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.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych attend a Russian-Ukrainian Summit on Dec. 17, 2013 in Moscow, Russia. (Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images)
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said on Aug. 14 it had uncovered a Russian intelligence cell that included two former members of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych's security detail and an active member of Ukraine's National Guard.
Yanukovych was Ukraine's pro-Kremlin head of state who held office from 2010 until 2014, when he fled to Russia in the wake of the EuroMaidan Revolution.
Two former members of Yanukovych's security were part of a Russian spy cell that collected information on high-ranking officials and security agencies to eliminate, manipulate, or recruit Ukrainian functionaries, the SBU said.
The cell's main agent was 48-year-old Dmytro Ivantsov, a former head of a unit of the State Security Administration (UDO). The UDO's main tasks include ensuring the security of the president of Ukraine and high-ranking officials of the state.
An unidentified National Guard member detained by the SBU due to his alleged involvement in a Russian spy cell. Photo published on Aug. 14, 2024. (SBU)
The other two suspected agents are Roman Lapa, a former deputy head of Yanukovych's security, and a 46-year-old active service member of Ukraine's National Guard from Kyiv whose identity was not revealed.
According to the SBU, Ivantsotv and Lapa live in Russian-occupied Crimea and work with Russia's FSB. The agency also believes that Ivantsov handed over secret plans prepared in the case of the president's death to Russian intelligence.
The National Guard service member, who was collecting information from internal systems in order to pass it to his collaborators, has been detained, the statement read. He was charged with treason and faces up to 15 years in prison.
In May, the SBU said it had uncovered a network of Russian agents who were preparing the assassination of President Volodymyr Zelensky and other high-ranking officials in Ukraine.
Two UDO colonels were accused of leaking classified information to Russia in connection to the plot. The agency's head, Serhii Rud, was dismissed soon after.
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.
Sofiya Doig
