Vladimir Putin is calling for an Easter truce to pause the Ukraine war until Monday, but Volodymyr Zelensky pointed to Russia’s continued military activities in voicing swift skepticism over the proposal.
Putin said Moscow would stop military operations beginning at 6 p.m. Saturday and running through midnight on Monday for humanitarian reasons, Russia’s first attempt to temporarily stop the fighting in Ukraine after over three years of conflict.
“Guided by humanitarian considerations, today from 18:00 to midnight from Sunday to Monday, the Russian side declares an Easter truce. I order all military actions to be stopped for this period,” Putin said in a statement on the Kremlin’s official Telegram.
In another statement, Russia’s defense ministry said its forces would observe the proposed Easter cease-fire if Ukraine responds accordingly. A temporarily stoppage would give both nations the ability to peacefully celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday.
But Ukrainian President Zelensky said Saturday that air-ride alerts continue throughout Ukraine and accused Putin of toying with human lives.
“As for yet another attempt by Putin to play with human lives — at this moment, air raid alerts are spreading across Ukraine. At 17:15, Russian attack drones were detected in our skies. Ukrainian air defense and aviation have already begun working to protect us. Shahed drones in our skies reveal Putin’s true attitude toward Easter and toward human life,” Zelensky said on social media.
Putin previously told President Trump that he would agree to a cease-fire on infrastructure attacks, only to attack Ukrainian infrastructure targets hours later in an apparent disregard for the negotiations.
Despite the ambiguity of the latest developments, both sides exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war in what is the largest exchange of the conflict to date. Zelensky said 277 Ukrainian servicemen were brought back from Russian captivity, and the Russian defense ministry said 246 Russian troops were returned from Ukrainian territory.
Putin’s claim of an Easter cease-fire comes after Russian forces struck Ukrainian civilians in Kharkiv with ballistic missiles on the morning of Good Friday, when many Ukrainian Orthodox Christians were observing Jesus’s crucifixion.
More than 100 were wounded, and more than 500 lost their homes, local police said. Russia’s defense ministry claimed the Good Friday assault targeted the site of drone launchers.
Zelensky confirmed the total wounded and condemned the Russian missile attack, while appealing to allies to provide more Patriot systems and other missile-defense systems to deter future attacks.
Russia’s Good Friday attack is not the only instance of Putin’s forces hitting civilians during sacred Christian holidays. Russian missiles hit the Ukrainian city of Sumy during Palm Sunday celebrations, killing 35 people on a day when Christians celebrate Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem ahead of His crucifixion.
Trump is seeking a peace agreement to halt the war in Ukraine, but floated abandoning the negotiations after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. would focus on other priorities if there are no signs of progress. Rubio addressed the matter on the same day he briefed NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on the broad peace framework the U.S. delivered to Russian and Ukrainian counterparts earlier in the week.
“We are now reaching a point where we need to decide and determine whether this is even possible or not, which is why we’re engaging both sides,” Rubio told reporters Friday. “But we’re not going to continue with this endeavor for weeks and months on end. . . . So, we need to determine very quickly now – and I’m talking about a matter of days — whether or not this is doable in the — over the next few weeks. If it is, we’re in. If it’s not, then we’ll have to — we have other priorities to focus on as well.”
Likewise, Trump warned that the U.S. could move on from negotiations. “Now, if for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say you’re foolish. You are fools, you horrible people,” Trump said. “And we’re going to just take a pass. But hopefully, we won’t have to do that.”