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Russian Pressident, Vladimir Putin declared a two-day ceasefire in Ukraine for May 8 and 9, timed to Russia’s World War Two victory commemorations, and within hours Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded with his own proposed pause — starting earlier, on the night of May 5 to 6, and framed in language that turned Putin’s announcement into a political rebuke rather than a diplomatic convergence.
The dueling ceasefire proposals capture the fundamental problem with where the Russia-Ukraine war stands more than three years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion: both sides can announce a pause in fighting without either side trusting the other to observe it, and the history of the past month makes that skepticism entirely reasonable. Russia declared a brief ceasefire for Orthodox Easter last month. Each side accused the other of violating it before the ink had dried.
Putin’s announcement came through Russia’s Defense Ministry, which posted the truce on Telegram and said Moscow expected Ukraine to follow suit. It framed the two-day pause around the 81st anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany — May 9 being Russia’s most significant national holiday, the day the Soviet Union signed Germany’s surrender in 1945. The ministry said Russian forces would take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of the commemorations.
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It then immediately undermined whatever goodwill the ceasefire announcement might have generated by threatening to obliterate the center of Kyiv if Ukraine attempted to disrupt the celebrations. “In the event of attempts by the Kyiv regime to implement its criminal plans to disrupt the celebration of the 81st anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will launch a retaliatory, massive missile attack on the centre of Kyiv,” the ministry stated. It added that Russia had previously been in a position to carry out such an attack but had “refrained from such actions on humanitarian grounds” — a claim that landed with particular bitterness in a country that has absorbed years of Russian missile strikes on civilian infrastructure. The ministry also warned the civilian population of Kyiv and staff at foreign diplomatic missions to leave the city in a timely manner — a statement that reads less like a ceasefire announcement than a threat.
Zelenskyy, speaking from Armenia where he was attending a European Political Community summit, did not receive Putin’s proposal warmly. He had dismissed the Russian truce initiative earlier as “not serious” before the full details were public. When he announced Ukraine’s own ceasefire, he did so on terms designed to expose the gap between a pause timed to a Russian holiday and what Ukraine has actually been asking for. “Russia had failed to respond to Kyiv’s longstanding calls for a lasting ceasefire,” he wrote on Telegram, framing Ukraine’s own pause not as a response to Moscow but as an independent humanitarian act. “Human life is incomparably more valuable than the ‘celebration’ of any anniversary,” he said.
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Ukraine’s proposed silence regime begins at midnight on the night of May 5 to 6 — earlier than Russia’s window and without a stated end date, with Zelenskyy saying Ukraine would “act symmetrically from the specified moment.” The formulation gives Kyiv maximum flexibility: if Russia shoots, Ukraine shoots back. If Russia holds fire, Ukraine holds fire. The burden of escalation is placed squarely on Moscow.
The backdrop to both announcements is a significant intensification of Ukrainian long-range drone operations deep inside Russian territory. Ukraine has stepped up strikes on targets associated with Russia’s oil industry and critical infrastructure, and on Monday alone a drone hit a building in Moscow while Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported that 14 additional drones targeting the city were intercepted over a 14-hour period.
Russia has announced that this year’s May 9 military parade on Red Square will feature none of the heavy military hardware — tanks, missiles, artillery — that has been a fixture of the annual commemoration. Moscow attributed the decision to concerns about Ukrainian drone activity. Zelenskyy, characteristically, turned the absence into a verdict. “It will be the first time in many, many years they cannot afford military equipment and they fear drones may buzz over Red Square,” he said in Armenia. “This is telling.”
Putin had raised the possibility of a victory day ceasefire during a phone conversation with Donald Trump last week, giving the proposal an American dimension that neither side has publicly elaborated on. Trump has been attempting to position himself as a potential mediator in the Ukraine conflict, and a ceasefire — however brief — would provide a visible data point that his diplomatic engagement is producing results.
Whether the guns actually fall silent on either timeline, and for how long, will be known soon enough. The Easter ceasefire lasted approximately as long as it took both sides to accuse the other of violating it. This one begins against a backdrop of drone strikes on Moscow and a Russian threat to level central Kyiv. The conditions for peace are not obviously present. The announcements have been made regardless.
