The Japan Times - Ukraine pressures Russia as midnight ceasefire looms

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said that holding a ceasefire between May 8-9 so Moscow could mark the celebration was "not serious", and hit back with his own truce starting midnight (2100 GMT) on Tuesday.

Russia has threatened a "massive missile strike" on Kyiv if Ukraine violates its Victory Day ceasefire.

The quarrelling between the two sides comes with a lull in US-led diplomatic efforts to end the war, as Washington shifts its focus to conflict in the Middle East.

Russian strikes killed nine people across Ukraine on Monday, according to Ukrainian officials, while a Ukrainian drone crashed into a high-rise building in an upscale Moscow neighbourhood overnight.

"In accordance with a decision of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces, Vladimir Putin, a ceasefire has been declared from May 8–9, 2026... We hope that the Ukrainian side will follow suit," the Russian defence ministry said in a post on state-backed messaging service MAX.

"If the Kyiv regime attempts to implement its criminal plans to disrupt the celebration of the 81st anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the Russian Armed Forces will launch a retaliatory, massive missile strike on the centre of Kyiv," it added.

"We warn the civilian population of Kyiv and employees of foreign diplomatic missions of the need to leave the city promptly."

Russia marks World War II Victory Day each year with a massive military parade through Red Square.

"As of today, there has been no official appeal to Ukraine regarding the modality of a cessation of hostilities that is being claimed on Russian social media," Zelensky said in a post on X.

"We believe that human life is far more valuable than any anniversary 'celebration'.In this regard, we are announcing a ceasefire regime starting at 00:00 (2100 GMT) on the night of May 5–6," he added.

He did not specify how long the ceasefire would last.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga also condemned Moscow's truce, saying: "Peace cannot wait until 'parades' and 'celebrations'".

"If Moscow is prepared to end hostilities, it can do so already tomorrow night," Sybiga posted on X on Monday.

He said Zelensky's truce was a "serious proposal to end the war and turn to diplomacy".

The Ukrainian leader later landed in the Gulf nation of Bahrain for talks on "security cooperation", a source in the Ukrainian delegation told AFP.

- Deadly attacks -

Russian strikes on Ukraine killed at least nine people on Monday, according to Ukrainian officials.

A Russian ballistic missile attack on the town of Merefa -- outside Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv -- killed seven civilians and wounded dozens earlier Monday, regional authorities said.

AFP journalists in Merefa saw several bodies strewn in the street, covered by blankets and white sheets -- with shops, houses and cars damaged.

A separate Russian strike on the village of Vilnyansk in the southern Zaporizhzhia region killed two others, the region's governor Ivan Fedorov said.

"Unfortunately, a married couple was killed: a 51-year-old man and a 62-year-old woman," Fedorov said.

Their 31-year-old son was wounded in the strike, along with three other people, he added.

In Russia, a Ukrainian drone killed a civilian in the border region of Belgorod, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

A Ukrainian drone also hit a residential high-rise building in an upscale Moscow neighbourhood overnight, the Russian capital's mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

- Russia advances slow -

Russia lost more territory than it gained in Ukraine in April for the first time since a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the summer of 2023, an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showed.

Moscow ceded control of about 120 square kilometres (46 square miles) between March and April, the ISW data showed.

Despite the fighting at the front reaching a near stalemate, intense and deadly drone-dominated attacks have continued unabated in recent months.

Russia's advances have slowed since late 2025, as communication issues in the Russian army combined with Ukrainian counterattacks helped Kyiv make localised breakthroughs in the southeast.

The Ukrainian army's net gains -- their first in more than two years -- were marginal however, representing only 0.02 percent of Ukrainian territory, the data showed.

Moscow currently occupies just over 19 percent of Ukraine, the majority of which it seized during the first weeks of its invasion in 2022.

Approximately seven percent, including Crimea and areas in the Donbas region, were already under Russian or pro-Russian separatist control before the invasion.

S.Ogawa--JT