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.
Alexander Beglov, Governor of St. Petersburg in St. Petersburg on Nov. 29, 2023. (Photo by Maksim Konstantinov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov spoke with a delegation from the Taliban, which had traveled from Afghanistan for the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russian media reported on June 7.
"Praise the Almighty that you are here," St. Petersburg-based outlet Fontanka quoted Beglov telling the delegation.
The Taliban is officially on a Russian government list of banned organizations. News emerged in April that Russia was considering removing the Taliban from the list after the Taliban received an invitation to attend a forum in Kazan, Tatarstan.
Russia's Foreign Ministry and Justice Ministry proposed on May 27 that Russian President Vladimir Putin remove the Taliban from the list of banned organizations.
According to Russian state-controlled news agency TASS, the step would pave the way for Russia to officially recognize Afghanistan's Taliban government, which seized power in 2021 and has not received de jure recognition from any country in the world.
Russia originally designated the Taliban a terrorist group in 2003, along with Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Talibanpreviously ruled over Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and enforced strict Sharia, religious law, that brutally persecuted women, political opponents, and religious minorities.
Since returning to power in 2021, the U.N. estimates that 1,000 civiliansin Afghanistan have been killed.
Elsa Court
