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.
The sanctions list includes 58 individuals and 74 companies, with 67 Russian enterprises related to military technology.
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.
Despite the Kremlin's announcement of a May 8–11 truce, heavy fighting continued in multiple regions throughout the front line.
Putin has done in Russia everything that Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had been against in Brazil.
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.
Moscow and Washington discuss the potential resumption of Russian gas supplies to Europe, among other issues related to the peaceful settlement of Russia's war in Ukraine, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov confirmed to the Russian state-run Interfax news agency.
Borrell: Russia’s plan to station nuclear weapons in Belarus 'threatens European security'
On March 26, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called Russia’s decision to deploy its tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, for which a storage facility is to be built in summer this year, an “irresponsible escalation and threat to European security.”
Borrell added that Belarus, which acts as Russia's ally in the war against Ukraine, “can still stop it, it is their choice.”
According to Borrell, the European Union is ready for new sanctions in response to Russia’s actions announced by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on March 25 in an interview with Russian state media.
Russia plans to complete the construction of a tactical nuclear weapons storage facility in Belarus, which shares nearly 400 kilometers of border with Poland, by the beginning of July.
Putin said that this decision was made in response to the U.K.'s decision to supply Ukraine with standard depleted uranium rounds for their Challenger 2 tanks.
At the same time US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said that at present the White House sees no signs indicating that Putin's plan to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus will actually be implemented.
“We're just going to have to watch and see where this one goes,” Kirby said in an interview with CBS on March 26. “We have not seen any indication that he's made good on this pledge, or moved any nuclear weapons around.”
Illia Ponomarenko
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