"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 banner bearing the letter Z, a tactical insignia of Russian troops in Ukraine, on a building in Tula Oblast in March 2023. (Photo by Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images)
Editor's Note: The story was updated with information about an attack on an oil depot in Russia's Kaluga Oblast, reported by Ukraine's General Staff.
Ukrainian forces attacked oil depots in Russia's Tula and Kaluga oblasts overnight on Jan. 18, according to the General Staff and the Kyiv Independent's source in Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR).
The attack came amid an uptick in Ukraine’s drone attacks on Russia, as Kyiv aims at damaging Russia's oil industry, which is crucial for sustaining Moscow's war effort, as well as its military hardware.
The drones operated by Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) hit the oil depot in Tula Oblast at least 10 times in this attack, a HUR source claimed.
Tula Oblast, located south of Moscow, has regularly come under attack by Ukrainian drones.
Tula Oblast Governor Dmitry Milyaev said that a fuel storage tank caught fire at "one of the enterprises in the region." No casualties were reported.
Videosposted on social media and shared by residents appear to show a large fire at an oil depot in the town of Uzlovaya in the region.
Ukrainian soldiers also hit an oil depot in the Russian town of Lyudinovo in Kaluga Oblast overnight, causing a fire, Ukraine's General Staff reported.
Lyudinovo lies around 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of the Ukrainian border.
The oil depot is owned by Kaluganefteprodukt, a subsidiary of Russia's state-controlled oil company Rosneft, according to the statement.
"(This is) a logistics center that supplies units of the Russian armed forces directly involved in the war against Ukraine," the military said.
The Kyiv Independent could not verify these claims.
Kateryna Denisova works as a News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked as a news editor at the NV media outlet for four years, covering mainly Ukrainian and international politics. Kateryna holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv. She also was a fellow at journalism schools in the Czech Republic and Germany.
Kateryna Denisova
