Russia stated on Saturday that the ceasefire in Ukraine was meant to last only three days, even as US President Donald Trump expressed hope for an extension.
Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said the agreement was not meant to continue beyond the announced timeframe, News.Az reports, citing Al Arabiya.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry accused Ukraine of violating the ceasefire by attacking Russian forces and civilian targets with drones and artillery, according to Russia’s state news agency TASS. The ministry said Moscow had responded to the alleged violations.
Russia’s defense ministry said on Saturday that Ukraine had repeatedly violated a Russian-declared ceasefire on May 8 but that Moscow was observing a three-day ceasefire announced by Trump.
Ukraine, in turn, has accused Russia of violating a ceasefire declared by Kyiv earlier this week.
The Kremlin on Saturday said that the United States was in a hurry to clinch a peace deal to end the Ukraine war but that getting to any sort of agreement was a very long way off because the issues were so complicated and talks were basically on hold.
During four years of the deadliest European conflict since World War Two, Russian forces have so far been unable to take the whole of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine where Kyiv’s forces have been pushed back to a line of fortress cities.
Trump has vowed to end the Ukraine war and has cast his failure to do so as one of his biggest disappointments, though on Friday he announced a ceasefire from May 9 to May 11 that Russia and Ukraine agreed to.
“It is understandable that the American side is in a hurry,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state television reporter Pavel Zarubin.
“But the issue of a Ukrainian settlement is far too complex, and reaching a peace agreement is a very long way with complex details,” Peskov said.
Russian troops have been fighting in Ukraine for well over four years - longer than Soviet forces fought in World War Two, known as the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 in Russia.
The Ukraine-Russia ceasefire would include a suspension of all “kinetic activity” and a swap of 1,000 prisoners from each country, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
“I’d like to see a big extension,” Trump told reporters on Friday. “It could be.”
The Kremlin said the agreement was for three days and that negotiations were still paused.
“Negotiations will probably resume, but it is still unclear when,” Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said. “There was an agreement that the Victory Day ceasefire would last for three days: May 9, 10, and 11.”
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