Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a unilateral 30-hour Easter ceasefire in Ukraine on Saturday (Apr 19), after Washington said it could abandon peace talks within days unless the Moscow and Kyiv show they are ready to stop the war.
Putin ordered fighting to stop as of 6 pm Moscow time (11 pm, Singapore time) on Saturday until midnight (5 am, Singapore time) on Sunday night.
“Based on humanitarian considerations … the Russian side announces an Easter truce. I order a stop to all military activities for this period,” Putin told Valery Gerasimov, Chief of Russia’s General Staff, at a meeting televised on Saturday.
“We assume that Ukraine will follow our example. At the same time, our troops should be prepared to repel possible violations of the truce and provocations by the enemy, any aggressive actions,” Putin added.
But shortly after the announcement, around an hour before it was due to take effect, air raid sirens rang out in Kyiv.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed the proposal as “yet another attempt by Putin to play with human lives”. As of 45 minutes before the truce was meant to start, Ukrainian planes were repelling Russian air strikes, Zelenskyy said in a post on X.
