"According to the participants of the performances, their goal is to remind the civilized world of the barbaric actions of Moscow, which for many years and decades has systematically violated international law," a source in Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) told the Kyiv Independent.
"I have great hope that an agreement for a ceasefire in Ukraine will be reached this weekend," German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on May 9, shortly before traveling to Kyiv alongside the leaders of France, Poland, and the U.K.
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.
Ukrainian journalist Mstyslav Chernov's documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” won the Directors Guild of America Award for outstanding directorial achievement in a documentary for 2023, the guild announced on Feb. 10.
The documentary records the Russian siege of Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast from the perspective of Chernov and his crew during the first weeks of the full-scale invasion.
The other four movies nominated in the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in the Documentary category were Bobi Wine: The People's President, Beyond Utopia, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, and Kokomo City.
Since its release in January 2023, “20 Days in Mariupol” has won audience prizes at the Sundance Film Festival, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Hot Docs Canadian Documentary Festival, and DocuDaysUA.
The “20 Days in Mariupol” documentary comprised 30 hours of footage Chernov and his colleagues shot in Mariupol before the crew left the besieged city. Chernov and his AP colleagues Vasylysa Stepanenko and Evgeniy Maloletka arrived in Mariupol one hour before the full-scale Russian invasion on Feb. 24.
After 20 days of covering the siege of the city, they had to leave because Russian forces started hunting the photographers “for publishing a detailed account of the atrocities happening in Mariupol.”
Russia's months-long siege of Mariupol between February and May reduced the port city into a landscape of rubble and killed thousands.
Chernov is a Ukrainian photographer, photojournalist, and filmmaker who was working for the Associated Press when Russia launched its all-out war against Ukraine.
For filming the siege of Mariupol, he has received several awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, the Deutsche Welle Freedom of Speech Award, and the Georgiy Gongadze Award.
“20 Days in Mariupol” has also become the first Ukrainian film made by a Ukrainian director to receive an Oscar nomination since the country gained independence in 1991.
Alexander Khrebet is a reporter with the Kyiv Independent. He covers Ukraine’s foreign policy, alleged abuse of power in the country’s military leadership, and reports on the Russian-occupied territories. Alexander is the European Press Prize 2023 winner, the #AllForJan Award 2023 winner and Ukraine's 2022 National Investigative Journalism Award finalist. His was published in the Washington Times and Atlantic Council.
Anastasiia Malenko
