A three-day ceasefire in Ukraine that was unilaterally declared by Russian President Vladimir Putin last month was set to come into effect at 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday (midnight Moscow time), as Russia prepares to mark the anniversary of its World War II Victory Day on Friday.

It was not immediately clear whether Russian forces observed the ceasefire.

A statement from the Kremlin last month said that Putin ordered “all military actions” in Ukraine to be suspended from midnight May 8 to midnight May 11 based on “humanitarian considerations.”

Kyiv rejected the short-term truce when it was first announced. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky called Putin’s announcement a “theatrical performance” and reiterated his country’s support for an earlier US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire which Russia has rejected.

The three-day period Putin picked for the ceasefire coincides with Russia’s World War II Victory Day commemorations, including a traditional military parade set for Friday, May 9.

The high-profile event is expected to be attended by the leaders of several countries that are friendly with Russia, including China’s Xi Jinping.

As in previous years, it is expected to be used by Putin and his government to peddle propaganda, which falsely frames Moscow’s current aggression against Ukraine as a fight against a “Nazi” regime in Kyiv.

Ukrainian drones shut Moscow airports

As Russia prepares to mark the anniversary of the end of WWII, Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow for the second consecutive night overnight into Wednesday.

The attacks forced Russian authorities to temporarily halt air traffic at 13 airports – four in Moscow and nine further afield.

More drones were flying on Wednesday, with the Moscow mayor Sergey Sobyanin saying one drone that was heading to Moscow was shot down on Wednesday afternoon.

The shutting down of airports was potentially embarrassing for Moscow, as delegations from countries that have remained friendly to Russia were flying in to attend the parade on Friday.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Vietnam’s President To Lam and Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko are among the 29 leaders on the guestlist, according to Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov.

Ukraine has previously said it “cannot be responsible for what happens on the territory of the Russian Federation” because of the war.

Zelensky said his country would not be “playing games to create a pleasant atmosphere to allow for Putin’s exit from isolation on May 9.”

While Russia has rejected the US ceasefire proposal, the unilateral ceasefire around the Victory Day celebration was the second short-term truce Putin announced in less than a month.

In a surprise move over Easter, the Russia leader announced he instructed his troops to stop all military activity for some 30 hours. Ukraine accused Russia of breaching the truce, although it did say that fighting has slowed along some parts of the front lines.

Valerie the dachshund has finally been reunited with her owners after surviving 540 days alone on Kangaroo Island in South Australia.

Owners Georgia Gardner and Josh Fishlock described the moment they got to hold the tiny pup in their arms in a statement published Wednesday.

Gardner said she “burst into tears” when Valerie ran up to her as they saw each other again for the first time on Tuesday.

“She was wagging her tail, making her little happy sounds, and wiggling around with joy. I held her and cried and cried,” she said in the statement.

“She’s stockier now, strong and healthy… healthier than we are, honestly!” added Gardner.

Fishlock said the pair hadn’t expected to see Valerie again.

“It still doesn’t feel real,” he said in the statement.

Valerie, who will soon celebrate her third birthday, went missing on a camping trip to the island in November 2023.

When strangers tried to help, she fled into the undergrowth, and her owners eventually gave up and returned home to the mainland.

With no sightings it was assumed Valerie had met her match with a snake or perhaps one of the giant Rosenberg’s goannas — reptiles up to 1.5 meters (5 feet) long — that occupy the island.

However, reports of sightings started to emerge, sparking a massive search operation led by volunteers from the Kangala Wildlife Rescue, a non-profit group set up in 2020 following the devastating Australian bushfires.

Valerie was eventually found on April 25, and has been looked after by the charity since.

Director Jared Karran described Valerie as “truly something special.”

“She was just so much smaller than we imagined. If it was a miracle before that she’d survived — seeing her size — it’s just unbelievable that she was able to survive and thrive out there!” he said in the statement.

