Command Palette

Search for a command to run...

Discover

Putin Says Ukraine War “Coming to an End” Amid US-Brokered Ceasefire

Putin Says Ukraine War “Coming to an End” Amid US-Brokered Ceasefire
View gallery

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the war in Ukraine was “coming to an end” as he addressed reporters at the Kremlin on 9 May, hours after presiding over a scaled‑back Victory Day parade in Moscow and as a U.S.-brokered three‑day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine took effect. The truce, running from 9–11 May and including a 1,000‑for‑1,000 prisoner swap, was announced by U.S. President Donald Trump and confirmed by both Moscow and Kyiv. bbc +1

Speaking after the muted Red Square ceremony, which for the first time in nearly two decades featured no tanks or missile carriers amid security fears over Ukrainian drones, Putin told journalists: “I think that the matter is coming to an end,” referring to what Russia still calls its “special military operation.” reuters +1 He simultaneously blamed a “globalist wing of Western elites” for prolonging the conflict and said he would only meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky once “final agreements have been reached,” naming former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder as his preferred European intermediary. bbc +1

Signal of Peace or Tactical Messaging?

Putin’s remarks coincided with an intense diplomatic push led by Washington, which has been seeking to convert the fragile ceasefire into a broader framework to end a war now in its fifth year and that has cost Russia an estimated 352,000 soldiers’ lives, according to a new independent assessment. bbc +1 Trump called the conflict “the worst thing since World War Two in terms of life,” saying 25,000 young soldiers were dying every month, and expressed hope the pause in fighting could be extended. bbc

The Kremlin cast Putin’s comments as openness to talks on both Ukraine and a wider European security order, stressing that Russia “is ready to talk with the EU but won’t make the first move.” gazetaexpress Yet Russia still controls just under one‑fifth of Ukrainian territory and continues to insist that any settlement must reflect what it calls “new realities” on the ground, a formulation widely read as entrenching its territorial gains. bbc Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War said the Victory Day messaging was “likely” aimed at disguising battlefield weakness and influencing Western diplomacy, noting that Moscow paired talk of ceasefires with threats of massive retaliation if Ukraine disrupted the parade. moneycontrol

Kyiv’s Cautious Response and a War-Weary West

Ukraine responded with a mix of tactical restraint and public scepticism. Days before the parade, Zelensky proposed his own earlier ceasefire, then accused Russia of violating it nearly 1,800 times through assaults and airstrikes, arguing Moscow uses such pauses to regroup. aljazeera On 9 May he signed a decree “permitting” Russia’s parade in Moscow and ordering that Red Square be excluded from Ukrainian strike plans during the event—an act couched as humanitarian and widely seen in Kyiv as trolling Putin while underscoring Ukraine’s ability to threaten the Russian capital. cnbc +1

European leaders, who have struggled to align their positions with a U.S. peace plan that critics say leans toward Russian demands on territory, largely welcomed the ceasefire but warned against premature talk of an endgame. wionews A survey of Western experts compiled by the Russia Matters project found broad agreement that Putin’s core aims—neutralizing Ukraine, limiting NATO and consolidating control over occupied regions—remain unchanged, with prospects for a durable peace still “dim” absent a major shift in the military balance or political will in Moscow. internazionale

The Bigger Picture

The juxtaposition of Putin’s upbeat language about an approaching end to the war with a pared‑down display of Russian military power and continuing hardline conditions for talks captured the ambiguity of the moment: a rare pause in large‑scale fighting, but few signs of compromise on fundamental issues like territory and Ukraine’s Western alignment. For Ukrainians and their allies, the challenge in the coming days will be to test whether the ceasefire can evolve into serious negotiations without locking in Russian gains; for the Kremlin, the task is to claim progress toward “victory” while managing mounting human and economic costs. Whether 9 May 2026 marks the beginning of the war’s final phase or just another tactical pause will depend less on rhetoric in Moscow than on what happens when the guns are scheduled to resume firing on 12 May.