"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.
A screenshot from a video showing a Russian train on fire after saboteurs claimed to have destroyed two Russian trains destined for occupied Ukraine on Dec. 30, 2024. (Petro Andriushchenko/Telegram)
Ukrainian partisans in Russia's Moscow Oblast set fire to two locomotives overnight on Dec. 30 destined for occupied regions of Ukraine, according to Petro Andriushchenko, an advisor to the exiled mayor of the Russian-occupied Mariupol.
In his Telegram post, Andryushchenko shared several videos showing the trains ablaze.
The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify the claims.
Members of the Mariupol resistance destroyed an electric train worth 50 million rubles ($460 million), while members of the Azov resistance group destroyed a diesel train, Adriushchenko wrote. Both trains suffered irreparable losses, he said.
Ukrainian partisans have claimed several attacks recently on Russian transit infrastructure, including earlier this month when the Atesh partisan group said it had sabotaged a key railway line linking Russia's Moscow and Kursk oblasts, disrupting Russian supply lines.
The group reported a similar act of sabotage on a railway in occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast last month.
0:00
/
A video showing a Russian train on fire after saboteurs claimed to have destroyed two Russian trains destined for occupied Ukraine on Dec. 30, 2024. (Petro Andriushchenko/Telegram)
We are the news team of the Kyiv Independent. We are here to make sure our readers get quick, essential updates about the events in Ukraine. Feel free to contact us via email with feedback and news alerts.
Abbey Fenbert
