Russia snubs Ukraine’s unilateral ceasefire, firing dozens of drones

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Russia snubs Ukraine’s unilateral ceasefire, firing dozens of drones

2026-05-06 16:57 Last Updated At：17:00

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia fired dozens of drones at Ukraine in nighttime attacks, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday, disregarding a unilateral ceasefire announced by Kyiv that began at midnight.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that Ukraine hadn’t abided by its own ceasefire, saying that air defenses shot down 53 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions, the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula and the Black Sea between Tuesday evening and dawn Wednesday.

Five people were killed by a Ukrainian drone strike on the city of Dzhankoi in Crimea, according to Russia-installed Gov. Sergei Aksyonov. He reported the casualties just after midnight, but posted about the attack itself more than 90 minutes earlier.

There had been no official sign from Moscow that it would heed Kyiv’s ceasefire, and there was little hope for a pause in hostilities as the war stretches into its fifth year following Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor. U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to stop the war over the past year have come to nothing.

On Tuesday, Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine killed 27 people and wounded 120 others, all of them civilians, according to Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko. The war has killed more than 15,000 civilians, according to the United Nations.

Both sides have kept up long-range strike campaigns. On the roughly 1,250-kilometer (800-mile) front line, meanwhile, Russia's bigger army remains engaged in a slow-moving and costly slog against Ukraine's drone-heavy defenses.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had announced the unilateral ceasefire after Russia said it would hold its own pause of hostilities over two days later this week while it marks the 81st anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. The Ukrainian leader said any breach of the ceasefire would trigger a military response.

European officials had welcomed Ukraine's unilateral move as a goodwill gesture illustrating its readiness for a peace settlement.

Russian forces launched 108 drones and three missiles overnight, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said, with attacks continuing throughout the night and into Wednesday morning.

“Moscow once again ignored a realistic and fair call to end hostilities, supported by other states and international organizations,” Sybiha said in a post on X.

Moscow’s proposal to stop fighting on Friday and Saturday follows a pattern of Russia declaring short unilateral ceasefires during the war timed to coincide with various holidays, most recently Orthodox Easter.

Those suspensions of combat don’t produce any tangible results amid deep mistrust between the warring sides.

Sybiha said Russia’s actions exposed its calls for a separate ceasefire around May 9 as insincere. “Putin only cares about military parades, not human lives,” he said.

The diplomat called for increased international pressure on Moscow, including new sanctions, diplomatic isolation, accountability measures for war crimes and expanded military and civilian support for Ukraine.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

South Carolina joins Southern redistricting push after US Supreme Court ruling on minority districts

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — An election-year redistricting movement has spread to South Carolina as Republicans attempt to redraw majority-Black congressional districts that have suddenly become susceptible because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upending protections for minority voters.

Urged on by President Donald Trump, South Carolina Republicans are attempting to redraw a district long held by a Black Democratic lawmaker in their quest for a clean sweep of the state's seven congressional seats.

Lawmakers already are meeting in special sessions in Alabama and Tennessee in a bid to change their U.S. House districts. And Louisiana lawmakers also are making plans for new congressional districts after the Supreme Court last week struck down the state’s current map.

The high court’s ruling said Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The ruling significantly altered a decades-old understanding of the law, giving Republicans grounds to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.

The ruling revved up an already intense national redistricting battle ahead of a November midterm election that will determine control of the closely divided House.

Since Trump prodded Texas to redraw its U.S. House districts last year, a total of eight states have adopted new congressional districts. From that, Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats while Democrats think they could gain up to 10 seats. But some of the new districts could be competitive in November, meaning the parties may not get all they sought.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn has represented South Carolina’s 6th Congressional District since it was redrawn to favor minority voters in 1992. He’s running for an 18th term. But it could get harder for him to win reelection if Republicans redraw his district.

Leaders in the state House and Senate said a redistricting effort needs to start with a two-thirds vote in each chamber. The issue could come up as soon as Wednesday. But if only a few Republicans aren’t on board, it can’t succeed.

Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey has warned that redistricting could backfire because of thin political margins, resulting in a second Democrat in the U.S. House. Massey told reporters Tuesday that he had a cordial conversation with Trump about redistricting, each laying out their concerns.

The state’s primaries are June 9 and early voting starts in three weeks.

The House on Wednesday could debate legislation that would allow Alabama to hold a special congressional primary, if the Supreme Court clears the way for the state to change its U.S. House districts.

In light of the court’s ruling on Louisiana’s districts, Alabama officials have asked courts to set aside a judicial order to use a U.S. House map that includes two districts with a substantial number of Black voters. Republicans instead want to use a map passed in 2023 by the Legislature that could help the GOP win at least one of those two seats currently held by Democrats.

Alabama’s primaries are scheduled for May 19. If the Supreme Court grants the state’s request after or too close to the primary, the legislation under consideration would ignore the results of that primary and direct the governor to schedule a new primary under the revised districts.

Democrats denounced the legislation as a Republican power grab that harkens back to the state’s shameful history of denying Black residents equal rights and representation.

Republicans are “working to secure an electoral victory by taking Alabama back to the Jim Crow era, and we won’t go back,” Democratic U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell told a crowd gathered outside the Alabama Statehouse.

Republican Gov. Bill Lee called Tennessee lawmakers into a special session to consider a plan urged by Trump that could break up the state’s lone Democratic-held U.S. House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis. Republicans didn't say much about the plan Tuesday.

But as the Senate began work Tuesday, shouts of “shame, shame, shame” could be heard inside the chamber from protesters gathered in the hallways. On the chamber floor, Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Black Democrat from Memphis, called the redistricting “an act of hate.”

Martin Luther King III sent a letter to Tennessee legislative leaders expressing “grave concern” about the plan to divide Memphis, saying the move could undermine the work for voting rights carried out by his father, Martin Luther King Jr.

The candidate qualifying period in Tennessee ended in March, and the primary election is scheduled for Aug. 6.

After last week’s Supreme Court decision, Republican Gov. Mike Landry postponed the state’s May 16 congressional primary to allow time for lawmakers to approve new U.S. House districts. State Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, a Republican, said a redistricting committee he leads plans to hold a public hearing Friday.

Louisiana voters had already sent in more than 41,000 absentee ballots by last Thursday, when Landry suspended the House primaries, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. That’s about a third of all the absentee ballots sent out to voters. Around 19,000 were from registered Democrats, 17,000 from registered Republicans and the remainder belonged to neither party.

Democrats and civil rights groups have filed several lawsuits challenging the suspension of Louisiana’s congressional primary.

Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama, Loller from Nashville and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri. Associated Press writer Jack Brook contributed from New Orleans.