Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the Security Council via a video link in Moscow, Russia, April 1, 2025.
Sergei Ilyin | Via Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a temporary Easter ceasefire in Ukraine, the Kremlin said Saturday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russian drone attacks continue.
According to the Kremlin, the ceasefire will last from 6 p.m. Moscow time on Saturday to midnight following Easter Sunday.
“Guided by humanitarian considerations, today from 18:00 to 00:00 from Sunday to Monday, the Russian side declares an Easter truce. I order that all military actions be stopped for this period,” Putin said at a meeting with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, the Kremlin’s Press Service quoted him as saying.
“We 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,” Putin said.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X on Saturday that, “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,” he wrote after receiving a report from his commander-in-chief.
“Shahed drones in our skies reveal Putin’s true attitude toward Easter and toward human life,” Zelenskyy wrote.
Putin’s announcement came on the same day as Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces pushed Ukrainian forces from one of their last remaining footholds in Russia’s Kursk region. Russian forces took control of the village of Oleshnya, on the border with Ukraine, the ministry said.
The Associated Press was unable to immediately verify the claim.
According to Russian state news agency TASS, Russia is still fighting to push Ukrainian forces out of the village of Gornal, some 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of Oleshnya.
“The Russian military has yet to push the Ukrainian armed forces out of Gornal … in order to completely liberate the Kursk region. Fierce fighting is underway in the settlement,” the agency reported, citing Russia security agencies.
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.
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, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said Saturday. Fires were contained, and no casualties were reported.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, said its air defense systems shot down two Ukrainian drones overnight into Saturday.
— CNBC contributed to this report.