Winnipeg Free Press

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Get Ready For A2 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM NEWS FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 2025 VOL 154 NO 138 Winnipeg Free Press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 2025 Winnipeg Free Press, a division of FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership. Published six days a week in print and always online at 1355 Mountain Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba R2X 3B6, PH: 204-697-7000 CEO / MIKE POWER Editor / PAUL SAMYN Associate Editor Enterprise / SCOTT GIBBONS Associate Editor News / STACEY THIDRICKSON Associate Editor Digital News / WENDY SAWATZKY Director Photo and Multimedia / MIKE APORIUS NEWSMEDIA COUNCIL The Winnipeg Free Press is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to determine acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please send them to: editorialconcerns@freepress.mb.ca. 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INSIDE Arts and Life C1 Classifieds D8 Comics C5 Diversions C6,7 Horoscope C4 Jumble C6 Miss Lonelyhearts C4 Opinion A6,7 Sports D1 Television C4 Weather C8 COLUMNISTS: Tom Brodbeck A5 Gwynne Dyer A7 READER SERVICE ● GENERAL INQUIRIES 204-697-7000 CIRCULATION INQUIRIES MISSING OR INCOMPLETE PAPER? Call or email before 10 a.m. weekdays or 11 a.m. Saturday City: 204-697-7001 Outside Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 press 1 6:30 a.m. - 4 p.m. Monday-Friday.; 7 a.m. - noon Saturday; Closed Sunday TO SUBSCRIBE: 204-697-7001 Out of Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 The Free Press receives support from the Local Journalism Initiative funded by the Government of Canada “I thought it would be easier to deal with Zelenskyy, but it’s been harder,” he said. Zelenskyy arrived in South Africa on Thursday for talks but cut the trip short after the attack. “If Russia says it is ready for a ceasefire, then they should stop the massive strikes on Ukraine,” he said. At the scene of the attack, Ukrai- nians said they backed Zelenskyy’s approach. Kyiv municipal workers Oleh Gribanov and Maksym Krizhanovskiy, their coveralls and helmets dusty from clearing wreckage, expressed little surprise that Trump was finding it easier to work with Russia. “We don’t want to give our land away, and he wants us to give our land away and give up,” Gribanov said. “It’s easier to put a victim under pressure than an aggressor,” Krizha- novskiy said. Trump, he said, was “an imbecile.” Confused residents wandered through the wreckage Thursday, clutching dogs and cats rescued from destroyed apartments, where families the night before had gone to sleep peacefully. Rescue workers took turns digging through rubble to search for signs of life as anxious relatives and friends watched. One man, who identified himself as a lawmaker who had grown up in the neighbourhood, asked around about a man named Oleksandr. All he knew was that his friend’s red car sat crushed outside the impact site. A dust-covered woman, walking a black-and-white search dog named Maggie, said she was ready for a break after hours of work. The scene was all too familiar in Ukraine, where Russia has struck apartments again and again over the past three years: the rush of volun- teers; the tents for tea, water and snacks; the police yelling at people to stay away from buildings that might collapse; the clatter of bits and pieces of lives tossed from windows above as bewildered survivors stare blankly at what used to be their homes. Antonina Pakhtusyva, 71, said she felt the world has abandoned the country. “Ukraine is destroyed, burned, cov- ered in blood,” she said. “How many sons have died? And we ask for help, and they just humiliate us.” Her neighbour, Iryna Kukushnikva, 63, teared up. The people she felt most sorry for, she said, were the children — lives disrupted, or cut short. “We have lived through life already, but they are just starting out,” she said. She supported Zelenskyy’s decision to refuse a deal that many believe could condemn another generation to more war with Russia. “Zelenskyy is protecting his moth- erland — that’s why it’s difficult to deal with him,” she said. “Because he doesn’t sell his country out.” The death toll Thursday was un- usually high for the capital, where advanced air defence systems general- ly make it better protected than other cities. Teens Vladyslav Muravik and Zakhar Holodryha skipped school Thursday to help clean up after the destruction. A friend lives in one of the damaged buildings. They have been following Trump’s peace plan closely. “The Americans are very demand- ing, with demands that are unfair to Ukrainians,” Holodryha, 15, said. “If Ukraine agrees to the demands that are set right now, in three or four years this war will start again,” said 14-year-old Muravik. As boys, they’re aware of the risks of the war dragging out: They fear they will one day be called up to fight Rus- sia. Holodryha’s 31-year-old brother was conscripted while he waited at a bus stop. He’s now training for deploy- ment to the front line. “Kyiv hasn’t heard terror this loud in a long time,” lawmaker Inna Sovsun wrote on X as the attack unfolded. “And amid all this, Trump says Russia is ready for peace? There’s nothing surreal like hearing promises of peace while hiding from ballistic missiles.” Washington has become increasingly frustrated by Zelenskyy’s position on a necessary ceasefire. U.S. officials have proposed freez- ing current battle lines, which would give Russia 20 per cent of the country. Ukraine has also been told it will not be allowed to join NATO, the alliance Kyiv has long seen as the fastest, cheapest and safest way to protect the country from future attacks. Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that the United States would walk away from the peace pro- cess if progress was not seen soon. — The Washington Post PUTIN ● FROM A1 KATERYNA KLOCHKO / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Police officers calm an injured dog near a body covered by an emergency blanket, outside a multi-storey building damaged by a Russian strike in a residential neighbourhood of Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Tuesday. ;