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.
Peter Szijjarto's announcement came after Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) allegedly dismantled a Hungarian military intelligence network operating in Zakarpattia Oblast.
Screenshot from a video purportedly showing Russian soldiers planting a flag on the bridge over the Sudost River near Hremiach, Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine, shared by Boris Rozhin, a Russian military blogger, on Telegram, on Nov. 15, 2024. The geolocation in the video was confirmed by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Editor's note: This story is being updated as more details emerge.
State Border Guard spokesperson Andrii Demchenko confirmed to the Kyiv Independent that a Russian sabotage group planted a Russian flag near the border in Ukraine's Chernihiv Oblast, but said that the event occurred in the grey zone and Russian troops did not launch a major offensive in the region.
Demchenko's statement comes on Nov. 15 after Russian military bloggers posted videos purportedly showing Russian troops planting a flag on the bridge over the Sudost River near the border settlement of Hremiach and claimed they entered Hremiach and Muravi. Demchenko denied that Russian forces entered the settlements and said that they did not cross the bridge.
"The territory where the (Russian) sabotage group operated from the border is actually cut off by rivers, and no one lives in the settlements located between the rivers and the border. In addition, due to the constant flooding of that territory, it is not possible to build proper fortifications there," Demchenko said in a comment.
"Ukraine's defense forces fully control this axis and are in the most advantageous positions to hold the defense."
Demchenko added that Ukraine has deployed additional forces in the area to fend off acts of sabotage from Russia.
"The threat from Russian sabotage and intelligence groups has not disappeared anywhere, in particular in Chernihiv Oblast. Although the activity of saboteurs has decreased significantly recently, the terrorist country has not given up on the use of sabotage groups, including for psychological influence."
The Russian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) wrote on Nov. 15 that it had confirmed the geolocation of two Russian soldiers seen in footage shared by Russian military bloggers planting a flag on the bridge over the Sudost River. RFE/RL suggested the two soldiers were part of a larger group.
Chernihiv Oblast is located on Ukraine’s northern border with Russia and Belarus. It was partially occupied during Russia's initial offensive in February 2022, but the invading force retreated in April after the Kremlin failed to take Kyiv.
Since then, Russian forces have been regularly shelling regional settlements near the border and launching cross-border raids into the region.
Kateryna Hodunova
