"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.
Photo for illustrative purposes: A protester holds a banner with the names of the weapons "Storm Shadow," "SCALP," "ATACMS," and "Taurus" written on it as activists from the German-Ukrainian group Vitsche protest outside the Chancellery to demand increased military support from Germany to Ukraine on January 6, 2024 in Berlin, Germany. (Omer Messinger/Getty Images)
The U.K. has delivered dozens of Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine, Bloomberg reports, marking the first major arms transfer under Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s leadership.
The unannounced shipments carried out weeks ago, were ordered after Ukrainian forces faced shortages of long-range missiles, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Officials speaking to Bloomberg, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the information, confirmed that the missiles were supplied before the U.K. and the U.S. authorized Ukraine to target locations inside Russia with long-range weapons. The exact timeline and quantity of the shipment remain undisclosed.
"We do not comment on operational detail, to do so would only benefit [Russian President Vladimir Putin]," the Ministry of Defense told Bloomberg. The ministry reiterated the U.K.’s "ironclad" support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
At the G20 summit in Brazil on Nov. 20, Starmer said his government was "doubling down" on its support for Ukraine but avoided disclosing specifics. Ukraine had previously used Storm Shadows against Russian forces in the Black Sea, though the U.K. government has not confirmed the total number supplied since the war began.
The missiles, manufactured by MBDA, a defense company that provides missile systems for each branch of the armed forces, are precision-guided and boast a range exceeding 250 kilometers. Equipped with advanced navigation systems, they are designed to fly close to terrain at high speeds, enhancing their effectiveness in striking critical targets.
Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.
The Kyiv Independent news desk
