The visit marks Merz’s first trip to Ukraine, and the first time all four leaders have travelled there together.
A notice about the airspace closure was published on the U.S. Defense Department's NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) website on May 10, as cited by Ukrainian defense news outlet Militarnyi.
"As in the past, it is now for Russia to show its willingness to achieve peace," the EU's statement reads.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov rejected the idea of a 30-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, claiming in an interview with ABC News on May 10 that it would be "an advantage" for Ukraine.
"Our involvement in the war was justifiable, and this belongs to our sovereign rights," North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un said. "I regard this as part of the sacred mission we must execute for our brothers and comrades-in-arms."
The number includes 1,310 casualties that Russian forces suffered over the past day.
"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.
Ukrainian court freezes Russian oligarch Deripaska's assets worth nearly $50 million

A Ukrainian court has frozen the assets of Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska worth Hr 2.1 billion (nearly $50 million), the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced on Jan. 29.
Deripaska, formerly Russia's richest man and founder of the Basic Element industrial group and the Rusal aluminum company, was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018 and the U.K. in 2022 following Russia's full-scale invasion. Ukraine nationalized some of Deripaska's business assets already in February 2023.
In the latest move, the court immobilized a large consignment of industrial products and raw materials stored in the warehouses of the Mykolaiv Alumina Plant, which the Russian oligarch previously owned. The consignment included almost 500,000 tons of bauxite and alumina produced before the outbreak of full-scale war, the SBU said.
The seized materials were the main component to produce aluminum at Deripaska's Russian Rusal plants, according to the SBU.
Deripaska owned these assets through a subsidiary registered in a European Union country. The company was a formal customer of the plant's products, which were then re-exported to Deripaska's Russian enterprises. In 2023, Ukrainian law enforcement authorities blocked the shipment of raw materials.
Deripaska reportedly manufactures products for the Russian military-industrial complex, including components for Iskander ballistic missiles, drones, and radar systems.
In February 2024, the SBU charged Deripaska in absentia with financing actions aimed at overthrowing Ukraine's constitutional order, seizing state power, and changing Ukraine's state border.
Since 2018, Deripaska has been under U.S. sanctions as a person close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who finances his projects.
Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the billionaire was also stripped of his Cypriot citizenship, which he received in 2017.

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