![\"Troops](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/38f4c15dedca9f1d7220e0b101a03673.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nUkraine said on Wednesday that Russia had violated a unilateral ceasefire called by Kyiv by launching a barrage of air strikes on Ukrainian cities with 108 combat drones and three missiles.<\/p>\n
“This shows that Russia rejects peace and its fake calls for a ceasefire on May 9th have nothing to do with diplomacy. Putin only cares about military parades, not human lives,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote in a post on X, on social media, referring to the Kremlin’s own unilateral call for a halt to fighting during its World War II victory parade on 9 May.<\/p>\n
Sybiha called on Ukraine’s partners to increase pressure on Moscow “including new rounds of sanctions, isolation, accountability for Russian crimes and enhanced support for Ukraine in all areas.”<\/p>\n
On Monday, Moscow uniltaterally announced a ceasefire, due to coincide with its annual World War II victory celebrations on 9 May.<\/p>\n
The 9 May parade is typically a bombastic display of military strength, which since 2022 has sought to link Soviet victory over Nazi Germany with the invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
But the Kremlin ordered a scaled-back version this year, with no military hardware to be on display, over the fear it could be targeted by Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Ukraine later announced its own ceasefire, due to start earlier on 6 May, and slammed Moscow’s “cynicism” for continuing air strikes.<\/p>\n
What happens now?<\/p>\n
After Russia’s apparent rejection of Ukraine’s ceasefire proposal, the question now is what will happen on one of the most important dates in the Russian calendar, the 9 May victory parade.<\/p>\n
After Moscow informed Washington about its unilateral ceasefire for 8-9 May, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded with a counteroffer saying human life is far more valuable than any anniversary celebration.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Troops march during a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade at the Dvortsovaya Square in St. Petersburg, 5 May, 2026 – AP Photo <\/p>\n
“It is time for Russian leaders to take real steps to end their war, especially since Russia’s Defence Ministry believes it cannot hold a parade in Moscow without Ukraine’s goodwill,” Zelenskyy said, warning that Kyiv would “act reciprocally starting from that moment.”<\/p>\n
Ukrainian forces have already demonstrated they can hit targets well beyond Moscow after a critically important military-industrial complex in Cheboksary was hit on Tuesday, around 1,000 kilometres inside Russian territory.<\/p>\n
Zelenskyy published a video of launches of Ukraine’s domestically-made Flamingo cruise missiles, which he said covered a distance of more than 1,500km to strike the facility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine said on Wednesday that Russia had violated a unilateral ceasefire called by Kyiv by launching a barrage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8239,8211,8237,26,5,25,1913,8024,8238],"class_list":{"0":"post-15415","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-air-strikes","9":"tag-ceasefire-proposal","10":"tag-military-parades","11":"tag-moscow","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-ukraine","14":"tag-ukrainian-cities","15":"tag-unilateral-ceasefire","16":"tag-victory-parade"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}