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.
An aerial view of over 18-klilometre-long queue that occurred near the Vysne Nemecke border crossing after the Polish protest against competition from Ukrainian drivers, near Vysne Nemecke, Slovakia on Nov. 11, 2023
Slovak haulers began to block the movement of trucks at the Vysne Nemecke checkpoint, Ukraine's State Border Guard Service spokesperson Andrii Demchenko told Ukrainska Pravda on Nov. 21.
"The information received from the Border Police of the Slovak Republic indicates that today at 1:30 p.m., traffic blocking for cargo vehicles moving in the direction of the Slovak checkpoint Vysne Nemecke, adjacent to the Ukrainian Uzhhorod checkpoint, began," Demchenko said.
"It was initiated and conducted by the... (Slovak Union of Freight Carriers). The end date of the blockade is not reported, although it is possible that Slovak carriers may be planning for their action to be a long one."
The movement of passenger cars and buses is unaffected, Ukrainska Pravda reported.
Slovak haulers threatened on Nov. 16 to join Polish truckers in blocking border crossing points with Ukraine to protest the EU's liberalization of transport rules for Ukrainian trucks.
The Slovak Union of Freight Carriers blocked the Vysne Nemecke border crossing for one hour on Nov. 16 as a warning.
Protests on Nov. 11 also forced trucks traveling toward Vysne Nemecke to wait in an 18-kilometer line.
Polish protests at the Ukrainian border stretch into their third week, with Ukraine accusing the protestors of causing further harm to its wartime economy.
Polish truckers complain that the high number of Ukrainian drivers entering Poland are hauling goods from Poland to other countries, undercutting local businesses that cannot match cheaper Ukrainian prices.
Ukrainian officials and industry representatives deny the accusations.
Dominic Culverwell
