"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.
Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko attends a concert at the Gazprom Arena stadium in Saint Petersburg on Jan. 27, 2024. (Vyacheslav Prokofyev/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
The United States imposed restrictions on 12 Belarusian firms and 10 individuals in a new round of sanctions announced April 15, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
The U.S. has previously sanctioned Belarus in response to dictator Alexander Lukashenko's abuses of power and the regime's support of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The latest sanctions package targets entities that profit from Russia's war in Ukraine, including a state-owned machine tool building company, a radio communications firm, and a software development company.
The new sanctions also target companies and individuals that cooperate with Peleng, a Belarusian state-owned enterprise (SOE) that supplies fire-control systems for Russian tanks. The U.S. first sanctioned Peleng in December 2021, and the new restrictions apply to a Chinese intermediary of Peleng and several Belarusian nationals.
The penalties also extend to the Black Shield Company, a weapons company that has acquired arms from the sanctioned Belarusian defense firm Kidma Tech OJSC.
"We will continue to leverage our broad suite of tools to target Belarus's extensive illicit facilitation networks and hold the regime accountable for its complicity in, and profiteering from, Russia's unjust war in Ukraine," said Brian E. Nelson, the department's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
Abbey Fenbert is a senior news editor at the Kyiv Independent. She is a freelance writer, editor, and playwright with an MFA from Boston University. Abbey served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine from 2008-2011.
Elsa Court
