Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared a three-day ceasefire in May in the war with Ukraine to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union and its allies in World War Two, Reuters reported.

Putin’s move appeared aimed at signalling that Russia is still interested in peace – something that Ukraine and its European allies dispute – as President Donald Trump’s administration in Washington grows impatient with stuttering efforts toward peace.

The Kremlin said the 72-hour ceasefire would run on May 8, May 9 – when Putin will host international leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping for lavish celebrations to commemorate victory over Nazi Germany – and May 10.

Kyiv questioned why Putin would not agree to its call for an immediate ceasefire lasting at least 30 days to pave the way for diplomacy.

“For some reason, everyone is supposed to wait for May 8 and only then have a ceasefire to ensure calm for Putin during the parade,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “We value people’s lives and not parades.”

Russia has said it wants a full settlement, not a pause.

Putin’s announcement came after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke on Sunday. The White House said Trump wanted a permanent ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, read the report.

“While President Trump welcomes Vladimir Putin’s willingness to pause the conflict, the president has been very clear he wants a permanent ceasefire and to bring this conflict to a peaceful resolution,” said National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes.

“All military actions are suspended for this period. Russia believes that the Ukrainian side should follow this example,” the Kremlin said in a statement on the May 8-10 ceasefire.

“In the event of violations by the Ukrainian side, Russia’s armed forces will give an adequate and effective response.”

It was the second unilateral truce announcement that Putin has made in quick succession, following a 30-hour Easter ceasefire that each side accused the other of violating countless times.

It came after Trump criticised Putin for a deadly Russian attack on Kyiv last week and voiced concern at the weekend that Putin was “just tapping me along”. Washington has repeatedly threatened to abandon its peace efforts unless there is real progress.

Rubio in a call with Lavrov on Sunday “underscored to his Russian counterpart the next steps in Russia-Ukraine peace talks and the need to end the war now,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement on Monday, without offering more details.

Russia’s foreign ministry said Lavrov “highlighted the importance of reinforcing the emerging conditions necessary to launch negotiations aimed at establishing a reliable framework for long-term, sustainable peace.”

The Kremlin said Moscow wants direct talks with Ukraine “without preconditions.”

Lavrov, in a written interview with Brazil’s O Globo newspaper on Monday, said that as well as ruling out Ukraine’s membership of NATO, a settlement should include “demilitarizing and de-Nazifying Ukraine” and international recognition of four regions of Ukraine that Russia has partially occupied since 2022 and claimed as its own, Reuters reported.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that the signal for direct talks should come from Ukraine, as it currently had a “legal ban” on negotiating with Putin.

He was referring to a 2022 decree in which Zelenskiy ruled out such negotiations, after Russia had claimed four Ukrainian regions as its own in an action condemned as illegal by most countries at the United Nations.

Ukraine accuses Russia of playing for time in order to try to seize more of its territory, and has urged greater international pressure to get Moscow to stop fighting.

Russia accuses Ukraine of being unwilling to make any concessions and of seeking a ceasefire only on its own terms.

Trump on Sunday urged Russia to stop its attacks in Ukraine and suggested Zelenskiy was ready to give up Crimea, which Russia seized from it in 2014.

Zelenskiy said earlier this month that doing so would violate Ukraine’s constitution. Kyiv has not commented on Trump’s comments on Sunday regarding Crimea.

President Donald Trump urged Russia on Sunday to stop its attacks in Ukraine while his top diplomat said the United States might walk away from peace efforts if it does not see progress, Reuters reported.

Speaking to reporters in New Jersey, Trump said he was disappointed that Russia has continued to attack Ukraine, and said his one-on-one meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the Vatican on Saturday had gone well.

“I see him as calmer. I think he understands the picture, and I think he wants to make a deal,” Trump said of Zelenskiy.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, said the Trump administration might abandon its attempts to broker a deal if Russia and Ukraine do not make headway.

“It needs to happen soon,” Rubio told the NBC program “Meet the Press.'” “We cannot continue to dedicate time and resources to this effort if it’s not going to come to fruition.”

Trump and Zelenskiy, in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis, met in a Vatican basilica on Saturday to try to revive faltering efforts to end the war in Ukraine. The meeting was the first between the two leaders since an angry encounter in the White House Oval Office in February and comes at a critical time in negotiations aimed at bringing an end to the conflict, read the report.

