![\"Nestlé](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/1745081589_82_PMFDL77YGROO7KYVF2KUGBLXJM.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/DS6DEL76VZIURFA6XNIAI3EGIE.jpg\")
A Russian BM-21 \u201cGrad\u201d self-propelled 122mm multiple rocket launcher fires towards Ukrainian positions in Ukraine (Russian defence ministry press service via AP) (AP) <\/p>\nAccording to the Kremlin, the ceasefire will last from 6pm on Saturday to midnight on Easter Sunday, both Moscow time.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuided by humanitarian considerations, today from 18.00 to 00.00 from Sunday to Monday, the Russian side declares an Easter truce.<\/p>\n
\u201cI order that all military actions be stopped for this period,\u201d Mr Putin said at a meeting with chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov, the Kremlin\u2019s press service quoted him as saying.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe assume that the Ukrainian side will follow our example. At the same time, our troops must be ready to repel possible violations of the truce and provocations from the enemy, any of its aggressive actions,\u201d Putin said.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the ceasefire \u201canother attempt by Putin to play with human lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wrote on X that \u201cair raid alerts are spreading across Ukraine\u201d, and \u201cShahed drones in our skies reveal Putin\u2019s true attitude toward Easter and toward human life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Putin\u2019s announcement came after US President Donald Trump on Friday said negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are \u201ccoming to a head\u201d and insisted that neither side is \u201cplaying\u201d him in his push to end the grinding three-year war.<\/p>\n
![\"Russian](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/456NHQNVMJPXDOYJI5UDRSNTAQ.jpg\")
Russian soldiers launch a Supercam intelligence unmanned aerial vehicle in Ukraine. (Russian defence ministry Press Service via AP) (AP) <\/p>\n
Mr Trump spoke shortly after secretary of state Marco Rubio warned that the US may \u201cmove on\u201d from trying to secure a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there is no progress in the coming days, after months of efforts have failed to bring an end to the fighting.<\/p>\n
In January 2023, Mr Putin had ordered his forces in Ukraine to observe a unilateral, 36-hour cease-fire for Orthodox Christmas.<\/p>\n
Mr Zelensky had stopped short of stating his forces would reject Putin\u2019s request, but dismissed the Russian move as playing for time to regroup its invasion forces and prepare additional attacks.<\/p>\n
The ceasefire announcement came on the same day as Russia\u2019s defence ministry said its forces pushed Ukrainian forces from one of their last remaining footholds in Russia\u2019s Kursk region.<\/p>\n
Russian forces took control of the village of Oleshnya, on the border with Ukraine, the ministry said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnits of the North military group have liberated the village of Oleshnya in the Kursk region during active offensive operations,\u201d the ministry said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press was unable to immediately verify the claim and there was no immediate response from Ukrainian officials.<\/p>\n
According to Russian state news agency Tass, Russia is still fighting to push Ukrainian forces out of the village of Gornal, some seven miles south of Oleshnya.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Russian military has yet to push the Ukrainian Armed Forces out of Gornal \u2026 in order to completely liberate the Kursk region.<\/p>\n
\u201cFierce fighting is underway in the settlement,\u201d the agency reported, citing Russia security agencies.<\/p>\n
Russian and North Korean soldiers have nearly deprived Kyiv of a key bargaining chip by retaking most of the region, where Ukrainian troops staged a surprise incursion last year.<\/p>\n
In other developments, the Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia fired 87 exploding drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks overnight into Saturday.<\/p>\n
It said 33 of them were intercepted and another 36 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.<\/p>\n
Russian attacks damaged farms in the Odesa region and sparked fires in the Sumy region overnight, Ukraine\u2019s state emergency service said on Saturday. Fires were contained, and no casualties were reported.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s ministry of defence, meanwhile, said its air defence systems shot down two Ukrainian drones overnight into Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia and Ukraine said on Saturday they had swapped hundreds of prisoners in the largest exchange since the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[19550,522,19551,19552,332,657,333],"class_list":{"0":"post-33422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-easter-ceasefire","9":"tag-international","10":"tag-kursk-region","11":"tag-oleshnya","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-ukraine","14":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114365674625193089","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}