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 recruitment billboard in Moscow is displayed near a building that was hit by a Ukrainian drone. (Photo by Vlad Karkov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Moscow is trying to attract volunteers to its armed forces with incentives, rather than mandates, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote in its Aug. 3 report.
Russia wishes "to make contract service as presitigous as possible," said Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia's Security Council.
To that end, on Aug. 3, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin signed a decree providing state life and health insurance to all citizens who volunteer for combat operations in Ukraine. The new law will be applied retroactively, covering all those who volunteered for the military starting from Feb. 24, 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
According to the ISW, the Kremlin hopes to avoid another disastrous round of forced mobilization. Russia's mandatory enlistment efforts in the fall of 2022 were deeply unpopular, sparking protests and political unrest.
Since then, Russia has tried a variety of other recruitment tactics, including raising the maximum conscription age and appealing to "masculine pride."
The ISW also reported that a speech by Russian Air Force Commander Mikhail Teplinsky, in which he disclosed Russian casualties in Ukraine, was scrubbed from state media by the Defense Ministry. Teplinsky claimed that at least 8,500 Russian Air Force personnel had been wounded in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion began.
The ISW noted that this was "a rare official disclosure of Russian casualties, which Russian officials have largely sought to obscure as the war has progressed."
The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reports that as of Aug. 3, Russia has lost 247,850 troops in its war against Ukraine.
Abbey Fenbert is a senior news editor at the Kyiv Independent. She is a freelance writer, editor, and playwright with an MFA from Boston University. Abbey served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine from 2008-2011.
Alexander Khrebet