Trump rebuked Russian President Vladimir Putin after that meeting, saying on social media that there is “no reason” for Russia to shoot missiles into civilian areas.

In a pre-taped interview that aired on the CBS program “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia would continue to target sites used by Ukraine’s military. When asked about a Russian strike on Kyiv last week that killed civilians, Lavrov said that “the target attacked was not something absolutely civilian” and that Russia targets only “sites which are used by the military.”

Zelenskiy wrote on the messaging app Telegram that his top military commander reported that Russia had already conducted nearly 70 attacks on Sunday.

“The situation at the front and the real activity of the Russian army prove that there is currently insufficient pressure on Russia from the world to end this war,” Zelenskiy said.

Ukrainian and European officials pushed back last week against some U.S. proposals on how to end the war, making counterproposals on issues from territory to sanctions.

American proposals called for U.S. recognition of Russia’s control over Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow seized and annexed in 2014, as well as de facto recognition of Russia’s hold on other parts of Ukraine.

In contrast, the European and Ukrainian proposal defers detailed discussion about territory until after a ceasefire is concluded.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Sunday that Ukraine should not agree to the American proposal, saying it went too far in ceding swathes of territory in return for a ceasefire.

Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, said the U.S. president has “expressed his frustration” at both Putin and Zelenskiy but remains determined to help negotiate an agreement. Waltz also said the United States and Ukraine would eventually reach an agreement over rare earth minerals, Reuters reported.

Chuck Schumer, the top U.S. Senate Democrat, said on Sunday that he is concerned Trump will “cave in to Putin.”

“To just abandon Ukraine, after all the sacrifice that they made, after so much loss of life, and with the rallying of the whole West against Putin, it would just be a moral tragedy,” Schumer said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis, met one-on-one in a marble-lined Vatican basilica on Saturday to try to revive faltering efforts to end Russia’s war with Ukraine.

Zelenskiy said the meeting could prove historic if it delivers the kind of peace he is hoping for, and a White House spokesman called it “very productive”.

The two leaders, leaning in close to each other with no aides around them while seated in St Peter’s Basilica, spoke for about 15 minutes, according to Zelenskiy’s office, which also released photographs of the meeting.

The meeting at the Vatican, their first since an angry encounter in the Oval Office in Washington in February, comes at a critical time in negotiations aimed at bringing an end to fighting between Ukraine and Russia.

In a post on social media platform Telegram, Zelenskiy wrote: “Good meeting. One-on-one, we managed to discuss a lot. We hope for a result from all the things that were spoken about.”

He said those topics included: “The protection of the lives of our people. A complete and unconditional ceasefire. A reliable and lasting peace that will prevent a recurrence of war.”

Zelenskiy added: “It was a very symbolic meeting that has the potential to become historic if we achieve joint results. Thank you, President Donald Trump!”

Steven Cheung, White House communications director, said the two leaders had met privately and had “a very productive discussion. More details about the meeting will follow”.

In one photograph released by Zelenskiy’s office, the Ukrainian and U.S. leaders sat opposite each other in a hall of the basilica, around two feet apart, and were leaning in towards each other in conversation. No aides could be seen in the image.

In a second photograph, from the same location, Zelenskiy, Trump, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron were shown standing in a tight huddle. Macron had his hand on Zelenskiy’s shoulder.

After Trump and Zelenskiy met in the basilica, the two men joined other world leaders outside in Saint Peter’s Square at the funeral service for Pope Francis, who made the pursuit of peace, including in Ukraine, a motif of his papacy.

Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who gave the sermon at the funeral service, recalled how Pope Francis did not stop raising his voice to call for negotiations to end conflicts.

“War always leaves the world worse than it was before: it is always a painful and tragic defeat for everyone,” the cardinal said.

A Zelenskiy spokesman had earlier said aides to the two leaders were working on arrangements for a follow-up meeting in Rome later on Saturday. The spokesman subsequently said, after Trump’s aircraft took off from Rome, that the second meeting did not happen, citing the presidents’ tight schedules.

Trump, who has been pressing both sides to agree a ceasefire, said on Friday that there had been productive talks between his envoy and the Russian leadership in Moscow, and called for a high-level meeting between Kyiv and Moscow to close a deal.

Trump had previously warned his administration would walk away from its efforts to achieve a peace if the two sides do not agree a deal soon.

(Reuters)