{"id":5097,"date":"2026-04-11T16:44:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T16:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/5097\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T16:44:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T16:44:03","slug":"russia-and-ukraine-begin-32-hour-ceasefire-for-orthodox-easter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/5097\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia and Ukraine begin 32-hour ceasefire for Orthodox Easter"},"content":{"rendered":"

A temporary ceasefire<\/a> between Russia<\/a> and Ukraine<\/a> for Orthodox Easter<\/a>\u00a0began on Saturday afternoon as US-led diplomatic efforts to end the war falter.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin said it had ordered a a 32-hour truce truce<\/a> from Saturday at 4pm (13:00 GMT) until midnight on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Russia’s Defence Minister Andrei Belousov and army chief Valery Gerasimov have been instructed to “cease hostilities in all directions during this period”, the Kremlin said.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky<\/a> said Kyiv had “repeatedly stated” it was ready for a ceasefire over Easter and was willing to reciprocate.<\/p>\n

Read moreUkrainians sceptical as Kremlin orders Easter truce<\/a><\/p>\n

The temporary ceasefire came as US-led talks on ending the four-year-old conflict have been derailed by the Middle East war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The two sides also held a ceasefire for Orthodox Easter last year.<\/p>\n

\"Ukraine<\/p>\n

Ukraine soldiers at the funeral of a child killed in a Russian drone attack on a multi-storey residential building in Odesa. \u00a9 Oleksandr Gimanov, AFP <\/p>\n

Authorities in Ukraine’s southern Odesa said on Saturday that two people had been killed in Russian strikes, and two others wounded, just hours before the ceasefire was set to begin.<\/p>\n

Two people were killed and around 15 others wounded overnight Friday in two separate attacks in Ukraine’s central region of Poltava, and Sumy, a region in the northeast, regional authorities said.<\/p>\n

According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia launched 128 drones<\/a> against the country overnight Thursday.<\/p>\n

Slowdown in Russian military operations <\/p>\n

Several rounds of US-led talks have failed to bring the warring sides closer to an agreement and Washington’s attention is now focused on Iran.<\/p>\n

The negotiations have become deadlocked, with Moscow demanding territorial and political concessions that Zelensky has ruled out as tantamount to capitulation.<\/p>\n

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied Russia had discussed the ceasefire with Ukraine or the United States in advance and said it was not linked to negotiations to end the war.<\/p>\n

The war has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions to flee their homes, making it Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.<\/p>\n

\"Ukrainian<\/p>\n

Ukrainian servicemen cover the road with a net to protect vehicles from drone attacks in the Zaporizhzhia region. \u00a9 Darya Nazarova, AFP <\/p>\n

Over the past few years, fighting on the front has come to a near standstill<\/a>. Russia has made small territorial gains at a high cost.<\/p>\n

But Kyiv recently managed to push back in the southeast and Russian advances have been slowing since late 2025, according to the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).<\/p>\n

Apart from Ukrainian counter-attacks, analysts attributed the slowdown to Russia being banned from using SpaceX’s Starlink satellites and Moscow’s own efforts to block the Telegram messaging app<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The situation is, however, unfavourable for Ukraine in the Donetsk<\/a> region, towards the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, according to the ISW.<\/p>\n

Moscow occupies just over 19 percent of Ukraine, most of which was seized during the first weeks of the conflict.<\/p>\n

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A temporary ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine for Orthodox Easter\u00a0began on Saturday afternoon as US-led diplomatic efforts to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3395,73,5,372,308,586],"class_list":{"0":"post-5097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-ceasefire","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france","11":"tag-russia","12":"tag-ukraine","13":"tag-volodymyr-zelensky"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}