"We have a plan B and a plan C. But our focus is plan A, the essence of which is to get everyone's support" for Ukraine's accession, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.
"(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.
A screenshot from a video circulating on social media showing drones attacking the Kremlin overnight on May 3, 2023. (Video: Ihor Lachenkov / Telegram)
Ukraine has likely established a network of pro-Ukrainian sabotage agents within Russian territory to carry out strategic drone attacks, CNN reported on June 5.
According to CNN, multiple people familiar with U.S. intelligence on the matter said that pro-Ukrainian agents and "operatives well-trained in this kind of warfare" are being provided with Ukrainian-made drones.
It is likely that Ukraine used "well-practiced smuggling routes" along the Ukrainian-Russian border to send drones or drone components into Russia.
U.S. officials believe that these agents were likely responsible for the drone attack that targeted the Kremlin in early May, CNN wrote.
However, it remains unclear if they were behind other recent drone attacks, such as the one which targeted high-rise buildings in Moscow in late May.
According to sources familiar with U.S. intelligence, the frequency of drone strikes within Russian territory appears to be "a culmination of months of effort" on Ukraine's part to "set up the infrastructure for such sabotage."
Ukraine's Security Service neither confirmed nor denied their involvement when asked by CNN for comment.
U.S. and other Western officials told CNN that it was a "smart military strategy that could divert Russian resources to protecting its own territory" ahead of Ukraine's counteroffensive, despite offering conflicting public statements on attacks within Russian territory.
Kate Tsurkan is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent who writes mostly about culture-related topics in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Her newsletter Explaining Ukraine with Kate Tsurkan, which focuses specifically on Ukrainian culture, is published weekly by the Kyiv Independent. The U.S. publisher Deep Vellum published her co-translation of Ukrainian author Oleh Sentsov’s Diary of a Hunger Striker in 2024. Some of her other writing and translations have appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Harpers, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She is the co-founder of Apofenie Magazine.
Anastasiia Lapatina
