In Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, a three-day ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow expiring later on Monday brought little respite to residents exhausted by more than four years of Russia’s invasion.

The three-day truce was announced on Friday by US President Donald Trump, just hours before Russia’s World War II victory celebrations, with Trump saying he hoped the ceasefire would mark “the beginning of the end” of the conflict.

But since the ceasefire began, the two countries have traded accusations of violating it with attacks on civilians.

“This weekend my boyfriend and I were walking in the park, and there were still constant air alerts,” Anastasia Rybalka, a 23-year-old IT specialist told AFP in Zaporizhzhia, a major industrial city close to the front line and a frequent target of Russian drone and missile attacks. According to Kyiv, the Zaporizhzhia region was among those targeted by Russian drones.

“I can’t say that it looked like a ceasefire,” said Dmytro Zlochevsky, a 45-year-old English teacher, adding that he had “heard both explosions and shelling” outside the city.

“I think we better not count on this ceasefire turning into something bigger,” Zlochevsky added.

He said it was “just a period that the aggressor state begged Trump for, in order to hold its own parade. And afterwards they will continue all their actions aimed at destroying the Ukrainian people”.

Shortly after Trump announced the ceasefire, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ordered army not to attack Russia’s annual parade on Red Square. Moscow also confirmed that it had accepted the truce. AFP