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.
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleh Nikolenko. (Oleh Nikolenko/Facebook)
Ukrainian territorial concessions to Russia will inevitably lead to future Russian aggression, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleh Nikolenko said on Dec. 27.
Nikolenko was responding to a comment from German lawmaker Michael Kretschmer, the head of the state of Saxony, who suggested that the Ukrainian government temporarily give up territory in exchange for a ceasefire with Russia.
Kretschmer also said that Germany needs a "U-turn" in its policy toward Russia.
"Russia is our neighbor. A dangerous, unpredictable neighbor. The idea of weakening Russia militarily, politically and economically so that it can no longer pose a threat to us is an attitude that dates back to the 19th century. It lays the foundation for further conflicts," he said.
Kretschmer has previously been criticized for his comments on Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, such as when he publicly called for the war to become a "frozen conflict" in August 2022.
Ukrainian society is broadly against the idea of territorial concessions in exchange for peace. A poll published by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on Dec. 14 found that 74% of respondents said they were opposed to any kind of territorial concessions.
U.S. officials have also denied that they would seek to pressure Ukraine into a peace deal on terms unfavorable to Kyiv.
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.
The Kyiv Independent
