A truce in the war starting at midnight on May 6th. This was announced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as a response to the Kremlin’s decision for a ceasefire coinciding with the celebration of May 9th, Victory Day, on which the Russian Federation and former Soviet republics commemorate the capitulation of Nazi Germany and the end of the Second World War.
A celebration that became an official holiday in the Soviet Union in 1965. Later, after the collapse of the USSR, it returned to vogue in Russia with Vladimir Putin, which gave it back a triumphal character, as a celebration of the pride of the Russian people.
On the occasion of this holiday, Putin announced a truce for May 8 and 9. Zelensky relaunched by going further: the leader of Kyiv proposed to stop any attack on both sides as early as the night between May 5 and 6, stating that this period of time is already enough to test Moscow’s will and real intentions, and adding that the time has now come for Russia to take concrete steps forward to put an end to a war that has lasted for more than four years.
Meanwhile, Zelensky flew to Yerevan, Armenia, where he met the European leaders gathered at the summit of the European Political Community, together with the leaders of the EU and NATO. Zelensky’s presence in Yereven has a strong geopolitical value: in the last 24 years he is the first Ukrainian leader to visit Armenia. And the meeting of many European countries in the Caucasian nation, Zelensky said, “is a strong European signal to Russia”.
The European Political Community was in fact born in opposition and as a reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It is an intergovernmental forum for the coordination of policies of European countries, established in the aftermath of the start of the large-scale war in Ukraine, on the proposal of French President Emmanuel Macron, with the aim of addressing issues of common interest, strengthening security and the stability of Europe, isolating Russia and Belarus following military aggression against Ukraine.
