"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.
Sudzha in Russia's Kursk Oblast after Ukrainian forces entered the town, Aug. 16, 2024. (Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images)
Russian forces have retaken Sudzha, a key stronghold of Ukrainian troops in Russia's Kursk Oblast, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed on March 13.
The Kyiv Independent could not immediately verify the claim. As of late March 12, the Ukrainian military confirmed battles in the Sudzha area.
Ukrainian troops captured Sudzha, a town with a pre-war population of 6,000 some 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Ukraine's border, at the start of the Kursk incursion in August 2024.
Military analysts from the DeepState monitoring group and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank have also reported that Russia has partially or fully seized Sudzha, as Ukraine is allegedly withdrawing from the town.
Russia's Defense Ministry published a video of the ruined Sudzha after its reported recapture. The Kyiv Independent could not immediately verify the footage's veracity.
"The Russian military almost entirely destroyed Sudzha with airstrikes," said Andrii Kovalenko, an official at Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council.
"The town and its surroundings were destroyed, and few civilian buildings survived."
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Russia's Defense Ministry published footage of ruined Sudzha after its reported recapture on March 13, 2025. The Kyiv Independent could not immediately verify the veracity of the footage. (Russian Defense Ministry/Telegram)
The news comes at the heels of a rapid Russian advance in the border region that seemed to have greatly diminished the Ukrainian salient.
Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said on March 12 that Russia has retaken more than 86% of the territory in Kursk Oblast captured by Kyiv in mid-2024.
The Russian Defense Ministry also reported capturing the settlements of Melovoi and Podol as of March 13.
Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi acknowledged the "difficult situation" in the region but said that Ukraine will hold the defenses "as long as reasonable and necessary."
The development comes as the U.S. seeks to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Kyiv has sought to leverage its positions in Kursk Oblast in potential negotiations but began to rapidly lose its ground in the region at the same time that the U.S. temporarily paused military and intelligence support for Ukraine.
The battlefield situation near Sudzha, Kursk Oblast, Russia, as of March 12, 2025, according to DeepState. Ukrainian positions marked in blue. (DeepState/OpenStreetMaps)
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.
Asami Terajima
