"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.
Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonyan on Dec. 21, 2019. (Wikipedia/Ashkhen87)
An Armenian representative will not participate in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Parliamentary Assembly meeting, to be held in Moscow on Dec. 19, the Public Radio of Armenia reported on Dec. 5.
The announcement comes amid a growing rift between Yerevan and Moscow, which was exacerbated when Russia and its "peacekeepers" in Nagorno-Karabakh did not prevent Azerbaijan's armed seizure of the region.
Alen Simonyan, the speaker of the Armenian parliament, relayed the decision to Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin.
"The delegation of the Armenian parliament will not take part in the meeting either," the spokesperson of the country's legislature said.
This is not Armenia's first recent snub of the Russian-led military coalition that also includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
The South Caucasian country also chose not to send representatives to the CSTO summit in Minsk on Nov. 23, attracting criticism from Belarusian and Russian leaders.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan repeatedly criticized Russia as an unreliable ally following Baku's swift capture of Karabakh, which has driven out over 100,000 ethnic Armenians.
Fearing further aggression from Baku's side, Yerevan began fostering military cooperation with Western powers like France, earning yet more disdain from the Kremlin.
Armenia's Deputy Foreign Minister at the same time said that the country is not considering leaving the CSTO nor the expulsion of Russian troops stationed on its territory.
Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press. He was also volunteering as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukraïner. Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.
Francis Farrell
