Duelling Ceasefires: Zelenskyy Offers Open-Ended Truce as Putin Demands Empty Skies for Victory Day Parade

5 May 2026 | Kyiv / Moscow / Yerevan

KYIV, Ukraine – The guns could fall silent by Wednesday. Or Moscow could turn Kyiv's center into rubble. In the strange dueling ceasefire proposals of May 2026, both outcomes remain possible.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has offered a potentially open-ended ceasefire beginning on Wednesday to Vladimir Putin, whose defence ministry has demanded that hostilities should cease for Friday and Saturday so that Russia can mark the anniversary of the Second World War defeat of Nazi Germany, 81 years ago.

The Russian defence ministry threatened that if its truce demand was not met there would be a "massive missile strike on the centre of Kyiv" – adopting a tone akin to Donald Trump's recent threats to attack Iranian civilian infrastructure, in what has been condemned as a potential war crime.

A Tale of Two Truces: Zelenskyy vs Putin

Zelenskyy initially responded that the Russian request was "not serious," later following up that while Kyiv had not received any official requests for a truce, in the time left until midnight on Wednesday "it is realistic to ensure" that a ceasefire takes effect.

"We announce a regime of silence starting from 00.00 on the night of May 5 to May 6." He gave no end time but said Ukraine would "act symmetrically" according to Russian actions. Noting that Russia had failed to respond to Kyiv's longstanding calls for a lasting ceasefire, he urged the Kremlin "to take real steps to end their war, especially since Russia's defence ministry believes it cannot hold a parade in Moscow without Ukraine's goodwill."

The Russian demand follows a familiar pattern of unilateral ceasefire declarations by the Russian side – most recently around Orthodox Easter – that have had little to no impact on the ground. But this time, the threat of retaliation is explicit and chilling.

Red Square Without Tanks: A Parade of Fear

This year, the parade in the Russian capital is scheduled to take place without tanks, missiles and other military equipment for the first time in nearly two decades. Speaking at a summit with European leaders in Armenia on Monday, Zelenskyy said that the Russian authorities "fear drones may buzz over Red Square" on 9 May.

"This is telling. It shows they are not strong now, so we must keep up the pressure through sanctions on them."

The image is striking: Red Square, the symbolic heart of Russian military power, will be stripped of the hardware that has defined Victory Day parades for generations. A T-34 tank – the Soviet-era workhorse that once symbolized the defeat of Nazism – may still roll, but the modern missile systems and artillery that usually follow will be absent, parked elsewhere, hidden from the threat of Ukrainian drones.

Russia's Economic Woes: GDP Forecast Cut as Oil Output Drops

High global oil prices will not help boost Russian economic growth this year as Ukrainian drone attacks and western sanctions affect crude output and exports, the influential thinktank TsMAKP, which is close to the Russian government, has predicted.

TsMAKP cut the GDP growth forecast for this year to between 0.5% and 0.7% from 0.9% and 1.3% one month ago. The government is officially forecasting 1.3% but officials have said this is optimistic and will be revised. Russia's economy contracted by 0.3% in the first quarter – its first quarterly contraction since early 2023.

Russia was forced to reduce oil output in April due to Ukrainian drone attacks on ports and refineries – what Kyiv calls "kinetic sanctions" – as well as a halt to crude supplies through the only remaining Russian oil pipeline to Europe.

Deadly Strikes: Seven Killed in Merefa

A Russian missile attack killed seven people and wounded more than 30 in the town of Merefa, in Ukraine's north-eastern Kharkiv region, Ukrainian officials said on Monday. Regional prosecutors said Russian forces appeared to have used an Iskander-type ballistic missile – a weapon designed for precision but deployed against civilian infrastructure.

The governor of the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Ivan Fedorov, said a Russian strike killed a husband and wife in the village of Vilnyansk. Their adult son was wounded in the strike, along with three other people.

In Russia, the governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said a Ukrainian drone killed a civilian resident in a border area and wounded seven others, including a 10-year-old boy.

Two people were injured when a Russian drone hit an apartment building in Brovary, Kyiv region, said the head of the regional military administration.

Starmer's EU Gambit: £78bn Loan for Ukraine

Keir Starmer has said the benefit of joining the European Union's £78bn loan scheme for Ukraine "outweighs the cost," as the British prime minister argued the continent must move at pace to bolster its own defence.

Starmer used a meeting of the European Political Community in Armenia to begin negotiations to participate in the EU scheme. If the UK's effort is successful, British defence firms would be able to provide equipment for Kyiv in return for a financial contribution of up to £400m, expected to come from the £3bn already ringfenced for Ukraine.

But the EU expects the UK to go further in contributing to its budgets, in return for further access to its markets, after Starmer called for "deeper economic integration." Brussels has also called for a permanent mechanism for an "appropriate financial contribution" from the UK for more access.

As the NATO military alliance comes under intense pressure from Trump's threats amid a difference in stances on the war in Iran, Starmer acknowledged the strain. "We cannot deny that some of the alliances that we have come to rely on are not in the place we would want them to be," he said.

"There is more tension in the alliances than there should be, and it's very important that we therefore face up to this as a group of countries together."

Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant: Weather Equipment Damaged

Weather monitoring equipment at the illegally Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in south-eastern Ukraine was damaged in a drone strike, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Monday. The plant, Europe's largest nuclear facility, remains a persistent source of concern as fighting continues nearby.

What Comes Next?

The dueling ceasefire proposals leave the coming days shrouded in uncertainty. Will Russia accept Zelenskyy's open-ended offer? Will Ukraine respect Putin's two-day Victory Day truce? Or will the "massive missile strike" threat become reality?

One thing is certain: the guns have not stopped. Seven dead in Merefa. A husband and wife killed in Vilnyansk. A 10-year-old boy wounded in Belgorod. The war grinds on, even as diplomats trade proposals and parades prepare to roll.

And in Red Square, for the first time in two decades, there will be no tanks. The drones have changed everything.

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