"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.
A road sign marks the entrance to Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast on Dec. 3, 2023. Photo for illustrative purposes. (Yurii Stefanyak/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
Russian shelling of the city of Siversk in Donetsk Oblast killed four people, Governor Vadym Filashkin reported on April 15.
Siversk, a city north of Bakhmut, came under the attack on the evening of April 14, Filashkin said. Four men aged between 36 and 86 were reportedly killed.
Over the past day, Russian troops also dropped an aerial bomb on a five-story building in Donetsk Oblast's village of Ocheretyne, killing a 67-year-old woman and injuring two others, according to local authorities.
Russia also reportedly attacked the Bakhmut and Kramatorsk districts, damaging over 20 houses, including two high-rise buildings in the city of Sloviansk.
Kateryna Denisova
