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Updated May 9, 2026 — 7:30am,first published 4:36am
US President Donald Trump said there will be a three-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine over the weekend, as well as a prisoner swap.
The ceasefire, which Trump said would run from May 9 to May 11, coincides with Russia’s Victory Day celebrations, the US president said in a social media post on Friday.
Trump said that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have both agreed to the proposal.
“This Ceasefire will include a suspension of all kinetic activity, and also a prison swap of 1,000 prisoners from each Country,” Trump wrote. “Hopefully, it is the beginning of the end of a very long, deadly, and hard fought War,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Trump’s announcement also said each country, locked in more than four years of conflict, would be exchanging 1000 prisoners of war.
Both Kyiv and Moscow have accused the other of violating ceasefires declared separately this week as Russia readies to hold a Victory Day parade on May 9 that marks the 1945 Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.
Trump has grown increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress in ending the Ukraine-Russia war, and a halt in fighting offers a bit of good news for the US president, whose war against Iran with Israel has hurt his domestic approval rating. Efforts to end the Iran war, now in its third month, appeared stalled amid new flare-ups in fighting in the Gulf.
Zelensky, writing on Telegram, confirmed the ceasefire had been arranged as part of US negotiating efforts and that humanitarian issues remained a key priority.
“That is why today, within the framework of the negotiation process mediated by the American side, we received Russia’s agreement to conduct a prisoner of war exchange in the format of 1000 for 1000,” Zelensky wrote.
Zelensky also issued a tongue-in-cheek decree “allowing” Russia’s May 9 military parade to proceed and saying Ukrainian weapons would not target Red Square.
Officials said on Thursday that Ukraine’s top negotiator, Rustem Umerov, had arrived in Miami for a series of meetings with US representatives as peace talks on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine have stalled in recent months.
The US-brokered talks are deadlocked over Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. Moscow demands Kyiv pull troops back from parts of the region it has failed to capture in its four-year full-scale invasion. Ukraine says it will not cede land that it controls.
Moscow and Kyiv have both accused each other of violating ceasefires that each has separately declared.
