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.
A Russian police officer stands guard outside a security perimeter set at the entrance to the office building of Russian retailer Wildberries after an attempted raid in central Moscow on September 18, 2024. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images)
A fight broke out at the head office of Wildberries, Russia's largest online retailer, killing at least two people and injuring seven others, Russian state-controlled news agency TASS reported on Sept. 18.
The number of casualties rose after earlier reports said that one had been killed and two injured.
Videos emerged on Telegram on the afternoon of Sept. 18 that showed shots ringing out as a group of men scuffled at the entrance of an office building, purportedly part of the Wildberries headquarters in central Moscow.
Wildberries' press service said that the fight broke out when Vladislav Bakalchuk, the estranged husband of the company's founder, tried to "illegally" enter the building with his security guards.
A representative of Vladislav Bakalchuk told Russian news outlet RBK that the businessman had become the victim of a "large-scale provocation" after arriving for negotiations on the construction of warehouses for the retailer on behalf of his company, VB Development.
The company's founder, Tatyana Bakalchuk, said that Bakalchuk had attempted to seize the offices together with another co-founder, Sergey Anufriev, and former chairman of the board of directors, Vladimir Bakin, Russian independent media outlet Meduza reported.
"The statement about alleged negotiations, to which an armed group arrived, sounds absurd, since no one agreed on any negotiations," Tetyana Bakalchuk said.
"This is a hostile takeover. Or rather, an unsuccessful attempt," she said.
Tetyana reportedly filed for divorce from her husband in July.
Russia's Investigative Committee later said it had opened an investigation into the incident, and Vladislav Bakalchuk's official Telegram channel confirmed that he had been summoned for questioning.
The independent Russian media outlet Agentstvo reported that three of the gunmen who reportedly accompanied Vladislav Bakalchuk into the Wildberries headquarters and subsequently injured were well-known MMA fighters from the North Caucasus. One of the men allegedly trained at Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov's Akhmat fighting club.
Elsa Court is the audience development manager at the Kyiv Independence. She previously worked as a news editor at the Kyiv Independent and was previously an intern at the Kyiv Post. She has a Master’s in Conflict Studies and Human Rights from Utrecht University. Elsa is originally from the UK.
Elsa Court
