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.
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.
Rheinmetall CEO promises to send Kyiv 'hundreds of thousands' of shells this year
The German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall will supply Ukraine with "hundreds of thousands" of shells in 2024, including prototypes of artillery shells with a range of 100 kilometers, Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger said on May 5, as reported by the German outlet Handelsblatt.
As Russia intensifies aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities and gains footholds along Ukraine's eastern front line, a critical ammunition shortage limits the extent to which the Ukrainian military can respond.
"The artillery is the game changer," Papperger said at an event organized by the Association of Business Journalists at the Dusseldorf Industrial Club.
Papperger said Rheinmetall plans to send "hundreds of thousands" of artillery shells to Ukraine this year, and that the deliveries would include prototypes of longe-range shells that can travel 100 kilometers.
Rheinmetall is focusing heavily on artillery production, Papperger said. Before Russia's full-scale invasion, the weapons company had an annual capacity of around 70,000 shells. This year, the company expects to produce 700,000.
Papperger said that artillery production had been gradually declining in both the United States and Europe in recent years.
"The Western world is not prepared for a conventional war," he said.
Rheinmetall plans to build new artillery plants in Unterluess, Germany, and in Lithuania, Papperger said.
Previously the company announced it would also build an artillery factory in Ukraine, along with facilities dedicated to the production of military vehicles, gunpowder, and anti-aircraft weapons.
During the Munich Security Conference in February, Papperger signed a memorandum of intent with Ukraine's Strategic Industries Minister Oleksandr Kamyshin to produce artillery shells in another joint plant based in Ukraine.
Chris York
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