"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.
Armen Sarkisyan, a pro-Russian collaborator from Donetsk Oblast. (Open sources)
Editor's note: The story is being updated as it develops.
Armen Sarkisyan, a pro-Russian collaborator from Donetsk Oblast wanted by Ukraine, died in the hospital after being injured in an explosion in an elite residential complex in Moscow on Feb. 3, the state news agency TASS reported, citing healthcare officials.
The leader of the Kremlin-aligned Arbat paramilitary unit was severely injured when an unidentified explosive device went off in the lobby of one of the buildings in the"Alye Parusa" (Scarlet Sails) residential complex in northwestern Moscow.
The collaborator was initially reported killed, but the Russian media later clarified he was transported to the hospital and had to undergo a leg amputation.
Russia's Investigative Committee, which launched an investigation into the explosion, later confirmed Sarkisyan had died in the hospital.
Sarkisyan was a Donetsk Oblast crime boss and a close former associate of Ukraine's pro-Kremlin ex-President Viktor Yanukovych. He had been on an international wanted list since 2014 for organizing murders in central Kyiv, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said.
During the EuroMaidan Revolution, Sarkisyan reportedly organized the hired pro-government thugs ("titushky") who harrassed pro-EuroMaidan protesters.
After the full-scale invasion broke out, Sarkisyan founded the Arbat Separate Guards Special Purpose Battalion, a paramilitary unit linked to the Russian Defense Ministry and fighting against Ukraine.
The group is reportedly mostly made up of ethnic Armenians, many of whom have criminal records.
The explosion reportedly occurred when Sarkisyan and his security guards were entering the building. Five people were reported injured in the blast overall, while one of the guards was said to have been killed.
Serhii Shkriabatovskyi, a native of Ukraine residing in Russia, was among those injured, the independent outlet Agentstvo wrote, identifying him as a member of Yanukovych's security detail in 2013-14.
Russian law enforcement services suspect that Sarkisyan was a victim of a planned assassination, TASS reported. The Kyiv Independent could not verify the claims. It is currently unclear who was behind the explosion.
0:00
/
The aftermath of the explosion in a residential complex in Moscow, Russia, on Feb. 3, 2025. The blast killed Armen Sarkisyan, a pro-Russian collaborator from Donetsk Oblast. (Russian Investigative Committee in Moscow/Telegram)
The killing of Sarkisyan follows several high-profile assassinations in Moscow. Most recently, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov was killed on Dec. 17 with a bomb attached to a scooter outside his home in Moscow.
The Security Service of Ukraine (Was) was responsible for the attack on Kirillov, a source in the agency told the Kyiv Independent. A day before his assassination, Ukrainian prosecutors charged Kirillov in absentia with the use of banned chemical weapons in Ukraine.
A year earlier, Illia Kyva, a pro-Russian former lawmaker in the Ukrainian parliament, was found dead in Moscow Oblast shortly after being convicted in absentia of treason by a Lviv court. According to the Kyiv Independent's source in law enforcement, he was assassinated by the SBU.
Kyva was an infamous political figure in Ukraine who had openly supported Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and was living in hiding in Russia. He left Ukraine shortly before Russia launched its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.
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.
Kateryna Denisova
