Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a temporary Easter ceasefire in Ukraine starting Saturday, citing humanitarian reasons, as Russia and Ukraine swapped hundreds of captured soldiers in the largest exchange since Moscowās full-scale invasion started over three years ago.
According to the Kremlin, the ceasefire will last from 6 p.m. Moscow time on Saturday to midnight following Easter Sunday.
āWe 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,ā Putin said at a meeting with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, in a video shared by the Kremlinās Press Service.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the ceasefire āanother attempt by Putin to play with human lives.ā He wrote on X that āair raid alerts are spreading across Ukraine,ā and āShahed drones in our skies reveal Putinās true attitude toward Easter and toward human life.ā
Largest POW exchange so far
The two sides meanwhile exchanged hundreds of POWs on Saturday. Russiaās ministry of defence said that 246 Russian service members were returned from territory controlled by Kyiv, and that āas a gesture of goodwillā 31 wounded Ukrainian POWs were transferred in exchange for 15 wounded Russian soldiers in need of urgent medical care.
Zelenskyy said that 277 Ukrainian āwarriorsā have returned home from Russian captivity.
Both sides thanked the United Arab Emirates for their mediation.
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Putinās ceasefire announcement came after U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are ācoming to a headā and insisted that neither side is āplayingā him in his push to end the grinding three-year war.
Trump spoke shortly after Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the U.S. may āmove onā 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.
In January 2023, Putin had ordered his forces in Ukraine to observe a unilateral, 36-hour cease-fire for Orthodox Christmas. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had stopped short of stating his forces would reject Putinās request, but dismissed the Russian move as playing for time to regroup its invasion forces and prepare additional attacks.
Russia says its forces have retaken nearly all of Kursk
Russiaās defence ministry said Saturday its forces pushed Ukrainian troops from the village of Oleshnya, one of their last remaining footholds in Russiaās Kursk region where the Ukrainians staged a surprise incursion last year.
Gerasimov said Saturday in a report to Putin, quoted by Russian state media, that Russia had retaken nearly all of the territory from Ukrainian forces.
āThe main part of the regionās territory, where the invasion took place, has now been liberated. This is 1,260 square kilometres, 99.5 per cent,ā Gerasimov said.
Zelenskyy wrote on X that Ukrainian forces ācontinued their activity on the territory of the Kursk region and are holding their positions.ā
The Associated Press was unable to immediately verify the claim by Russia. Russian and North Korean soldiers have nearly deprived Kyiv of a key bargaining chip by retaking most of the region.
According to Russian state news agency Tass, Russia is still fighting to push Ukrainian forces out of the village of Gornal, some 11 kilometres south of Oleshnya.
āThe Russian military has yet to push the Ukrainian armed forces out of Gornal ā¦ in order to completely liberate the Kursk region. Fierce fighting is underway in the settlement,ā the agency reported, citing Russia security agencies.
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. It said 33 of them were intercepted and another 36 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.
Russian attacks damaged farms in the Odesa region and sparked fires in the Sumy region overnight, Ukraineās State Emergency Service said Saturday. Fires were contained, and no casualties were reported.
Russiaās ministry of defence, meanwhile, said its air defense systems shot down two Ukrainian drones overnight into Saturday.
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