"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.
Photo for illustrative purposes: Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza sits on a bench inside a defendants' cage during a hearing at the Basmanny court in Moscow on Oct. 10, 2022. (Natalia Kolesnikova / AFP via Getty Images)
Russian prison officials said on July 31 that Vladimir Kara-Murza, a jailed Russian journalist and opposition figure, was being moved from the penal colony where he was held to an uncertain destination.
Kara-Murza, a Washington Post contributing columnist, who has condemned Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine and lobbied for Western sanctions against Moscow, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in April 2023. He is part of a growing contingent of dissenters detained amid President Vladimir Putin's increasingly severe political crackdown.
Officials from Russia’s penitentiary service informed Reuters that Kara-Murza was being transferred from the IK-6 colony in Omsk, Siberia, without disclosing his new location. Despite Kara-Murza's poor health, his lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov, reported that the defense team had been unable to access their client at an Omsk hospital for two consecutive days.
Prokhorov’s statement has fueled growing speculation among lawyers, prisoners’ relatives, and journalists that the United States, Germany, and possibly other countries are preparing for a significant prisoner swap with Russia.
This week, at least seven other political prisoners in Russia, including opposition figures Ilya Yashin, Lilia Chanysheva, and Ksenia Fadeeva, as well as activist Oleg Orlov and artist Alexandra Skochilenko, have disappeared from the colonies where they were being held.
Lawyers have described this as an extremely unusual move. In addition to Kara-Murza, two more prisoners were reported missing on July 31, bringing the total number suddenly out of communication to 10.
Prokhorov said that Kara-Murza is scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 1, but it is uncertain if the hearing will take place. Hospital administrators have not confirmed that Kara-Murza has been moved.
Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.
Kateryna Denisova
