The Kremlin rejected a call from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a 30-day cease-fire after the Ukrainian leader criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement of a three-day halt in their war to coincide with annual Victory Day celebrations in Moscow.
The unilateral mini-truce would take place on May 8-10 as Russia marks the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
As in past years, Putin will preside over the May 9 Victory Day parade in Red Square, marking the defeat of Nazi Germany. In recent years, he has used the event to whitewash history and attack the West.
Zelenskyy questioned the need to wait until then for a cease-fire, saying it was a move "just to provide Putin with silence for his parade.
"We value human lives, not parades," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address on April 28 while suggesting an "immediate, full, and unconditional" 30-day truce.
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A proposal from the United States for an unconditional cease-fire, which Ukraine had agreed to, was also still possible, Zelenskyy reiterated.
"Russia knows exactly what it needs to do and how to respond: to genuinely cease fire," he said.
Ukraine's foreign minister said earlier that the announcement by the Kremlin on April 28 was disingenuous and said it should begin immediately.
Russia's response on April 29, however, was to reject the longer "immediate" cease-fire, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying several issues first needed to be resolved.
"Without answers to these questions, it is difficult to enter into a long-term cease-fire," he said.
Putin has previously said during negotiations over the US proposal that it would have to contain clauses keeping Ukraine from using the pause to regroup and rearm its forces, as well as halting Western arms supplies to Kyiv. He offered no concessions by Russia in return.
It's the second time this month that the Kremlin has called for a halt to fighting. A proposal for the Easter holiday earlier this month was largely ignored as Russia and Ukraine continued to batter one another.
On the night of April 28-29, Russia launched a drone attack on civilian areas in Ukraine, according to officials.
One of the drones struck a residential area in the Dnipropetrovsk region, killing a child, Ukrainian authorities said.
Children were reportedly trapped under the rubble, and one child, a 12-year-old girl, died on the way to the hospital.
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Child Killed In Russian Drone Strike On Residential Area In Ukraine
Elsewhere, Russia launched 20 drones and 31 guided bombs at Kharkiv, the Associated Press reported.
In Kyiv, debris from a downed drone sparked a neighborhood fire, officials said.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said its air defense units destroyed 51 Ukrainian drones in less than three hours late on April 28. A ministry statement posted on Telegram said its units had destroyed 40 drones over the western Kursk region. Other drones were destroyed over the central Oryol region and Belgorod in the south and over the Crimean Peninsula and the Black Sea.
Efforts to reach a bilateral cease-fire or a broader peace deal kicked into higher gear as US President Donald Trump took office in January, vowing to end fighting within 24 hours.
SEE ALSO: Study Shows Russia 'Widening Gap' With Ukraine On Military SpendingHis predecessor, Joe Biden, refused to engage in substantive talks with Moscow so long as the invasion continued.
Though Trump has opened direct talks with Moscow, Russian officials have sought to broaden the negotiations to include not just the Ukraine conflict, but the wider bilateral relationship between Washington and Moscow.
Russia and Ukraine agreed on a limited cease-fire in March, but the two sides have continued to attack one another. On the battlefield, Russian forces have pressed their advantage -- in men and in weaponry -- to grind down Ukraine's troops.
Over the weekend on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral at the Vatican, Trump had his first face-to-face meeting with Zelenskyy since February, when Oval Office talks imploded in acrimony.
Trump said the meeting had gone well, but he added that he thought Zelenskyy is ready to give up Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula to Russia as a concession -- something the Ukrainian leader has long stated he would never do.
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Trump later called on Putin to "stop shooting" and agree to a peace deal.
Experts say Putin has been dragging out talks because his forces have the momentum on the battlefield and a cease-fire at the current line of contact would leave him short of one of his main goals: fully capturing the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims to have annexed: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson.
They add that ceding territory to Russia would be politically and constitutionally impossible for Zelenskyy. Ukrainian citizens and lawmakers appear strongly opposed to the idea.
Russia wants any peace deal to recognize its control of nearly 20 percent of Ukraine, including Crimea. It also wants Ukraine to be de-militarized and kept out of NATO. Moscow has also rejected Kyiv's demand for a Western peacekeeping force to monitor any cease-fire agreement.