Home to around 5,000 people, Kangaroo Island is about 45 minutes from the mainland by ferry. Tourists go there to see Australian native wildlife, but officials have long had a problem controlling introduced species including feral cats. The island is thick with bush, and there are many places for a small dog to hide.

Another difficulty is the island’s vibrant ecosystem, according to the charity.

“One of the reasons this is such a difficult rescue and not as easy as just baiting and setting traps, is due to the fact we are constantly competing with hundreds of wildlife like possums, wallabies, kangaroos, goannas and feral cats. All which are all just after a feed also,” the group said in a post on Facebook before the little dog was found.

Now Valerie is preparing to return home to Albury, New South Wales, where she will be reunited with Gardner and Fishlock’s other pets, Lucy the rescue cat, Mason the red heeler and their latest addition, Dorothy, a fellow dachshund.

India launched military strikes on Pakistan on Wednesday and Pakistan claimed it shot down five Indian Air Force jets, in an escalation that has pushed the two nations to the brink of war.

The escalation puts India and Pakistan, two neighbors with a long history of conflict, in dangerous territory, with Islamabad vowing to retaliate against India’s strikes and the international community calling for restraint.

New Delhi said the strikes are in response to the massacre of 26 people – mostly Indian tourists – who died in April when gunmen stormed a scenic mountain spot in the India-administered part of Kashmir, a disputed border region. India has blamed Pakistan for the attack, which Islamabad denies.

Here’s what we know so far.

What happened with India’s strikes?

India launched “Operation Sindoor” in the early hours of Wednesday morning local time (Tuesday night ET) in both Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Indian officials said nine sites were targeted, but claimed no Pakistani civilian, economic or military sites were struck. They said the 25-minute operation targeted “terrorist infrastructure” belonging to two militant groups – Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

The name ‘Sindoor’ appears to be a reference to the red vermilion, or powder, many Hindu women wear on their foreheads after marriage. The April tourist massacre – which singled out men as victims – left several Indian women widowed.

A Pakistani military spokesperson said six locations were hit with 24 strikes. Some of those strikes hit the densely populated province of Punjab, Pakistan’s military said, and were the deepest India has struck inside Pakistan since 1971, when the two countries fought one of their four wars.

How did Pakistan respond?

Pakistani security sources claimed they had shot down five Indian Air Force jets and one drone during India’s attack.

They did not say exactly where, or how, the jets were downed – but said three Rafale jets were among those planes. India’s Rafale fighter jets are prized military assets that it bought from France only a few years ago.

An eyewitness and local government official said an unidentified aircraft crashed in the village of Wuyan in Indian-administered Kashmir. Photos published by the AFP news agency showed aircraft wreckage lying in a field next to a red-brick building.

It was not immediately clear from the photos who the aircraft belonged to.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday the country “has every right” to respond, calling India’s actions an “act of war.”

How many casualties are there?

At least 26 civilians were killed and 46 injured by India’s strikes, a Pakistan military spokesperson said, according to the news agency Reuters.

Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s military, said those killed include teenagers and children – the youngest of whom was three years old.

Seven civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir were also killed by shelling by Pakistani troops from across the border, Reuters reported, citing police there.

What else is happening on the ground?

On Wednesday, the two sides also exchanged shelling and gunfire across the Line of Control (LOC), the de facto border that divides Kashmir.

Authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir have ordered citizens to evacuate from areas deemed dangerous, saying accommodation, food and medicine will be provided.

The strikes have disrupted flights, with Pakistan closing parts of its airspace. Multiple major international airlines are avoiding flying over Pakistan, while several Indian airlines have reported disrupted flights and closed airports in the country’s north.

Some context: There have been regular exchanges of gunfire along the Line of Control in the weeks following the Pahalgam massacre.

What prompted all of this? What is Kashmir?

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been a flashpoint in India-Pakistan relations since both countries gained their independence from Britain in 1947.

The two nations to emerge from the bloody partition of British India – Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan – both claim Kashmir in full and, months after becoming independent, fought their first of three wars over the territory.

