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.
Then-Prime Minister of Estonia Kaja Kallas speaks to the press outside number 10, Downing Street following a meeting with Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London, England on June 6, 2022. Kallas began her mandate as the EU's top diplomat on Dec. 1, 2024. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)
The EU's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, will visit the U.S. on Feb. 25 to meet Secretary of State Marco Rubio and discuss efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war, Kallas told journalists on Feb. 24 before a ministerial meeting in Brussels.
Kallas's statement comes after American and Russian delegations met in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 18 for talks on ending the war in Ukraine. Neither Ukraine nor the European Union was invited to participate.
Kallas stressed that no agreement regarding Ukraine or Europe can work without their participation. The EU's top diplomat said she plans to discuss "these and other issues" with Rubio and other officials in the U.S.
Reacting to U.S. President Donald Trump's denouncing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a "dictator," Kallas noted that, unlike Ukraine, Russia has not had fair elections in 25 years.
Kallas also suggested that "the messages coming out of the U.S." regarding the elections in Ukraine suggest that "the Russian narrative is very strongly represented there."
Kremlin propaganda has pushed the narrative that Zelensky is an illegitimate leader, relying on the premise that his first presidential term was originally meant to end on May 20, 2024.
Trump's claim ignores the fact that Ukraine's constitution prohibits elections during martial law, which has been in effect since Russia's full-scale invasion began in 2022.
As a result, Zelensky's term has been extended, which constitutional lawyers argue is permitted under Ukrainian law.
Kateryna Hodunova is a News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked as a sports journalist in several Ukrainian outlets and was the deputy chief editor at Suspilne Sport. Kateryna covered the 2022 Olympics in Beijing and was included in the Special Mentions list at the AIPS Sport Media Awards. She holds a bachelor's degree in political journalism from Taras Shevchenko University and a master's degree in political science from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
Olga Aivazovska
