Kremlin spokesman slams Kyiv after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Moscow’s brief unilateral ceasefire is ‘manipulation’.
Russia has rejected a proposal from Ukraine to extend Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unilateral three-day ceasefire as the United States grows increasingly impatient with stalled efforts to find a long-term solution to end the war.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Tuesday that Moscow had seen Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s offer to extend Putin’s brief early May pause in fighting to 30 days.
But Peskov said it would be “difficult to enter into a long-term ceasefire” without first clearing up a number of “questions”.
Zelenskyy had branded Putin’s unilateral truce, which will last from May 8 to 10 and coincides with Moscow’s celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of its victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, as an “attempt at manipulation”.
The Ukrainian leader also questioned why Moscow would not agree to Kyiv’s call for a ceasefire lasting at least 30 days and starting immediately.
Peskov threw the Ukrainian president’s words back at him, saying that the absence of a “direct response” from Ukraine to Putin’s three-day pause, which the spokesman described as a “gesture of goodwill”, was itself “a manipulation”.
The to-and-fro comes amid pressure from an increasingly impatient White House to agree on a deal to end the conflict.
On Sunday, US President Donald Trump told Putin to “stop shooting” and sign an agreement, after earlier voicing concerns that Putin was “just tapping me along”.
Last month, Russia stymied a US proposal for a 30-day halt in fighting by calling for far-reaching conditions, including a ban on Ukraine using the pause to regroup and rearm its forces and on Western arms supplies to Kyiv.
It offered no concessions in return for those demands.
Ukraine has accepted the US proposal, with Zelenskyy saying late on Monday that the ceasefire “must be immediate, full, and unconditional – for at least 30 days to ensure it is secure and guaranteed”.
Deadly drone attacks
Meanwhile, Russian and Ukrainian forces carried out dozens of drone attacks early on Tuesday.
A Russian attack on Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region killed a 12-year-old girl and wounded three others, including a six-year-old.
Russia also launched 20 drones and 31 powerful guided bombs at Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
Debris from an intercepted Russian drone started a fire in a neighbourhood of the capital, Kyiv, according to officials.
In total, Russia fired 100 drones at Ukraine between late Monday and early Tuesday, the Ukrainian air force said.
In Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, “an enemy drone deliberately struck a moving vehicle carrying five men”, said regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, who reported that two people were killed.
The Russian army said it shot down 40 drones over various regions overnight, including four over the Russian-controlled Crimean Peninsula.
Reporting from Moscow, Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova said civilians living in Russian border communities have faced regular attacks.
“They’ve been suffering since the beginning of this conflict; dozens of towns and villages in Russia’s border regions, in particular in Belgorod … they constantly come under attack,” she said.
“Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced,” Shapovalova added. “And there are also reports that the Ukrainian army is continuing to build up near the border with the Belgorod region.”
