"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.
Former Major General Ivan Popov in an undated photo. (Russian Defense Ministry)
Russian Major General Ivan Popov, the former commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army suspected of large-scale fraud, signed a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry to go fight in Ukraine, pro-state outlet Kommersant reported on April 9.
Popov is expected to lead one of the Storm-Z detachments, a front-line assault group largely composed of convicts and known for high casualty rates, Kommerstant's source in security services claimed.
The officer's lawyer and the Defense Ministry appealed to the military court overseeing the case to suspend the proceedings and release Popov from detention to go fight in Ukraine, the Russian media reported.
Popov was arrested in May 2024 on suspicions he took part in the theft of 1,700 metric tons of metal intended for building fortifications in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
The general was dismissed from his command in 2023 after he reportedly bypassed the command of Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov and attempted to directly appeal to the Kremlin over poor battlefield conditions.
In March, Popov sent an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that he had always been a "loyal soldier" and asking for permission to return to military service.
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.
Chris York
