"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.
Flags of the Crimean Tatar people fly on May 18, 2020, during a rally in memory of the victims of the forced deportation of Crimean Tatars which began on May 18, 1944. (Yulii Zozulia/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
Nearly 5,500 residents of Russian-occupied Crimea were mobilized into the Russian army in 2024, according to the report of the Mission of the President of Ukraine in Crimea, published on Dec. 4.
Russian forces have experienced record personnel losses in 2024 amid ramped-up offensive operations in Ukraine's east. The Kremlin has avoided instituting likely unpopular full-scale mobilization, seeking instead to find recruits among volunteers, migrant workers, residents of poorer regions, and occupied territories in Ukraine.
Russia has been illegally mobilizing residents of Crimea since the peninsula's occupation in 2014 in violation of the norms and customs of international humanitarian law. A total of nearly 50,000 residents of occupied Crimea have been mobilized into the Russian army through illegal conscription campaigns since 2014, according to the report.
Russian-installed authorities have been persecuting and detaining residents of the occupied peninsula due to their political views, ethnicity, or religion.
Those who refuse to serve in the Russian Armed Forces also face punishment, including criminal charges.
According to the Mission of the President of Ukraine in Crimea, Russian prosecutors have started 553 criminal proceedings under the article "evasion of military service," 244 of which were initiated after Feb. 24, 2022, when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
Crimean residents were found guilty in over 497 of these cases.
During the nearly 11 years of occupation, Russia has been in particular targeting the peninsula's indigenous Crimean Tatar population, which has been particularly vocal in resisting the occupation.
As of Nov. 26, 2024, 218 people are illegally detained in Russian prisons, including 132 Crimean Tatars. Most of them are activists, human rights defenders, and journalists who remain patriots of Ukraine, the report read.
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.
Anastasiia Lapatina
