Ukrainians don’t trust Russia on cease-fires, as killing usually doesn’t stop

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. KYIV, Ukraine—It was a scorching summer day in 2014 when Artem Kravchenko and hundreds of other Ukrainian soldiers put their trust in a Russian promise not to open fire and retreated in a column from the surrounded city of Ilovaisk. By the end of the day, Kravchenko found himself lying in a ditch surrounded by dead comrades after Russian forces shot up the column.

With three Russian bullets in his body, he had to drink his own urine to survive. “They started shooting from the right, so we went to the left and met another ambush there," said Kravchenko, who was 23 years old at the time. “They were just shooting up everything from all sides." Experiences like these during the dozens of cease-fires that have come and gone in Russia’s 11-year war against this country are why many Ukrainians have little faith in the latest efforts, spearheaded by President Trump, to halt fighting.

The Russians “gave us a clear signal that they can’t be trusted," said Taras Samchuk, who also escaped Ilovaisk that day and is now a reserve medical officer. In the past, Russian President Vladimir Putin has used any pause as a pit stop on the way toward his ultimate goal: taking control of Ukraine. During earlier cease-fires, Moscow reinforced Russian paramilitaries, sought to extract political concessions from Ukraine and the West, or simply continued shooting and killing Ukrainians while Kyiv’s army was held back by Western calls for restraint.

U.S. officials will meet separately in Saudi Arabia on Monday with Russian and Ukrainian teams to discuss the technical details of a partial cease-fire agreed in calls with Trump. Both sides said they were prepared to halt attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure.