{"id":469059,"date":"2026-05-05T05:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/469059\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T05:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:53:12","slug":"ukraine-pressures-russia-as-midnight-ceasefire-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/469059\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine pressures Russia as midnight ceasefire looms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukraine has piled pressure on Russia after announcing its own truce in response to Russia’s demand for a ceasefire to coincide with its annual World War II Victory Day commemorations.<\/p>\n

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said that holding a ceasefire between 8-9 May so Russia could mark the celebration was “not serious”, and hit back with his own truce starting at midnight (9pm Irish time) today.<\/p>\n

Russia has threatened a “massive missile strike” on Kyiv if Ukraine violates its Victory Day ceasefire.<\/p>\n

The quarrelling between the two sides comes with a lull in US-led diplomatic efforts to end the war, as the United States shifts its focus to conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Russian strikes killed nine people across Ukraine yesterday, according to Ukrainian officials, while a Ukrainian drone crashed into a high-rise building in an upscale Russian neighbourhood overnight.<\/p>\n

“In accordance with a decision of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces, Vladimir Putin, a ceasefire has been declared from 8-9 May 2026. We hope that the Ukrainian side will follow suit,” the Russian defence ministry said in a post on state-backed messaging service MAX.<\/p>\n

\"Soldiers
\nRussian soldiers march towards Red Square for the rehearsal of the Victory Day military parade in central Moscow<\/p>\n

“If the Kyiv regime attempts to implement its criminal plans to disrupt the celebration of the 81st anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the Russian Armed Forces will launch a retaliatory, massive missile strike on the centre of Kyiv,” it added.<\/p>\n

“We warn the civilian population of Kyiv and employees of foreign diplomatic missions of the need to leave the city promptly,” it said.<\/p>\n

Russia marks World War II Victory Day each year with a massive military parade through Red Square.<\/p>\n

“As of today, there has been no official appeal to Ukraine regarding the modality of a cessation of hostilities that is being claimed on Russian social media,” Mr Zelensky said in a post on X.<\/p>\n

“We believe that human life is far more valuable than any anniversary ‘celebration’. In this regard, we are announcing a ceasefire regime starting at 00:00 on the night of 5-6 May,” he added.<\/p>\n

He did not specify how long the ceasefire would last.<\/p>\n

\"MOSCOW,
\nA Ukrainian drone struck a high-rise building in Moscow, Russia<\/p>\n

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga also condemned Russia’s truce, saying, “Peace cannot wait until ‘parades’ and ‘celebrations'”.<\/p>\n

“If Moscow is prepared to end hostilities, it can do so already tomorrow night,” Mr Sybiga posted on X.<\/p>\n

He said Mr Zelensky’s truce was a “serious proposal to end the war and turn to diplomacy”.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian leader later landed in the Gulf nation of Bahrain for talks on “security cooperation”, a source in the Ukrainian delegation told AFP.<\/p>\n

Deadly attacks<\/b><\/p>\n

Russian strikes on Ukraine killed at least nine people yesterday, according to Ukrainian officials.<\/p>\n

A Russian ballistic missile attack on the town of Merefa – outside Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv – killed seven civilians and wounded dozens, regional authorities said.<\/p>\n

A separate Russian strike on the village of Vilnyansk in the southern Zaporizhzhia region killed two others, the region’s governor Ivan Fedorov said.<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately, a married couple was killed: a 51-year-old man and a 62-year-old woman,” Mr Fedorov said.<\/p>\n

Their 31-year-old son was wounded in the strike, along with three other people, he added.<\/p>\n

\"KHARKIV,
\nThe aftermath of a missile strike by Russian troops on the city of Merefa, Ukraine<\/p>\n

In Russia, a Ukrainian drone killed a civilian in the border region of Belgorod, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.<\/p>\n

Russia advances slow<\/b><\/p>\n

Russia lost more territory than it gained in Ukraine in April for the first time since a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the summer of 2023, an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showed.<\/p>\n

Russia ceded control of about 120 square kilometres between March and April, the ISW data showed.<\/p>\n

Despite the fighting at the front reaching a near stalemate, intense and deadly drone-dominated attacks have continued unabated in recent months.<\/p>\n

Russia’s advances have slowed since late last year, as communication issues in the Russian army combined with Ukrainian counterattacks helped Ukraine make localised breakthroughs in the southeast.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian army’s net gains – their first in more than two years – were marginal however, representing only 0.02% of Ukrainian territory, the data showed.<\/p>\n

Russia currently occupies just over 19% of Ukraine, the majority of which it seized during the first weeks of its invasion in 2022.<\/p>\n

Approximately 7%, including Crimea and areas in the Donbas region, were already under Russian or pro-Russian separatist control before the invasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine has piled pressure on Russia after announcing its own truce in response to Russia’s demand for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-469059","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news","22":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116520420477972674","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}