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10-05-2026
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump announced on social media that there would be a three-day ceasefire in the war between Russia and Ukraine from May 9 until May 11 to mark the end of World War Two for the Russians.
Trump had said after a phone call with Putin on April 29 that a temporary ceasefire was in the works. Putin announced a similar truce last year that lasted three days but was not agreed with Kyiv.
Trump said in a Truth Social post that the pause will include a suspension of all kinetic activity, and also a prison swap of 1,000 prisoners from each country.
“Hopefully, it is the beginning of the end of a very long, deadly, and hard fought War,” he said, adding that there was constant progress in talks to end the conflict.
Russia announced a ceasefire for May 8 to 9 to coincide with commemorations of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two and a military parade in Moscow’s Red Square.
Ukraine announced its own proposal for an open-ended ceasefire that started at midnight on Tuesday (2100 GMT), urging Russia to reciprocate.
Officials said on Thursday that Ukraine’s top negotiator, Rustem Umerov, had arrived in Miami for a series of meetings with US representatives as peace talks on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine have stalled in recent months.
The US-brokered talks are deadlocked over Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. Moscow demands Kyiv pull troops back from parts of the region it has failed to capture in its four-year full-scale invasion. Ukraine says it will not cede land that it controls. Moscow and Kyiv have both accused each other of violating ceasefires that each has separately declared.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov, speaking to reporters on Putin’s behalf, said Russia had also agreed to Trump’s initiative.
“An agreement on this matter was reached during our telephone discussions with the US administration,” he said.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defenses had intercepted Ukrainian drones headed for the capital over a seven-hour period ending around 8 pm local time (1700 GMT). Since Trump announced the ceasefire, Moscow has issued one such notice.
Earlier, Russia and Ukraine had accused each other of violating ceasefires that each had separately declared.
The two sides have been pummeling each other with missiles, drones and artillery, with no end to the war in sight. Peace talks are stalled, with Ukraine rejecting Putin’s demand that it surrender territory it has successfully defended since 2022.
Putin had unilaterally declared a two-day ceasefire on Friday and Saturday to cover the Victory Day commemorations, Russia’s most revered national holiday.
Kyiv responded that a ceasefire just for the holiday was inappropriate and called instead for an indefinite truce to begin two days earlier, which Moscow ignored.
The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in World War Two, including many millions in Ukraine but pushed Nazi forces back to Berlin, where Adolf Hitler killed himself and the red Soviet Victory Banner was raised over the Reichstag in May 1945.
This year’s parade in Moscow usually a show of Russian military might with intercontinental ballistic missiles and tanks, will have no military equipment on display. Moscow’s troops have been fighting in Ukraine for well over four years longer than the Soviet involvement, from 1941-45, in what Russians refer to as the Great Patriotic War.
Russia, which controls about 19.4% of Ukraine, has seen its advances slowly this year, taking just 700 square km in the first four months of the year, according to pro-Ukrainian maps. (Int’l News Desk)
