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.
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.
Archive photo. Denis Pushilin, the head of the Russian illegal occupation administration in Donetsk Oblast, speaks at a meeting in Donetsk, Ukraine, on May 14, 2014. (John Moore/Getty Images)
Denis Pushilin, the head of the Russian illegal occupation administration in Donetsk Oblast, was found guilty of undermining Ukraine's territorial integrity and collaborationism, the Prosecutor General's Office reported on Dec. 27.
He was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison with confiscation of property.
It was reportedly proved in court that Pushilin had held a meeting of the so-called council of the Russian occupation government in Donetsk Oblast last September, which approved holding a sham referendum on "joining the Russian Federation."
Following such "referendums" in Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, and Kherson oblasts, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin claimed on Sept. 30 last year that Russia was annexing these Ukrainian regions in an attempt to solidify Russia's territorial gains in the full-scale invasion.
Russia only partly occupies the four oblasts and controls the regional centers in just two of them. Donetsk and Luhansk have been occupied since Russia's first invasion of the Donbas in 2014.
"In addition, Pushilin repeatedly emphasized in (Russian)-controlled media the need to annex the occupied territory of Donetsk Oblast to the Russian Federation. He thereby called for the capture of the territory of Ukraine by the Russian Federation," the prosecutors wrote.
Pushilin signed an "agreement" with Putin on declaring the occupied territories of the Ukrainian eastern region "a federal subject" of Russia, the Prosecutor General's Office added.
Makiivka-born Pushilin, 42, became the top Russian proxy in the occupied part of Donetsk Oblast in 2018 following the assassination of the previous Moscow-installed leader, Alexander Zakharchenko.
On Nov. 8, an Odesa court found Volodymyr Saldo, a Ukrainian politician turned top Russian proxy in the occupied part of Kherson Oblast, guilty of treason, collaborationism, and justifying the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Dinara Khalilova is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a news editor. In the early weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion, she worked as a fixer and local producer for Sky News’ team in Ukraine. Dinara holds a BA in journalism from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and a Master’s degree in media and communication from the U.K.’s Bournemouth University.
Asami Terajima
