A Recent Example of Mixed Bounding

This morning, April 28, 2025, I encountered a new piece from CBS News with the headline:

Putin declares unilateral 3-day ceasefire in Ukraine after being accused of violating Easter truce

The first part of the first sentence reads:

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has ordered a three-day ceasefire in his country’s war on Ukraine, from May 8-10, …

We already know from two instances that the ceasefire will last three days. However, “… from May 8-10…” is a bounding statement that excludes May 8. In other words, the bounding statement expresses a two-day pause instead of a three-day pause.

The exclusionary from is mixed with the inclusionary hyphen. CBS News would have a consistent statement merely by removing from.

I believe that the vast majority of readers will overlook (be oblivious to) the muddling and correctly assume that May 8 is to be included in the ceasefire. But if you are a soldier in Ukraine, do you really want to assume that there is a ceasefire—that no one is shooting at you on May 8?

If a reader (for instance, Daniel Thompson) can obtain a Russian speaker to read the original Russian communique (not the English translation), I want to know if the Russians made this bounding error or if it was made by others subsequently.

Nonetheless, I predict this muddling will be repeated thousands of times throughout the world news media in many languages.