Russia snubs Ukraine's unilateral ceasefire, firing dozens of drones

Source: AP

Updated 6:16 AM EDT, May 6, 2026


KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia fired dozens of drones at Ukraine in nighttime attacks, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday, disregarding a unilateral ceasefire announced by Kyiv that began at midnight.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that Ukraine hadn’t abided by its own ceasefire, saying that air defenses shot down 53 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions, the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula and the Black Sea between Tuesday evening and dawn Wednesday.

Five people were killed by a Ukrainian drone strike on the city of Dzhankoi in Crimea, according to Russia-installed Gov. Sergei Aksyonov. He reported the casualties just after midnight, but posted about the attack itself more than 90 minutes earlier.

There had been no official sign from Moscow that it would heed Kyiv’s ceasefire, and there was little hope for a pause in hostilities as the war stretches into its fifth year following Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor. U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to stop the war over the past year have come to nothing. On Tuesday, Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine killed 27 people and wounded 120 others, all of them civilians, according to Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko. The war has killed more than 15,000 civilians, according to the United Nations.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-ceasefire-drones-missiles-crimea-484f28530eb0c2ce64fff9be5eb7c9d3