By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced a temporary Easter ceasefire in Ukraine, in celebration of the Christian festival, with effect from Saturday
The ceasefire which he says is on humanitarian ground comes as Russia and Ukraine swapped hundreds of captured soldiers, the largest exchange since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
According to the Kremlin, the ceasefire will last from 6 p.m. Moscow time (1500 GMT) on Saturday to midnight (2100 GMT) following Easter Sunday.
“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 at a meeting with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, in a video shared by the Kremlin’s Press Service.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the ceasefire “another attempt by Putin to play with human lives.”
He wrote on X that “air raid alerts are spreading across Ukraine,” and “Shahed drones in our skies reveal Putin’s true attitude toward Easter and toward human life.”
Meanwhile, the two sides exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war (POWs) on Saturday, the largest in over three years of the war.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said that 246 Russian service members were returned from territory controlled by Kyiv, and that “as a gesture of goodwill” 31 wounded Ukrainian POWs were transferred in exchange for 15 wounded Russian soldiers in need of urgent medical care.
Zelenskyy said that 277 Ukrainian “warriors” have returned home from Russian captivity.
Russia says its forces are close to recapturing Kursk. Defense Ministry said Saturday its forces pushed Ukrainian troops from the village of Oleshnya, one of their last remaining footholds in Russia’s Kursk region where the Ukrainians staged a surprise incursion last year.
Zelenskyy wrote on X that Ukrainian forces “continued their activity on the territory of the Kursk region and are holding their positions.”
Putin’s ceasefire announcement came after U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are “coming to a head” and insisted that neither side is “playing” 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 “move on” 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.
