Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy is seeking details of a short-term ceasefire Russia has proposed to US president Donald Trump, he said in a post on Telegram.
Russian president Vladimir Putin proposed a ceasefire on May 9th to coincide with “victory day” in Russia in a phone call with Trump, according to the Kremlin.
“We have instructed our representatives to contact the United States president’s team and clarify the details of the Russian proposal for a short-term ceasefire,” Zelenskiy said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that no definite decision had been made, and that it would be for Putin to decide on the specific terms.
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“For now, no concrete decision has been made,” Peskov said.
Zelenskiy said that Ukraine is proposing a longer-term ceasefire.
“We will find out exactly what is being discussed, whether it’s a few hours of security for a parade in Moscow or something more,” he said in a post on Telegram.
Russian attacks in the early hours of Thursday killed one person in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro and wounded dozens more in the southern port city of Odesa, as Ukraine continued to strike industrial facilities and oil infrastructure inside Russian territory for a second day in a row.
Elsewhere, a ship that created a brief diplomatic scuffle between Israel and Ukraine has departed Israel without unloading what Zelenskiy said were grains Russia stole from occupied areas of Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said.
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The ship that Ukrainian officials said was carrying stolen grain had anchored close to the port of Haifa for several days, but departed from Israel on Thursday morning.
“The Russian supplier of the wheat cargo will be forced to find another destination to unload the cargo,” the Israel Grain Importers Association said.
Meanwhile, senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday that the United States is unlikely to serve as an effective mediator in international conflicts, given its actions on the global stage.
The comments by Medvedev, a former president of Russia, appeared to contrast with the Kremlin’s official line that the US is playing a valuable role in seeking a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine.
“It is hardly possible to consider that a country which kidnaps presidents and starts conflicts just like that can act as an effective mediator in all situations,” Medvedev told an audience at an educational forum.
He appeared to be referring to the Iran war and also to the US special forces’ operation ordered by Trump in January to capture Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and bring him to the US to face trial on drug charges.
However, Medvedev did acknowledge that Trump’s administration was making an effort to resolve the Ukraine conflict – in contrast, he said, with the previous president, Joe Biden.
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Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, is one of the country’s most hawkish officials and frequently makes acerbic comments on global affairs.
In the same talk on Thursday, he said Europe was undergoing a process of militarisation that he compared to the build-up to the second World War.
Medvedev also said that 450,000 people had signed contracts to join the Russian armed forces in 2025, and a further 127,000 so far this year.
Following an unpopular compulsory mobilisation in 2022, Moscow now relies on recruiting professional soldiers to wage the war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, and offers them generous payments for signing up.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine publicly reveals casualty numbers. Russian news outlet Mediazona said it had confirmed at least 213,858 Russian military deaths as of last week, in a joint investigative project with the BBC Russian service. – Reuters
