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.
A line of trucks waiting to cross the Kazakhstan-Russia border by the Kazakh Syrym crossing point on Sept. 27, 2022. (Stringer/AFP via Getty Images)
Kazakhstan has significantly reduced the amount of exports of dual-use goods to Russia, but the exports of other goods to Russia have simultaneously increased, EU Sanctions Envoy David O'Sullivan said during a press conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Nov. 28.
The coverage of the press conference did not include clarification on what kinds of goods O'Sullivan was referring to as having increased.
O'Sullivan is expected to visit Uzbekistan on Nov. 29 to focus on the same issue.
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has said that the country will comply with the sanctions regime against Russia, and Kazakh officials have said the export of military goods to Russia ceased shortly after the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
At the same time, Astana has received criticism for allowing Moscow to circumvent international sanctions imposed on Russia over its aggression against Ukraine. This has included importing and then re-exporting goods that the Russian defense industry uses for arms production.
The Kazakh Deputy Trade Minister Kairat Torebayev said on Oct. 19 that Kazakhstan would stop the export of more than 100 dual-use goods with potential military uses to Russia, but the trade ministry issued a statement on the same day refuting Torebayev's comments.
Successive rounds of sanctions against Russia, including the 12th EU package that is currently under discussion, have sought to curb Russia's ability to evade sanctions using third-party countries like Kazakhstan.
Deputy Prime Minister Serik Zhumangharin told RFE/RL's Kazakh service in June 2023 that despite government efforts and Western sanctions, private Kazakh companies have continued to export banned technologies to Russia, including drone components.
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.
Daniil Ukhorskiy
