"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 illustration of a Russian passport, Aug. 5 2022. (Adrien Fillon/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Starting in 2025, Ukrainians with diabetes, bronchial asthma, and other illnesses in Russian-occupied territories will lose access to free medications unless they acquire Russian passports, according to the Eastern Human Rights Group.
This practice has already been enforced in Starobilsk, Luhansk Oblast, where residents without Russian citizenship are denied medical services and medications under social programs.
Patients must also be registered and included in a specific registry to receive this aid, the human rights group wrote on Facebook.
The move further pressures Ukrainians in occupied areas to accept Russian citizenship or face severe health consequences.
Ukraine's National Resistance Center condemned this policy as an act of genocide aimed at erasing the Ukrainian identity.
Russia systematically coerces residents of the occupied parts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts to accept Russian passports, the U.S. research group Ukraine Conflict Observatory reported on Aug. 2.
On July 21, the National Resistance Center said that Russian occupation authorities in some parts of Kherson Oblast force the residents to accept Russian passports under the threat of deportation. In other cases, those who hold on to their Ukrainian passports reportedly face losing their property rights, prison sentences, and mobilization into the Russian army.
According to the Ukraine Conflict Observatory, Russia's methods constitute a serious violation of international law, as the Hague Convention of 1907 forbids to "compel the inhabitants of occupied territory to swear allegiance to the hostile Power."
Sonya Bandouil is a North American news editor for The Kyiv Independent. She previously worked in the fields of cybersecurity and translating, and she also edited for various journals in NYC.
Sonya has a Master’s degree in Global Affairs from New York University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Music from the University of Houston, in Texas.
The Kyiv Independent news desk
