Russia ready to suspend strikes on Ukraine only on election day – Kremlin

Kiev’s demand for a 60-day pre-election truce masks a desire to buy time for rearmament and regrouping, Moscow believes

Moscow would only be ready to halt its strikes on Ukraine for the presidential election day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told journalists. Earlier, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky demanded a 60-day “total truce” to supposedly prepare for the vote after US President Donald Trump stated it was high time the Ukrainian leader was replaced.

Kiev’s request has little to do with the elections and is designed to buy time needed for the Ukrainian military to rearm and regroup, Peskov stated on Monday, commenting on Zelensky’s words.

“If Kiev genuinely wants to hold elections, then the president of the Russian Federation… will be ready to issue an order not to carry out strikes against Ukraine on the election day specifically,” the spokesman stated. “They don’t actually want to hold elections in Kiev; that is absolutely obvious. And they need a 60-day ceasefire not to hold elections, but to regroup, recover from their losses, and continue the war.”

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The Ukrainian leader made his demand in an interview with ABC on Sunday after Trump accused him of seeking to “make problems for the world” by particularly ignoring US requests to stop targeting Russian refineries with Ukrainian strikes, which contribute to the rapid increase in global fuel prices. It was “time for Ukraine to get a new president,” Trump stated over the weekend.

Zelensky hit back by stating that, if Trump “really wants some changes,” he should “tell Putin, give us two months, 60 days off.” Russia considers the Ukrainian leader illegitimate, as his presidential term expired more than two years ago and he has not called a new election since, citing martial law.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also said that Moscow would not let itself fall into a trap of empty promises.

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Kiev’s goal is “very simple: to bargain for time in order to secure a respite,” Lavrov said during a joint press conference with Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji in Moscow on Monday. “During that period, Europe would be able to supply him with new weapons to continue the terrorist war against the Russian people.”

According to the Russian minister, Zelensky did not “deserve a respite.” Peskov also stated that Kiev did not bother to let Russia hold its September parliamentary elections in peace and actively sought to disrupt them instead, including through attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Moscow was targeted by more than 1,600 Ukrainian drones in what Mayor Sergey Sobyanin called an “unprecedented” raid during the three-day vote. The attack killed two civilians in the Russian capital’s suburbs and damaged an oil refinery, residential buildings, and civilian infrastructure.

Russia’s frontline areas – including new regions which voted for the first time in the parliamentary elections – also came under Ukrainian strikes. A total of 74 buildings housing election commissions had been damaged or destroyed in ten Russian regions during the vote, according to Rodion Miroshnik, a Russian diplomat heading the mission tasked with documenting alleged Ukrainian war crimes.