Despite the Kremlin's announcement of a May 8–11 truce, heavy fighting continued in multiple regions throughout the front line.
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.
Moscow and Washington discuss the potential resumption of Russian gas supplies to Europe, among other issues related to the peaceful settlement of Russia's war in Ukraine, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov confirmed to the Russian state-run Interfax news agency.
"This is a historic decision, as weapons for Ukraine will be purchased at the expense of the proceeds from frozen Russian assets through the European Peace Fund," Denys Shmyhal said.
Kurt Volker said that now "there is more alignment" between Ukraine and the U.S. under the Trump Administration than at the beginning of 2025.
The approval marks a key step in international efforts to hold Moscow accountable for what is considered the gravest violation of international law committed against Ukraine.
Although Moscow declared on April 28 that it would halt all military actions from May 8 to midnight on May 11 to mark Victory Day, strikes on civilian areas have continued.
UK Foreign Office: 2 British citizens killed while evacuating people in Ukraine
The U.K. Foreign Office reported on Jan. 24 that two British citizens, Andrew Bagshaw and Christopher Parry, who had been reported missing in Ukraine earlier this month, were killed while evacuating people from Soledar in the eastern Donetsk Oblast.
According to the report, the men had been working as volunteers, helping civilians escape from the front line of Russia's war.
Soledar has been the site of some of the fiercest fighting along the entire front line in Ukraine in the past months.
As a result of an offensive operation in January, Russian forces managed to break through Ukrainian defenses and take control of Soledar, a city just 10 kilometers northeast of Bakhmut, according to the Kyiv Independent’s sources in the military. Ukraine hasn’t officially confirmed the loss of Soledar.
Russia likely hopes to use Soledar to encircle the nearby Bakhmut. But, according to the Institute for the Study of War think-tank, gaining control of Soledar will not necessarily lead to Ukraine’s swift collapse in Bakhmut.
Russia looks to capture the area as part of its larger goal of taking control of the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, which it has partly occupied since 2014.

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