US President Donald Trump announced a three-day ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia starting Saturday, saying he hoped it could lead to a long-term deal to end Moscow’s war.
Russia had previously announced a two-day unilateral ceasefire to mark its May 9 World War II Victory Day on Saturday. Ukraine previously stated that it too had offered a truce, but that this had been ignored by Moscow.
The truce would also include a mutual swap of 1,000 prisoners each, said Trump, who has struggled to end the four-year conflict he once pledged to solve within a day of taking office last year.
“I am pleased to announce that there will be a THREE DAY CEASEFIRE (May 9th, 10th, and 11th) in the War between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.
“This request was made directly by me, and I very much appreciate its agreement by President Vladimir Putin and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy,” said the US president.
“Hopefully, it is the beginning of the end of a very long, deadly, and hard fought War.”
Fighting continues
Russia and Ukraine traded attacks on Friday before Trump’s announcement.
Ukraine had previously never said it would abide by Moscow’s call to briefly halt strikes, lambasting Putin for only wanting to pause fighting so he could stage Saturday’s annual military parade on Red Square.
Kyiv said Moscow had ignored a Ukrainian proposal to halt fighting earlier this week — a counter-offer for a short-term ceasefire. Zelensky had cast it as a test of whether the Kremlin was serious about providing a brief respite in the four-year war.
Russia has threatened a massive strike on the heart of Kyiv if Ukraine disrupted the Victory Day parade, repeatedly urging foreign diplomats to leave the Ukrainian capital ahead of time.
On the streets of Kyiv before Trump’s announcement, some brushed off the Russian threats.
“Nothing new will happen,” Vasyl Kobzar, a 40-year-old bank employee, told AFP. “I’m worried, but it’s become routine, unfortunately.”
Ukrainian officials told AFP there had been no orders for additional security measures to be taken so far. “We’re just giving (the Russians) the finger,” said one lawmaker, speaking anonymously.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had fired 67 drones overnight — the lowest number in almost a month.
“Despite the declared ceasefire, the enemy has not reduced the intensity of assault operations,” Zelensky said, adding that Ukraine was responding in kind.
Russia said it had downed more than 400 Ukrainian drones — 100 of them targeting Moscow — since midnight, and that its troops were “responding symmetrically”.
A Ukrainian drone killed a 41-year-old man and his 15-year-old daughter in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Kherson region, said the Moscow-backed administration.
Zelensky hailed a Ukrainian strike on an oil depot in the Yaroslavl region, around 200 kilometres (about 125 miles) northeast of Moscow.
Some 13 airports in southern Russia were closed Friday after a Ukrainian drone hit an air navigation centre in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, Moscow’s transport ministry said. It later said that flights had been partially restored.
Putin convened a security council meeting over the strike, calling it an “act of a terrorist nature” that could endanger civil aviation.
No tanks
Ukraine had dismissed Russia’s temporary truce as a propaganda measure to protect the victory parade on May 9 — one of the most important patriotic events for Putin.
Hours before Russia’s ceasefire began, Zelensky warned Moscow’s allies against attending the parade.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides and tens of thousands of civilians, most of them in Ukraine, have been killed since Putin ordered the invasion in February 2022.
Putin has made memory of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany a central narrative of his 25-year rule, staging massive parades in central Moscow on May 9 and invoking it to justify his invasion of Ukraine.
But military hardware will be absent from the parade for the first time in almost two decades and only a handful of foreign guests will attend.
Talks on ending what has spiralled into Europe’s worst conflict since World War II have shown little progress and have been sidelined by the Iran conflict.
AFP
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