"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.
A Scythian sword with Sheath from the 6th-5th cent. BC, found in the collection of Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences, Simferopol, in occupied Crimea. (Photo for illustrative purposes) (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
The Netherlands will return to Ukraine ancient Crimean Scythian artifacts that it has held since Russia's illegal annexation of the peninsula in 2014, Ukraine's Ministry of Culture and Information Policy reported on Nov. 22.
Ukrainian Culture Minister Rostyslav Karandieiev has signed an agreement with Dr. Fred Virmen, acting director of the University Library of the University of Amsterdam, finalizing their return, the ministry announced.
The artifacts were on loan to the Allard Pierson Museum of Antiquities in Amsterdam when Russia illegally seized Crimea in 2014, and both Ukraine and museums in now occupied Crimea claimed them once the exhibition in Amsterdam ended.
As the museum awaited a final legal decision on what to do with the artifacts, it kept them in storage.
The museums in occupied Crimea that had originally lent the Scythian artifacts to the Netherlands claimed that the terms of the loan were violated and that they should return to their place of origin, politics aside.
On the other side, Ukraine said that the items legally belonged to Ukraine and that the Netherlands recognized that Crimea was sovereign Ukrainian territory, so there was no reason for the artifacts to be returned there.
A long legal battle followed, with Dutch courts ruling several times that the artifacts should return to Ukraine.
The Dutch Supreme Court concurred, ruling in June 2023 that they should be returned to Kyiv.
In addition, the Allard Pierson Museum said that it would not charge Ukraine for 9 years of storage fees.
In August 2023, Ukraine's Culture Ministry reported that at least 763 cultural heritage sites in Ukraine had been damaged by Russian forces. Other ancient items were allegedly looted from occupied Crimea in May 2023.
Nate Ostiller is a former News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. He works on special projects as a researcher and writer for The Red Line Podcast, covering Eastern Europe and Eurasia, and focused primarily on digital misinformation, memory politics, and ethnic conflict. Nate has a Master’s degree in Russian and Eurasian Studies from the University of Glasgow, and spent two years studying abroad at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine. Originally from the USA, he is currently based in Tbilisi, Georgia.
