At least 27 people were killed and more than 80 wounded across Ukraine on Tuesday in a concentrated Russian barrage of missiles, glide bombs, and Shahed drones — launched hours before Kyiv’s unilateral ceasefire was due to begin at midnight, and three days before Moscow says it will observe its own Victory Day pause.

The death toll spanned the country. In Zaporizhzhia, 12 people were killed and 20 injured after Russian forces dropped guided aerial bombs, then sent Iranian-designed Shahed drones to strike the same locations as emergency crews arrived. In Kramatorsk, a frontline city in the east, glide bombs killed six people and wounded 12. Four died in Dnipro. Five more were killed in a strike on gas production facilities in the Poltava region.

“These are absolutely cynical, senseless terrorist strikes devoid of any military sense,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. He called the Poltava attack “especially vile” because Russia, as in Zaporizhzhia, launched a second missile at the same target while rescue workers were on the scene — a practice known as a double-tap strike.

City Council Secretary Rehina Kharchenko described the Zaporizhzhia assault in similar terms, telling Reuters it was a “cynical strike” followed by deliberate drone attacks on rescue locations.

Two ceasefires, no agreement

The strikes landed at a peculiar diplomatic moment. On Monday, both Russia and Ukraine declared unilateral ceasefires — on entirely different terms, with no coordination.

Kyiv said it would observe an open-ended ceasefire from midnight Tuesday, with Zelenskyy stating Ukraine would “act symmetrically” to Russian behavior from that point forward. The move was widely interpreted as an effort to seize the moral initiative: any violation would be pinned on Moscow.

Russia, meanwhile, announced it would pause fighting on Friday and Saturday to mark the 81st anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. Its defense ministry warned it would retaliate — including with a “massive missile strike” on central Kyiv — if Ukraine disrupted the festivities.

The two proposals share no monitoring mechanism, no agreed timeline, and no mutual recognition. They are unilateral in the fullest sense — parallel performances of peacemaking that acknowledge no counterpart.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres welcomed both ceasefires and reiterated his call for “a full, immediate, unconditional and lasting ceasefire,” according to spokesman Stephane Dujarric. US-led diplomacy has produced no tangible results.

What the timing signals

The pattern is familiar. Russia has declared short ceasefires throughout the war — timed to Orthodox Easter and other occasions — without producing movement toward negotiation. The scale of Tuesday’s attacks, arriving days before its own declared pause, underscores what Ukrainian officials have argued repeatedly: Moscow treats ceasefires as performance, not prelude.

“It’s utter cynicism to ask for silence to hold propaganda celebrations and to launch such missile-drone attacks every day beforehand,” Zelenskyy said.

Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said Russia’s main targets were energy infrastructure, oil and gas facilities, railways, and industrial sites — though homes and businesses were also hit. Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state energy company, said its facilities have come under attack 107 times since the start of the year.

The Kremlin has not commented on Tuesday’s civilian toll.

Ukraine reaches deep into Russia

Before its own midnight deadline, Ukraine kept up its long-range campaign. Ukrainian forces used domestically produced F-5 Flamingo cruise missiles to strike a military-industrial plant in Cheboksary, more than 1,500 kilometers from the front line. Zelenskyy said the facility produced navigation components for the Russian navy, missile industry, aviation, and armored vehicles.

Ukrainian drones also hit the Kirishi oil refinery in the Leningrad region near St. Petersburg, sparking a fire in the industrial zone, according to regional governor Alexander Drozdenko. Russia’s defense ministry claimed it destroyed 289 Ukrainian drones across 18 regions overnight.

Victory Day under shadow

The Kremlin’s nervousness is visible. This year’s Victory Day parade on Red Square has been scaled down, with no heavy military hardware on display — officially attributed to the “terrorist threat” from Ukraine. Muscovites were warned that mobile internet would be disrupted for several days around the celebrations. On Monday, a Ukrainian drone struck a high-rise in central Moscow.

“Russia could cease fire at any moment, and this would stop the war and our responses,” Zelenskyy said. “Peace is needed, and real steps are needed to achieve it.”

Those steps remain absent. The rival ceasefires will come and go — and the bombardment will resume the moment the last formation marches across Red Square.

Sources