Russia and Ukraine accused each other Sunday of breaking the three-day ceasefire President Trump brokered to mark Victory Day, with Ukrainian officials reporting one civilian killed and three wounded by Russian artillery and drone strikes in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region and Russia's defense ministry charging Kyiv with more than 1,000 violations of the truce.
The dueling claims, lodged on the second day of a pause that runs Saturday through Monday, undercut the diplomatic opening Trump described Friday as a possible "beginning of the end" of a war now in its fifth year. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia was neither observing the truce nor "even particularly trying to," and warned that any large-scale Russian attack would draw an immediate Ukrainian response.
On the ground
Ivan Fedorov, head of the Zaporizhzhia region, said one person was killed and three others wounded by Russian artillery and drone attacks in the past 24 hours. Local officials reported another 16 people wounded across other regions of Ukraine. In the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine's Kherson region, Moscow-installed leader Vladimir Saldo said two people were injured by Ukrainian shelling.
Zelenskyy said in an evening statement that Ukraine had refrained from long-range retaliatory strikes during the lull. "We will continue to respond in the same mirrorlike manner, and if the Russians decide to return to full-scale warfare, our response will be immediate and significant," he said.
Moscow's count
Russia's defense ministry, citing a daily briefing carried by state media, accused Kyiv of committing more than 1,000 ceasefire violations, including attacks on civilian targets inside Russia and strikes on Russian military positions along the front line. The ministry said its forces had "responded in kind."
The Kremlin also pushed back on Zelenskyy's weekend gibe that Red Square was "temporarily off-limits" to Ukrainian drones for the May 9 parade, dismissing the remark as a "silly joke." Russia held the parade Saturday without the tanks and missiles that have rolled through the square every year since 2008.
Diplomacy
Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said Sunday that U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, who have led the U.S. negotiating effort, are expected in Moscow "soon enough." Ushakov said Russia would not soften its demand that Ukrainian troops withdraw from the eastern Donbas region. "Until (Ukraine) takes that step, we can hold several more rounds, dozens of rounds (of negotiations), but we'll be stuck in the same place," Ushakov said, according to the state news agency Tass.
The counterpoint
Moscow's framing is that the larger share of breaches has come from the Ukrainian side, with the defense ministry's tally of more than 1,000 violations dwarfing the incidents Kyiv has documented. Previous unilateral or short-term pauses, including one declared by Russia at Orthodox Easter, have collapsed without producing prisoner exchanges or territorial movement, and broader U.S.-led talks to end the war have largely stalled.
The truce is scheduled to expire at the end of Monday, Victory Day in Russia. Trump said Friday the pause would also bring an exchange of prisoners; neither side had announced a swap by Sunday evening.