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.
Peter Szijjarto's announcement came after Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) allegedly dismantled a Hungarian military intelligence network operating in Zakarpattia Oblast.
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington, DC, on Aug. 15, 2023. (Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The United States has sanctioned two entities accused of advancing Iranian and Russian disinformation campaigns aimed at influencing American voters before this year’s election, according to the Treasury Department.
Treasury officials announced on Dec. 31 that these groups sought to deepen divisions among Americans ahead of November’s vote. U.S. intelligence agencies have identified both governments as responsible for spreading disinformation, including fake news stories, videos, and social media posts, to manipulate voters and erode confidence in U.S. elections.
"The governments of Iran and Russia have targeted our election processes and institutions and sought to divide the American people through targeted disinformation campaigns," said Bradley T. Smith, Treasury’s acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
Authorities identified the Moscow-based Center for Geopolitical Expertise as a key player in creating, funding, and distributing disinformation about American candidates, including AI-generated deepfake videos. The sanctions also target the center’s director, who allegedly collaborated with Russian military intelligence agents responsible for cyberattacks and sabotage against Western nations.
The center reportedly used artificial intelligence to generate fake videos and developed numerous fake news websites designed to appear legitimate. It also paid U.S. companies to host pro-Russian content.
The Iranian group, the Cognitive Design Production Center, is linked to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which the U.S. designates as a foreign terrorist organization. Officials claim the center has been inciting political tensions in the U.S. since at least 2023, including encouraging protests over Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
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.
Olena Goncharova
