announcement follows 600 simultaneous raids across the country on Jan. 10 aimed at preventing fighting-age men from fleeing abroad. Ukraine prohibits men aged 18-60 from leaving the country under martial law, which was instituted at the outbreak of Russia's full-scale war in 2022.
Sixty suspects were charged in schemes that included crossing the border outside of checkpoints, forging health documents, and inputting falsified entries into an electronic information system, the police said.
The defendants included heads of state institutions, hospital managers, military enlistment officers, medical commission officials, and ordinary civilians. According to the statement, men seeking to leave the country paid between $5,000 and $22,000 to the suspects to help them cross the border.
The suspects face up to nine years in prison, property confiscation, and a ban on holding certain official positions. The police noted that this concludes the first stage of the operation, as efforts to identify other suspects are underway.
Though Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko admitted last June that dozens of men try to illegally cross the border every day, Ukrainian authorities have largely avoided providing exact figures.
According to the Romanian police, 11,000 Ukrainian men have illegally crossed the border into Romania between the start of Russia's full-scale invasion and May 2024. As many as 23,500 illegally entered Moldova between February 2022 and last July, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
Illegal border crossing schemes only deepen the manpower shortages facing the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which then struggle to hold back the Russian advance in Donetsk Oblast.
Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press. He was also volunteering as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukraïner. Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.
