On Friday, May 24, 2024, Reuters reported that multiple unnamed Russian sources said that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be willing to cease Russia’s current war with Ukraine, provided the two nations could agree on a ceasefire that recognizes the current battlefield lines.
Russian forces are, according to the BBC, currently occupying large parts of the Donbas region, including the country’s fifth largest city, Donetsk, which has a metropolitan population of approximately 2 million.
Russian forces are additionally occupying Luhansk, Mariupol, and Melitopol, and have most recently made advances into north and north-eastern Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine.
As of March 2024, Russia has annexed more than 18% of Ukraine’s territory, the New York Times reports.
According to Reuters’ sources Putin is supposedly frustrated that the West and Ukraine, in his view, are unwilling to work towards a ceasefire.
Yesterday, Thursday, May 23, 2024, Russian strikes on the Ukrainian Kharkiv region killed at least seven people with several additional persons injured, also destroying one of Ukraine’s largest book printing facilities and more than 50,000 books in the process.
“Russian terrorists are killing adults and children, destroying cities and villages, leaving scorched patches where there was once simply normal life,” stated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a post on X, adding, “Russian terror must lose.”
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict traces back to February 2014, when Russia occupied and annexed the Crimean peninsula, and later that same year, multiple cities in the Donbas region.
In February 2022, Putin and Russia announced a so-called “special military operation,” and invaded Ukraine, initially attempting to take control of Kyiv.
Estimations put the casualties of the war as high as 500,000.
