"We have a plan B and a plan C. But our focus is plan A, the essence of which is to get everyone's support" for Ukraine's accession, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.
"(T)he presence at the Victory Parade of a country that bombs cities, hospitals, and daycares, and which has caused the deaths and injuries of over a million people over three years, is a shame," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.
"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.
Illustrative image of a tanker transiting through the Great Belt of Denmark off the coast of Agerso, Denmark, on Thursday, Aug. 15. 2024. (Carsten Snejbjerg/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
President Volodymyr Zelensky has approved sanctions against 57 captains of Russia’s "shadow fleet"—a network of tankers used to evade sanctions on Russia's oil trade—and 55 individuals involved in looting Ukraine’s cultural heritage in occupied Crimea.
The measure, adopted by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council on Feb. 5, targets 56 Russian citizens and one Iranian national engaged in illicit oil exports through ship-to-ship transfers and other methods to bypass price caps.
These sanctions mark the first instance of individual accountability for shadow fleet captains aiding Russia’s oil trade. The list includes captains of sanctioned tankers operated by Sovcomflot, a company already blacklisted by the U.S. and U.K.
By restricting experienced captains from participating in these operations, Ukraine aims to disrupt Russia’s oil trade and increase operational costs for its shadow fleet.
Additionally, sanctions have been imposed on Russian officials and cultural figures responsible for illegal excavations and the removal of Ukrainian artifacts from Crimea. Among those targeted are senior officials from Russia’s Ministry of Culture, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and directors of major state-run museums, including the Hermitage and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. They face asset freezes and international travel restrictions.
The sanctions list also includes Yelena Morozova, the Russian-appointed "director" of the National Preserve of Tauric Chersonesos in occupied Crimea, who was featured in the Kyiv Independent's latest documentary on the illegal removal of artifacts from two museums in southern Kherson in the fall of 2022.
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.
