{"id":57705,"date":"2025-04-28T14:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T14:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/57705\/"},"modified":"2025-04-28T14:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T14:48:08","slug":"russia-declares-72-hour-unilateral-ceasefire-in-ukraine-from-may-8-russia-ukraine-war-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/57705\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia declares 72-hour unilateral ceasefire in Ukraine from May 8 | Russia-Ukraine war News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia has declared a 72-hour unilateral ceasefire in Ukraine to coincide with its most sacrosanct national holiday marking the World War II defeat of Nazi Germany, Victory Day, calling on Kyiv to agree to the pause.<\/p>\n

Ukraine was quick in its response, which came soon after the Russian proposal on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Russia truly wants peace, it must cease fire immediately,\u201d Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said, according to his ministry. He reiterated that Ukraine is ready for a \u201clasting, reliable, and complete ceasefire\u201d for at least 30 full days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy wait for May 8? If we can cease fire now from any date and for 30 days \u2013 so that it is real, and not just for a parade,\u201d he said, without confirming whether Kyiv would accept the truce proposal.<\/p>\n

Earlier, President Vladimir Putin said Russian forces would halt fighting from midnight on May 7-8 to midnight on May 10-11. The announcement came amid rising pressure from the United States to agree to a full ceasefire in the conflict.<\/p>\n

Russia will mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the Great Patriotic War, the term it uses for its war with the Third Reich from 1942 to 1945, commonly known as World War II, on May 9.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring this period, all hostilities will cease,\u201d the Kremlin said in a statement. Putin made the decision on \u201chumanitarian grounds\u201d, it added.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin statement called on Kyiv to join the ceasefire, but pledged that in the event of any violations by the Ukrainians, Russia\u2019s armed forces would give an \u201cadequate and effective response\u201d.<\/p>\n

US pressure<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s announcement was Putin\u2019s second surprise pause declaration in quick succession, following a 30-hour Easter truce on April 19-20, which both countries accused each other of violating.<\/p>\n

The announcements of the Easter truce and the May pause have been made while US President Donald Trump has been signalling that he was growing impatient with Putin as he sought to oversee a peace agreement.
US proposals on ending the three-year war in Ukraine have so far ceded to Russia\u2019s demands, calling for recognition of Moscow\u2019s control over Crimea as well as de facto recognition of Russia\u2019s hold on other parts of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

However, after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of Pope Francis\u2019s funeral on Saturday, Trump adopted a more critical tone towards Russia, voicing concern that Putin was \u201cjust tapping me along\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"VolodymyrZelenskyy, right, met Trump on the sidelines of Pope Francis\u2019s funeral at St Peter\u2019s Basilica at the Vatican [File: AFP]<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Trump told\u00a0Putin<\/a> to \u201cstop shooting\u201d and sign an agreement while also reiterating threats to ditch the role as broker, indicating he would give the process \u201ctwo weeks\u201d.<\/p>\n

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that the week ahead would be \u201ccritical\u201d. \u201cWe\u2019re close, but we\u2019re not close enough,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

However, Ukraine and its European allies have persistently warned Trump not to be taken in by Russian prevarication over a deal, while it continues to bombard Ukrainian cities.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ball not in our court\u2019<\/p>\n

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in comments published by Brazil\u2019s O Globo newspaper on Monday that his country is \u201copen to negotiations\u201d, but that \u201cthe ball is not in our court\u201d and it was up to Ukraine to make the first move to launch direct talks.<\/p>\n

Ukraine needs to \u201ccancel\u201d a 2022 decree ruling out negotiations with Russia \u2013 introduced after Russia annexed four regions that year \u2013 he said, before doubling down on demands for international recognition of Crimea and Sevastopol, Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhia as a condition for a truce.<\/p>\n

He also reiterated Moscow\u2019s demands on \u201cdemilitarizing and denazifying\u201d Ukraine and barring the country from joining the NATO military alliance.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy said last Friday that Ukraine would \u201cnot legally recognise any temporarily occupied territories\u201d, and has previously called the demilitarisation demand \u201cincomprehensible\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump, whose meeting with Zelenskyy on Saturday was the first since the pair clashed in the Oval Office in February, suggested on Sunday that Ukraine might be ready to give up Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula seized by Russia in 2014.<\/p>\n

\u2018Plain lies\u2019<\/p>\n

Before Putin\u2019s announcement. Zelenskyy\u2019s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote on Telegram on Monday that continuing Russian attacks<\/a> contradicted the Kremlin\u2019s statements about wanting peace.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the Russians\u2019 statements about peace without ceasing fire are just plain lies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"UkrainianA firefighter puts out a fire at ruined houses following Russia\u2019s air raid in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, April 28, 2025 [Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP]<\/p>\n

Russia and Ukraine targeted each other with long-range strikes, officials said on Monday.<\/p>\n

The Russian Ministry of Defence said its forces downed 119 Ukrainian drones overnight, most of them over its Bryansk border region.<\/p>\n

In Ukraine, air raid sirens rang out across the country on Monday morning. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.<\/p>\n

A Russian attack on a Ukrainian village near the front-line city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region killed three residents, regional prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Russian army said it had taken control of the village of Kamianka in the northeastern Kharkiv region.<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, Russia announced it had taken full control of its Kursk region with the help of North Korean troops. Ukraine insisted that fighting was ongoing in the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia has declared a 72-hour unilateral ceasefire in Ukraine to coincide with its most sacrosanct national holiday marking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[299,12,332,7661,657,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-57705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-europe","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","12":"tag-ukraine","13":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114416143832873449","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}