Since ceasefire talks began, life in Ukraine has become more dangerous

Boston Globe

02-05-2025

On March 11, Ukraine launched on Moscow its largest drone assault of the entire war — the morning of the day it agreed to a cease-fire. The barrage killed three people and wounded 18 others in the Russian capital and nearby, Russian authorities said.
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Overall, the first months of this year, coinciding with the Trump administration's peace talks, have clocked in as far deadlier than the same period last year, according to the United Nations.
Analysts say an increase in violence during ceasefire talks is not unusual in wars. When talks are underway in conflicts, they say, warring armies tend to jockey for advantage before a truce halts the fighting. The result can be more casualties, particularly in Ukraine as flurries of strikes overwhelm air defenses.
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'If there is going to be a moment when they cannot pursue military action, you expect armies to get in whatever blows they want before they have to stop,' Samuel Charap, a Russia analyst at the Rand Corp., said in a phone interview. 'I don't think an increase in attacks necessarily means rejection of the negotiating process.'
In 2014 and 2015, Russia escalated military action sharply in Ukraine before or during cease-fire talks, capturing the eastern towns of Ilovaisk and Debaltseve to force political terms on Kyiv. 'There are things militaries want to achieve before a potential cessation of hostilities,' Charap said.
The new run of attacks has put Ukrainians on edge. Olena Khirkovska, 57, an accountant whose apartment was destroyed in a Russian missile strike in Kyiv on April 24, said the strikes seemed intended to frighten Ukrainians into accepting an unfavorable deal.
'We are strong; fear us,' was the message of the attacks, she said, adding, 'It feels like they don't want peace at all' while engaging in negotiations.
President Trump began the cease-fire talks Feb. 12, with phone calls to President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. Since then, the Trump administration has pursued separate rounds of negotiations with Ukrainian and Russian officials.
During talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on March 11, Ukraine agreed to the US proposal for an unconditional 30-day cease-fire. Later in March, Russia and Ukraine agreed to a limited truce covering strikes on energy infrastructure, but each accused the other of violating that.
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Russia offered a 30-hour cease-fire on Easter Sunday, and Ukraine accepted. Again, each side accused the other of violations but acknowledged that violence declined during the truce.
Putin has proposed a three-day cease-fire next week for the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Vice President JD Vance in an interview Thursday with Fox News suggested a drawn-out timeline for talks stretching into the summer. The war, Vance said, would not end 'anytime soon.' Russia and Ukraine, he said, had laid out their terms for a settlement. 'We're going to work very hard over the next 100 days to try to bring these guys together,' Vance said.
The pace of Russian missile and drone attacks rose after Trump's phone call in February with the two leaders, an analysis of Ukrainian air force reports shows. In the 30 days that followed the calls, Russia launched 4,694 missiles and drones at Ukraine, compared with 1,873 in the 30 days before the calls.
After the bombardment of Kyiv that pancaked an apartment building, Trump wrote in a social media post of Putin, 'It makes me think that maybe he doesn't want to stop the war.'
It is not clear that the increase in attacks is linked to the talks. Russia has for months been ramping up exploding drone assaults after a factory producing the most common model, an Iranian-designed drone called a Shahed, came online last year, said Mark F. Cancian, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. 'That's a reflection primarily of availability,' he said. 'They fire everything they have.'
But there was a change in Russian tactics, analysts said. Rather than striking multiple targets throughout Ukraine, it has focused many nights on one intensive bombardment of a single city or town.
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That tactic overwhelms Ukrainian air defenses and 'results in much greater destruction and human casualties,' said Oleksiy Melnyk, a military analyst at the Razumkov Center, a research organization, in Kyiv. The goal, he said, is to stir opposition to the war in Ukraine and raise 'pressure on the Ukrainian government' to accept settlement terms.
The UN documented more than 2,641 civilians killed or wounded in the first three months of this year, Joyce Msuya, the UN assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told diplomats at the United Nations on Tuesday. That was nearly 900 additional dead and wounded civilians in Ukraine compared with the same period last year, she said.
The rate of civilian deaths rose further in April, coinciding with a period when US negotiators met separately with Ukrainian and Russian officials for talks.