Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky accuses Putin of creating ‘impression’ of Easter ceasefire while continuing strikes – UK Times

Russian president Vladimir Putin said “humanitarian considerations” were behind his decision to announce an Easter ceasefire yesterday.

“Based on humanitarian considerations, today starting from 6pm (3pm GMT) to 12am Monday the Russian side announces an Easter ceasefire,” Putin told his military chief, Valery Gerasimov, at a Kremlin meeting.

The Russian president said the temporary truce would demonstrate whether Kyiv was willing to comply with agreements and participate in peace negotiations, which he said will be aimed at “eliminating the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis”.

Russia uses the “root causes” phrase to refer to its pre-war demands for Ukraine to never be a part of Nato and for regime change in Kyiv.

However, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has accused his Russian counterpart of making the announcement for “headlines” instead of showing genuine confidence-building peace measures.

Zelensky said Russian troops continue to carry out attacks despite the ceasefire announcement.

Observers suspect Russia is attempting to curry favour with the US and portray itself as an agreeable negotiating partner with the limited ceasefire announcement.

American diplomats are growing frustrated that the Kremlin officials have “dragged their feet” regarding US president Donald Trump’s proposed unconditional general ceasefire, TheNew York Times reported, citing European officials privy to peace deal discussions.

Trump is also “losing his patience” and may withdraw from the peace process, Axios reported, citing two European diplomats.

The US president also said yesterday that he hopes to conclude a peace deal in Ukraine “quickly” and that if either Ukraine or Russia “makes it very difficult” then “we’re just going to take a pass”.

Russian missile strike on the northeastern city of Kharkiv on Friday killed one civilian and injured at least 120 Ukrainians, according to the region’s governor Oleh Syniehubov.

The attack using ballistic missiles equipped with cluster munitions also damaged over 50 apartment buildings and over 30 vehicles, he said.

In recent times, Ukraine has accused Russia of increasingly using cluster munitions to cause widespread damage.

For instance, Ballistic missiles with cluster munition warheads struck Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast on 4 April, causing at least 89 casualties, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

Such attacks in recent weeks are increasingly targeting civilian areas, Ukraine claims.

Police and far-right protesters clashed outside Kyiv’s Zhovten cinema, the venue of the Sunny Bunny LGBTQ+ film festival, which is Ukraine’s first queer film festival.

Members of a far-right group called “Prava Molod” gathered outside the movie theatre in support of what they called “traditional values”, according to Suspilne media.

Police detained the demonstrators after a clash broke out.

“Ukraine is a secular state where people of different faiths and beliefs live side by side,” the festival organisers said in a statement.

“In a secular country, a variety of events, from theater to cinema, take place on any given holiday, and Sunny Bunny is just one of them,” they said.

The Ukrainian president said Russia’s true intentions for peace would be revealed only if a “complete ceasefire truly takes hold”.

“Ukraine proposes extending it beyond the Easter day of April 20. That is what will reveal Russia’s true intentions,” he said in a post on X, adding that only a ceasefire for at least thirty days “could give peace a chance”.

“Russian artillery fire has not subsided. Therefore, there is no trust in words coming from Moscow,” he said, accusing Russia of breaking its own Easter ceasefire.

“We know all too well how Moscow manipulates, and we are prepared for anything,” Zelensky said, adding Ukraine would react with “silence in response to silence, defensive strikes in response to attacks”.

Former UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said the US president is “not actually very good at doing deals” and could be “spectacularly unsuccessful” in brokering an end to the war in Ukraine.

“I think he [Trump] is prepared to walk away because he is not actually very good at doing deals, and I think he will want to shift on from the focus that he promised he would finish this in 24 hours,” Mr Wallace told BBC Radio 4.

“At the moment it looks like he will be spectacularly unsuccessful. I think he will want to change the subject and focus on China,” the former defence secretary said.

His comments come after the US president said on Saturday that he would abandon peace talks between Russia and Ukraine if there were no signs of immediate progress.

“Now if for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, ‘you’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people, and we’re going to just take a pass,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

“If he genuinely wants to solve this the US has to be prepared to lead by putting assets or skin in the game. And If it doesn’t it just effectively becomes a bystander…that many in Europe are starting to think is a cheerleader for Russia,” Wallace added.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has a history of breaking ceasefire agreements, including one last month when his troops struck Ukrainian power stations just hours after agreeing to an energy infrastructure ceasefire.

Russia has violated more than 25 ceasefires since the start of its aggression in 2014, according to a document presented by Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky to his American counterpart, Donald Trump.

In 2014, Ukraine, Russia, and the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) signed the first of two agreements in the Belarusian capital, Minsk.

The deal included provisions such as prisoner exchanges, the delivery of humanitarian aid, and heavy weapons withdrawal.

But just a day later, Ukraine’s defence council reported that Russian troops had opened fire on Ukrainian positions at least 10 times, effectively ending any substantive ceasefire.

Over the years, Russia and Ukraine have agreed to several ceasefires annually, often timed around Christmas and Easter, but none have held for long, Kyiv says.

You can read more on Putin’s ceasefire violations here:

Kyiv and Moscow swapped over 500 prisoners of war on Saturday – the latest in a series of exchanges since the war began in February 2022.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said 277 of Kyiv’s service personnel had returned home from Russian captivity.

Russia said 246 of its servicemen had been returned by Ukraine.

Ukraine’s parliament commissioner Dmytro Lubinets for human rights posted a video showing returning Ukrainian servicemen, many wrapped in the country’s national flag, seated on the edge of a tarmac and shouting patriotic slogans.