"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.
An officer of Russias Investigative Commitee following a shooting in Murmansk, Russia, overnight on March 31, 2025. (Investigative Committee in Murmansk Oblast).
A local resident opened fire against a police patrol from a roof of a residential building in the northwestern Russian city of Murmansk on the evening of March 30, authorities said, adding that nobody was injured by the attacker.
The man began shooting from the roof of a building at Kolskiy Avenue 10 in the central part of the city, after which the authorities stormed the roof and "neutralized" the attacker, the regional Investigative Committee said.
The shooter has been "seriously wounded" during the arrest, the Telegram news channel Mash claimed.
The man's motives are currently under investigation. The Investigative Committee identified him as a resident of Murmansk born in 1981.
The authorities have begun investigating the incident as an attempt on the life of a law enforcement officer.
The Kyiv Independent could not verify the claims.
Murmansk, a city of 270,000 residents within the Arctic Circle and the regional center of northwestern Murmansk Oblast, lies some 1,450 kilometers (900 miles) north of Moscow and about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of the Russian-Norwegian border.
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.
Alex Cadier
