Russia strikes Ukraine as rival ceasefire declarations deepen tensions

Russia’s latest ceasefire declaration landed under the blast wave of its own strikes, sharpening doubts over whether Moscow was pausing the war or using truce language as cover. Ukrainian officials said Russian drone, missile and glide-bomb attacks across the country killed at least 22 people and wounded more than 80, even as Moscow announced a unilateral ceasefire tied to its May 8-9 Victory Day commemorations.

The attacks hit Kramatorsk, Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv and the Poltava region, with one overnight strike targeting energy infrastructure and a gas production facility. In Poltava, rescuers responding to the fire were also struck, underscoring how quickly civilian emergency work became part of the battlefield. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that the overnight assaults were followed by further strikes later on Tuesday.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rebuked Moscow for what he called its “utter cynicism” and said Russia could “cease fire at any moment” and stop the war and Ukraine’s responses. Ukraine had already announced its own ceasefire starting at midnight on Tuesday, May 5, after saying it had received no official notice from Moscow about the Russian proposal. The competing declarations arrived against the backdrop of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and a conflict in which temporary pauses have rarely endured without wider political and security arrangements.

The Russian Defence Ministry said its ceasefire was meant to cover the Victory Day holiday marking the 81st anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. It also warned that Russia would retaliate if Ukraine tried to disrupt parade celebrations in Moscow, including what it described as a possible massive missile strike on Kyiv. That warning turned the ceasefire announcement into a further instrument of pressure, not just a diplomatic signal.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres welcomed the unilateral ceasefires and repeated his call for a “full, immediate, unconditional and lasting ceasefire.” But the sequence of events on Tuesday showed how fragile such declarations remained. With the war still being prosecuted city by city, the gap between announced pauses and lived reality continued to define the conflict.