US President Donald Trump said Friday that Russia and Ukraine have agreed to his request for a three-day ceasefire and a prisoner swap, with the halt running from Saturday through Monday over Russia’s Victory Day holiday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy both confirmed the agreement, according to Ada Derana citing Western reporting.
“I asked and President Putin agreed. President Zelenskyy agreed — both readily,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House. “And we have a little period of time where they’re not going to be killing people. That’s very good.” He added that the pause “could be the beginning of the end of a very long, deadly” war.
The ceasefire covers May 9, 10 and 11. Saturday is Victory Day in Russia, the country’s commemoration of the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. The deal also includes an exchange of prisoners of war, with each side releasing 1,000 personnel, Trump said in his social media announcement.
Zelenskyy said the agreement was reached through US mediation and that Ukraine’s prisoner-return demand had shaped Kyiv’s willingness to engage. “Red Square matters less to us than the lives of Ukrainian prisoners of war who can be brought home,” he wrote on Telegram. After his statement, Zelenskyy issued a formal presidential decree “authorising” Russia to hold its Victory Day military parade, declaring Red Square off-limits for Ukrainian strikes during the event — a framing that publicly tied Kyiv’s restraint to the ceasefire terms while underscoring Ukraine’s claim that it holds targeting reach over the Russian capital.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed Zelenskyy’s decree as a “silly joke,” telling reporters Russia did not “need anyone’s permission” to mark Victory Day.
The announcement came hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio struck a more pessimistic tone, saying US mediation efforts had not yet produced a “fruitful outcome.” Russia had separately announced a ceasefire for Friday and Saturday earlier in the week, but that arrangement quickly unravelled. The deal is the second formal ceasefire attempt after the Orthodox Easter pause in April, which both sides accused each other of violating.
Source: Ada Derana.