The divided region is now one of the most militarized places in the world.

India has long accused Pakistan of harboring militant groups there that conduct attacks across the border, something Islamabad has long denied.

The massacre in the tourist hotspot of Pahalgam in April sparked widespread anger in India, putting heavy pressure on the Hindu-nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India immediately blamed Islamabad, sparking tit-for-tat retaliatory measures in which both countries downgraded ties, canceled visas for each other’s citizens, and saw India pull out of a key water-sharing treaty.

What could come next?

The three previous wars over Kashmir have each been bloody; the last one in 1999 killed more than a thousand Pakistani troops, by the most conservative estimates.

In the decades since, militant groups have fought Indian security forces, with violence killing tens of thousands. The two countries have clashed multiple times, most recently in 2019 when India conducted airstrikes in Pakistan after it blamed Islamabad for a suicide car bomb attack in the region.

But those recent clashes did not explode into all-out war. Both sides are aware of the risks; since 1999, the two countries have worked to strengthen their militaries, including arming themselves with nuclear weapons.

How is the world reacting?

The strikes have raised global alarm and pleas for the two nations to prevent further escalation.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres voiced “deep concern” over India’s strikes, warning that the world “cannot afford a military confrontation” between the two nations.

The United States – which had urged restraint from both countries last week – said it was “closely monitoring developments,” according to a State Department spokesperson.

“We are aware of the reports, however we have no assessment to offer at this time,” the spokesperson said Tuesday. “This remains an evolving situation, and we are closely monitoring developments.”

The United Arab Emirates, China and Japan have also called for both sides to de-escalate.

Families of October 7 hostages held in Gaza demanded any new information from the Israeli government after US President Donald Trump said three more captives had died.

“As of today, it’s 21. Three have died. So, this is a terrible situation,” Trump said on Tuesday.

The remark was a shock to the families of the hostages.

“We demand once again from the Israeli government – if there is new information that has been hidden from us, pass it on to us immediately,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said on Wednesday.

“The headquarters once again calls on the Prime Minister to stop the war until the last abductee is returned. This is the most urgent and important national task.”

Israel’s public and official position, reiterated on Tuesday by Israel’s Coordinator for the Captives and the Missing Gal Hirsch, is that 24 hostages are alive. “The Hamas terror organization is currently holding 59 hostages,” Hirsch said on social media several hours after Trump’s comments. “24 of them are on the list of living hostages.”

But there have been clear indications that Israel has reason to believe the true number is fewer, even beyond Trump’s comments.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu published a video statement in which he made the clearest acknowledgement, yet that Israel believes not all 24 are alive.

“We know for certain that there are 21 alive. There’s no argument about this. There’s three where there is doubt about whether they are alive,” he said in the prerecorded video. “We’re not giving up on anyone.”

Earlier this week, Netanyahu approved an expansion of the war in Gaza and a plan to force the Palestinian population into a shrinking tract of land in the southern part of the besieged territory. Israel says its military operations are intended to put pressure on Hamas to make a ceasefire agreement, but prospects for an imminent deal are quickly dwindling, and with them the hope of bringing the remaining hostages out soon.

Even before the latest video statement, Netanyahu has recently been careful to say that “up to 24” hostages are being held alive in Gaza.

Last week, when Netanyahu said there were “up to 24” living, his wife, Sara, interrupted him and said: “Fewer.”

The open mic moment sparked its own outcry from the families of the hostages. “If the wife of the prime minister has new information about the kidnapped who were killed, I demand from her to know if my Matan is still alive, or if he was murdered in captivity because your husband refuses to finish the war,” Einav Zangauker, the mother of one of the hostages, said on social media.

Israeli officials have said there are “grave concerns” about three of the hostages but would not say whether Israel knows for certain that they are dead.

Trump’s comments strongly suggest otherwise and appear to indicate that Israel has shared sensitive information about the condition of the hostages with the Trump administration.

More than 250 people were taken hostage when Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 – sparking the ongoing war in Gaza.