"(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.
Residents play a game of ice hockey on a frozen lake on February 16, 2025 in Sloviansk, Ukraine. (Pierre Crom / Getty Images)
More than 30 Ukrainian-American and Ukrainian-Canadian groups are urging the National Hockey League (NHL) to reject the idea of organizing matches against teams from Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League (KHL).
In a letter sent on April 7 to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, first reported by NBC News, the organizations said collaborating with the KHL would harm the NHL’s reputation and "would be an affront to millions of American and Canadian NHL fans and to people of Ukrainian descent in both countries."
Razom for Ukraine, a U.S.-based nonprofit advocating for international support for Ukraine and a co-signer of the letter, shared it on X on April 8.
As of March, at least 591 Ukrainian athletes and coaches have been killed by Russia, 22 are held in captivity, and 11 are missing. Some 725 sports facilities have been damaged or destroyed by Russian attacks, including 17 Olympic, Paralympic, and Deaflympic training bases.
The appeal comes shortly after Alexander Ovechkin, who is originally from Russia, became the NHL's all-time leading goal scorer. The organizations warned that any cooperation between the NHL and KHL "would forever stain your organization’s reputation, facilitate the broader reintegration of the Russian Federation into world sporting bodies, undermine the NHL’s own stated values, and alienate millions of hockey fans."
Daniel Balson, director of public engagement at Razom for Ukraine—a U.S.-based organization that co-signed the letter—called for a stronger stance from the NHL. "Our letter simply asks for the NHL to make plain and public its opposition to any such collaboration," Balson said, according to NBC News. He added that potential NHL-KHL matches would coincide with "Russian bombs raining fire on Ukraine civilians."
The controversy emerged after Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly suggested hockey matchups between American and Russian players during a call with U.S. President Donald Trump last month. According to the Kremlin, Trump supported Putin’s proposal, although the NHL said it was "not part of the original conversation, and there have been no further discussions."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last month that although hockey was discussed during the leaders' call, the administration's priority is securing a peace agreement, not scheduling hockey matches.
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.
Kateryna Hodunova
