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.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's Deputy Chief of Staff Dmitry Kozak (L) met with President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak in Paris on Jan. 26, amid the growing Russian military buildup near Ukraine's borders. (Courtesy)
Representatives of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany met on Jan. 26 in Paris for low-level talks amid Kremlin's growing military buildup.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak praised the renewed talks between the Normandy Format countries upon his arrival to Paris.
In Paris, Yermak met with Russian President Vladimir Putin's Deputy Chief of Staff Dmitry Kozak, France’s Emmanuel Bonne, and Germany’s Jens Plötner.
“The fact that we restored the Normandy format is a positive signal,” Yermak said after the meeting. He added that the sides discussed the ceasefire in Donbas, the Minsk agreements and agreed to meet again in Berlin in two weeks.
In a separate press conference, Kozak said that "all agreed that as long as there are differences in the interpretation of the Minsk agreements… the Normandy format is unlikely to play any significant role in resolving the conflict."
The talks predate the future meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron and Putin set for Jan. 28. Macron said on Jan. 24 he was seeking "a path to de-escalation,” and said he scheduled the meeting so “everyone’s intentions can be clarified.”
Altogether, the leaders of the Normandy Format countries – Ukraine, France, Germany, and Russia – have not met since 2019. The Normandy Format and the so-called Trilateral Contact Group are the two set of talks launched in 2014 to find a peaceful solution to Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.
Both seek to implement the Minsk Agreements signed after a Russian military offensive in February 2015. Russia's ongoing eight-year-long war has killed over 13,000 people.
According to the latest intelligence data, Moscow has concentrated over 120,000 troops in regions surrounding Ukraine and deployed a substantial number of combat-ready weaponry and military hardware near Ukrainian borders moved from Russia's far east districts.
The ongoing diplomatic effort led by the West has had no positive effect so far, while the Kremlin continues with its extreme warlike rhetoric, particularly accusing Ukraine of discriminating against the Russian-speaking population and NATO of posing a grave security threat to Russia.
“All diplomatic resources must be used to guarantee the security of the continent," France’s Elysee Palace added in its official statement.
Alexander Query is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent. He is the former business editor at the Kyiv Post. He worked as a TV correspondent and an anchorman at UATV in Ukraine, and received a BA in modern literature from La Sorbonne, in Paris.
