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.
The sanctions list includes 58 individuals and 74 companies, with 67 Russian enterprises related to military technology.
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.
Despite the Kremlin's announcement of a May 8–11 truce, heavy fighting continued in multiple regions throughout the front line.
Putin has done in Russia everything that Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had been against in Brazil.
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.
Russia is forcibly conscripting men in Chechnya to fight in Ukraine, imprisoning those who refuse and threatening their families, the "Severny Kavkaz SOS” (North Caucasus SOS) crisis group reported.
According to the testimony of several individuals who have been jailed or threatened, Chechen security forces are detaining and blackmailing residents and their families by demanding payment if they refuse to fight in Ukraine.
"It is very effective what they came up with. People were simply given a choice: either a huge sentence, or go to Ukraine. And if a big family, then what? If you don’t go, then we’ll substitute your younger or older brother and then send him. They made so many people go there. They intimidate the population," one testimony read.
Chechen authorities launched an aggressive propaganda campaign in support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year that encouraged men and women to join the Russian military and sought to shame those who did not support the war.
The campaign was largely carried out by Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of the Chechen Republic who has been responsible for a multitude of human rights abuses in the region. Kadyrov proposed sending upwards of 300,000 Chechen residents to fight for Russia back in October 2022.
On top of the forced conscription, Chechen authorities are also offering incentives for men and women to become law enforcement officers, which has faced a serious shortage since last year.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been an opportunity for Kadyrov to gain favor with Vladimir Putin and to attempt to expand his political ambitions outside of Chechnya.

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