"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.
The aftermath of the Russian attack on Donetsk Oblast on June 23, 2024. (Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor's Office/Telegram)
Russian forces launched a series of attacks on multiple settlements in Donetsk Oblast on the morning of June 23, injuring five civilians, the regional prosecutor's office reported.
On June 23, the Russian strike hit a multistoried residential building in Toretsk, injuring a 70-year-old woman. Another Russian attack targeted the town of Zalizne, where an 88-year-old woman was wounded.
Russian forces also shelled a residential area in Kurakhove with cluster munitions, severely injuring a 19-year-old man and his 43-year-old father. Another man, aged 59, received shrapnel injuries, the prosecutors reported.
The type of weaponry Russian forces used to attack the settlements is being determined, reads the report.
Daria Shulzhenko is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent. She has been a lifestyle reporter at the Kyiv Post until November 2021. She graduated from Kyiv International University with a bachelor’s in linguistics, specializing in translation from English and German languages. She has previously worked as a freelance writer and researcher.
Chris York
