Before the announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday afternoon, May 8, that a mutual ceasefire had been agreed to by Russia and Ukraine, Kiev had flagrantly ignored the truce, which Russia implemented as of midnight May 7-8. The Russian Ministry of Defense issued a statement earlier today reporting: “Despite the announced armistice, the Ukrainian armed groups continued to launch strikes using unmanned aerial vehicles and artillery against the positions of our troops, as well as against civilian objects in the border areas of Belgorod and Kursk regions.” The MOD statement said: “The AFU carried out 153 shelling attacks on Russian positions by artillery guns, MLRS, mortars, and tanks. They also launched 887 UAV strikes, including 394 attacks by FPV drones, 107 attacks by octocopter-type drones, 171 attacks by fixed-wing UAVs, and 215 drops of ammunition from UAVs….
“Under these conditions, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation responded to ceasefire violations in kind. Retaliatory strikes were delivered on MLRS, artillery, and mortar positions. UAV control posts and take-off sites were hit as well.”
Today Russian President Vladimir Putin convened an urgent “working meeting” of the permanent members of the Security Council. The meeting took a report from Deputy Prime MInister Vitaly Savelyev, a former minister of transportation and the former CEO of Aeroflot, on Kiev’s attack on the regional air traffic control center in Rostov-on-Don, near the mouth of the Don River as it flows into the Sea of Azov. Savelyev said that, although there were no casualties in the building, disablement of the center caused the closing of 13 airports in southern Russia, from Sochi on the Black Sea coast, through several in the North Caucasus, to Astrakhan and Volgograd on the Volga River. An emergency mobilization of engineers from the state-owned companies Rostec and Almaz-Antey is under way to evaluate the damage. Both those firms are heavily involved with the Russian military (Almaz-Antey produces air defense systems), as is the Rostov air traffic center itself. It is speculated that the strike was related to planned May 9 attacks by Ukraine and its sponsors, including possibly on the Crimean Bridge. Surveillance flights by aircraft and drones from NATO countries have been reported all week.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, during her May 7 press briefing, also noted that the ceasefire announcement was “by decision” of Putin. “This initiative was actively supported by U.S. President Donald Trump during a telephone conversation with President Putin on April 29, and triggered a nervous, hysterical reaction on Bankovaya Street,” she said. “Vladimir [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy clumsily attempted to diminish its significance and later alluded to the possibility of drone strikes targeting the Victory Day parade on Red Square. He was literally aghast at the prospect of holding commemorative events in Moscow marking the defeat of Nazism.” Zakharova added that Zelenskyy used the rostrum at the “European political community” summit in Yerevan on May 4 to “voice terrorist and Nazi-style threats.… These statements were made with the tacit consent, and in fact, the implicit approval of the leaders of European states.… This reveals their true colors, as well as the cards they were hiding up their sleeves. No, now there are no doubts left. This is exactly what they need.”
Zakharova took particular aim at the role of the British in fomenting war: “London is not interested in finding a solution in Ukraine. Naturally, they have no desire for peace; their actions are aimed solely at extending the violence.”
