WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Ukraine says Russia violating its own 3-day ceasefire, calls it a 'farce'
Ukraine's foreign minister said on Thursday Russia had repeatedly violated its own 3-day ceasefire hours after it began and called the initiative a "farce", while Moscow said Kyiv had continued fighting.
There was, though, a drop-off in combat activity after the ceasefire announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin came into force in the early hours of Thursday, with a respite in the drone and missile attacks that had rattled Ukrainian cities earlier this week.
"Predictably, Putin's 'Parade ceasefire' proves to be a farce," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X, referring to the truce which coincides with a May 9 parade on Moscow's Red Square to commemorate the end of World War Two.
"Russian forces continue to attack across the entire frontline," Sybiha wrote. "From midnight to midday, Russia committed 734 ceasefire violations and 63 assault operations, 23 of which are still ongoing."
He said Kyiv was notifying the United States and European states about Russia's actions.
The Russian defence ministry, cited by Interfax news agency, said that Ukraine, in turn, had carried out 488 attacks on Russian targets and twice tried to break through the border in the Kursk region.
The two sides did not immediately comment on each other's battlefield reports, which Reuters could not independently confirm.
A late night report issued by the General Staff of Ukraine's military nearly 24 hours in the proclaimed ceasefire said 154 clashes had been recorded. Russian forces, it said, had launched one missile attack and 15 air strikes.
The governor of southeastern Zaporizhzhia region said a Russian drone had struck a car in the south of the region, killing a passenger.
In central Poltava region, the head of the regional military administration said air defence units had downed a missile deployed by Russian forces. The missile damaged private homes, but caused no casualties.
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UKRAINE DERIDES KREMLIN CEASEFIRE
Ukraine has not committed to abide by the ceasefire, calling it a ruse by Putin to create the impression he wants to end the war, which began when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Putin says he is committed to achieving peace.
Reuters journalists with a Ukrainian drone unit near the front in eastern Ukraine said a small Russian infantry raiding party had tried to advance on Thursday, but had been stopped by drones piloted by members of the unit.
Ukrainian soldiers observed the clash on a live feed streamed onto monitors in their bunker.
"The infantry are still coming," said one of the soldiers in the unit, a 33-year-old who identified himself by his callsign, "Mikha."
A second person in the same unit, who identified himself as Nazar, said in the six hours since the Russian ceasefire started, there had been three Russian strikes on his section of the front. Asked if the ceasefire was holding, he said: "The facts speak for themselves."
A Ukrainian military spokesman earlier said Russia had continued assaults in areas on the eastern front and prosecutors said two people had been wounded along with the 55-year-old woman killed by bombs fired at the northern Sumy region.
The Russian ceasefire falls on the 80th anniversary of the World War Two defeat of Nazi Germany, for which Putin is hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders ahead of a military parade on Red Square on May 9.
Ukraine, like the West, marks the anniversary on May 8.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy marked the day by taking a rare walk in central Kyiv to pay his respects to fallen Ukrainian soldiers at a vast mound of Ukrainian flags planted on a grassy verge on the central square.
There was no sign of his security detail in the selfie video he filmed as he passed pedestrians on the city's main drag, at one point pausing to say "hi" as cars tooted their horns and deriding Friday's planned pomp-filled ceremony in Moscow.
"There will be a parade of cynicism. You simply cannot call it anything else. A parade of bile and lies. As if not dozens of allied states, but Putin personally defeated Nazism," he said.
Ukraine launched successive drone attacks on Moscow this week, which had forced the closure of airports in the Russian capital and the grounding of airliners.
Russia's aviation authority Rosaviatsiya said on Thursday evening that airline schedules, heavily disrupted earlier in the week, were now operating normally.
Zelenskiy said on Thursday that he had told U.S. President Donald Trump in a telephone call that a 30-day ceasefire was a "real indicator" of moving towards peace with Russia and Kyiv was ready to implement it immediately.
Zelenskiy said he had also spoken to Germany's new Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who assured him that his government could be relied upon for continued support. The Ukrainian president also spoke to European Union Executive Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen.
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Kiev attempts new incursion into Russia’s Kursk
The Ukrainian military launched a new attempt to invade Russia’s Kursk Region on Monday, launching multiple cross-border attacks. While the fighting in the border area continued into Wednesday, Kiev’s forces have failed to achieve any tangible gains, sustaining considerable materiel and personnel losses during the raid.
The attacks targeted several locations, including the villages of Tetkino and Novy Put, just to the east of the area invaded by Ukrainian forces last August and fully liberated by the Russian military earlier this year.
“In the Tetkino area and closer to Novy Put, the enemy has been conducting reconnaissance in force for the second day in a row and is trying to clear our mine and engineering barriers in order to try to send troops into the breach,” Igor Kimakovsky, a senior official in the administration of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic, told reporters.
The village of Tetkino was the target of an unsuccessful Ukrainian incursion attempt in March 2024. The hamlet of Novy Put saw the most intensive combat in November last year, when Kiev’s troops attempted to flank the Russian forces advancing in Kursk Region.
Multiple videos circulating online, said to be taken south of Tetkino, show Ukrainian troops deploying several breacher vehicles in an attempt to break through the reinforced border, clearing mines, ‘dragon’s teeth’ concrete pyramids, and other obstacles.
The vehicles, including a Soviet-made IMR-2, German-supplied Wisent 1 engineering vehicles, and the Soviet-designed UR-77 Meteorit mine-clearing vehicle, were hit by multiple FPV drones and abandoned by their crews.
Ukrainian forces attempted to evacuate the crews of the vehicles on quad bikes. Some of the evacuation teams, however, fell victim to FPV drones as well.
Multiple Ukrainian armored vehicles that attempted to advance on Russian positions near Tetkino through the openings made by the breachers ended up destroyed as well. One of the videos from the area show a heavily uparmored US-supplied M1117 armored car getting hit by a drone carrying two PRG-7 warheads.
Despite initial setbacks, Ukrainian forces managed to reach the westernmost tip of Tetkino, located a mere 100 meters from the border, on Tuesday. An unspecified number of Ukrainian servicemen reportedly infiltrated several residential homes on the outskirts of the village. The forces were subjected to artillery and aerial strikes, footage available online indicates, and reportedly were pushed back across the border by the end of the day.
A similar situation unfolded near Novy Put, where Kiev’s troops also sent in breacher vehicles only to lose them in the open field. Drone footage purportedly taken near the hamlet shows an IMR-2 hitting a landmine when the vehicle attempted to cross an anti-tank ditch and rampart at the border. Immediately after the blast, an uparmored vehicle carrying Ukrainian infantry that followed the breacher was hit by at least one FPV drone, the video suggests.
The ongoing incursion attempt has been marked by the active use of quad bikes by Ukrainian forces, who are using them for rapid infantry deployment instead of relying purely on armored vehicles that follow breachers. A convoy of ten quad bikes was reportedly destroyed en route to Novy Put.
Thermal footage circulating online purports to show the bikes speeding along a road towards the hamlet. The group stopped at some point, and the tightly packed vehicles were subsequently hit by multiple artillery shells, the footage shows.
Reuters/RT
