Reports of fighting continuing after ‘Easter truce’ expirespublished at 07:11 British Summer Time
07:11 BST
James Waterhouse
Ukraine correspondent in Mykolayiv
Hours after a one-day Easter ceasefire, declared by Russia, finished last night, there were air alerts across eastern Ukraine and the central Kyiv region.
Both Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of breaking the truce thousands of times. Washington said it hoped it would have been extended beyond 30 hours.
There were blasts recorded in the southern city of Mykolayiv, where I am now. This part of southern Ukraine was in a minority of areas that saw a relative respite in fighting after Vladimir Putin suddenly announced an Easter truce.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said his troops would always mirror Russia’s actions, and claimed Moscow had violated its own ceasefire almost 3,000 times and instead readied its forces for future assaults. There were continued artillery and drone strikes reported in the embattled eastern city of Pokrovsk.
However, under pressure from the White House to pursue peace, Ukraine’s leader did propose a new, longer ceasefire on long-range missile and drone attacks, as there were no air raid alerts across Sunday, which is extremely rare.
It’s not clear if the Kremlin, which said it had no plans to extend the truce, will accept.
US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, says he hopes Russia and Ukraine will make a peace deal this week.
“They can both start to do business with the US, which is thriving, and make a fortune!” he declared.