Moscow continued to launch attacks on Saturday evening and early on Sunday despite the announcement by Russian President Vladimir Putin of a 30-hour ceasefire on Easter, said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Russian Defense Ministry also accused Ukrainian forces of doing the same.
Zelenskyy made its announcement Sunday morning in an article on X: “From Easter morning, we can say that the Russian army is trying to create a general impression of a ceasefire, but in certain places, this does not abandon the individual attempts to progress and inflict losses on Ukraine.”
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces have recorded 59 Russian bombing incidents, 26 unit assaults in several front-line regions and dozens of drone strikes, despite the Putin's announcement of a Easter ceasefire on Saturday.
He urged Russia to fully adhere to its cease-fire conditions and reiterated Ukraine's offer to extend the truce for 30 days, from midnight on Sunday.
“We will act in accordance with the real situation on the ground,” added the Ukrainian chief.
The comments were probability with the previous remarks that Zelenskyy made on Saturday evening when he noted that certain areas were quieter since the announcement of the ceasefire.
“As soon as Putin has given the order to reduce attacks, the intensity of strikes and murders has dropped. The only source of this war and its extension is in Russia,” he wrote on X.
Meanwhile, Russian officials in the partially occupied Ukrainian region of Kherson also accused Ukrainian forces of carrying out attacks during the ceasefire.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, Ukraine has launched hundreds of drone attacks and shot on Russian positions.
On Saturday, Putin announced a unilateral ceasefire which, according to him, would last at 6 p.m. from Moscow on Saturday at midnight after Easter Sunday.
The Russian President did not propose any details on how the ceasefire would be monitored or if it would cover the air strikes or the current ground battles which raged 24 hours a day.
His announcement notably intervened after US President Donald Trump said on Friday that negotiations between Ukraine and Russia “come to the head.”
Trump said he could transmit peace efforts if the talks did not progress.
Prisoners of war are found with dear beings
Meanwhile, the authorities in Ukraine said on Saturday that around 277 Ukrainian soldiers had been returned from Russian captivity in the greatest exchange of the war.
Most of the Ukrainians released in the last exchange of prisoners are young people born after 2000, said the siege of the coordination of Ukraine for the treatment of prisoners of war.
ADVERTISEMENTOutside a hospital in the northern region of Chernihiv in Ukraine, where prisoners of war recently released after the border exchange, dozens of parents were waiting.
Among them, Natalia Lohvynchuk, 48, rushed to the bus when she arrived – she had not seen her son for three years; He was captured during the Battle of Mariupol in the spring of 2022.
His son, Ihor Lohvynchuk, 23, had lost about 40 kilograms in captivity.
“It still doesn't feel real,” he said gently. “We are not really there yet. We have all returned, but we are still not there.”
ADVERTISEMENT“1,102 days in captivity-it's not five days,” he said.
His mother, overwhelmed by emotion and kissing her son, said a plea: “We call the whole world, on all countries – we help bring all our boys home.”
On the Russian side, the Ministry of Defense said that a total of 246 soldiers had been returned from a territory controlled by kyiv.
Mediated by the United Arab Emirates, the exchange on Saturday is the fourth of this year and the 63rd since the start of the large -scale invasion of Russia.
ADVERTISEMENTAbout 4,552 Ukrainians, soldiers and civilians have returned since the Russian war against its neighbor in February 2022.
It is believed that thousands of others would remain in captivity.
