Putin Declares Easter 'Cease-Fire'

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Saturday an "Easter truce" for Moscow's war against Ukraine.

Moscow's war against its Eastern European neighbor has been grinding on for more than three years, and Putin's announcement comes after Russia launched deadly missile strikes against Ukraine on Palm Sunday last weekend and on Good Friday this week.

The truce announcement also comes as President Donald Trump's administration works to negotiate a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv. Although on Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested the administration may soon walk away from the effort.

Putin's announcement came in a Telegram post on the Kremlin's official channel.

"During a meeting at the Kremlin, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief [Putin] heard a report by Chief of the General Staff of Russia's Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov on the situation on the line of contact and declared the Russian side was ceasing all military action from April 19, 06:00 pm MSK, to April 21, 00:00 am MSK," the announcement said.

"Guided by humanitarian motives, the Russian side announces an Easter ceasefire from 06:00 pm today to 00:00 am Monday. I hereby order all military operations ceased for this period. We assume that the Ukrainian side will follow our example. At the same time, our troops should be prepared to repel possible ceasefire violations and provocations by the enemy, as well as any aggressive acts on their part," Putin said, according to the Kremlin statement.

About 20 minutes after the statement was posted by the Kremlin on Telegram, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote a post to X, formerly Twitter, saying that Russian drones were detected above Ukraine.

"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. Shahed drones in our skies reveal Putin's true attitude toward Easter and toward human life," he wrote.

Russia's Recent Attacks on Ukraine

Last week, Russia launched ballistic missile strikes on the northeastern city of Sumy as residents attended church services marking Palm Sunday, killing at least 35 people and injuring at least 129 others.

It was the second large-scale ballistic missile attack on a major Ukrainian city this month, after Moscow targeted Zelensky's home city of Kryvyi Rih on April 4 in strikes that killed 20 people.

Then on Good Friday, Russia launched attacks across Ukraine overnight, including a missile strike that killed one person and injured nearly 100 others in the northeastern city of Kharkiv. Zelensky condemned the attacks.

Zelensky said in a post to Telegram that Russia had marked Good Friday with ballistic and cruise missile attacks, and by sending Iranian-designed Shahed explosive drones into Ukraine. The aerial attacks were a "mockery of our people and cities," the Ukrainian president said.

In its own Telegram post, Russia's defense ministry said on Friday it had carried out strikes using long-range weapons and drones on Ukrainian "key production sites" linked with Kyiv's military.

Zelensky said a Russian missile had targeted the city of Kharkiv, damaging "dozens" of residential homes, buildings and cars. Ukraine's state emergency service wrote on Telegram that it was battling a fire covering 450 square meters around one of the affected buildings in Kharkiv.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that one man had been killed in his apartment, and 98 people were injured in the city, including six children. A 2-year-old girl was wounded, Zelensky said.

Terekhov said Russia had used cluster munitions to attack Kharkiv, and the "scale of the tragedy could have been ten times greater if the enemy had struck an hour later." Cluster munitions release submunitions, or bomblets, which can spread over a wide area and pose a significant threat to civilians.

Ukrainian authorities also reported attacks overnight around the capital, the northeastern Sumy region, the southern Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv regions, and in the eastern Donetsk region where much of the heaviest fighting of the war has blazed.

Drones hit a bread factory in Sumy, killing one person, Zelensky said.

On Telegram, Ukraine's air force said Russia had launched a short-range ballistic missile from Moscow-controlled Crimea, and five cruise missiles from the peninsula and from Russian-held areas of the southern Zaporizhzhia region. Russia also launched 37 strike drones, the air force said.

Kyiv said it had intercepted three of the cruise missiles and 23 drones, with 10 uncrewed aerial vehicles straying off course.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on X on Friday: "One must be an outright scumbag and despise life to carry out such missile strikes on an ordinary city on Good Friday, the eve of Easter. And when we appeal to our partners—primarily the United States—for Patriot systems and missiles for them that can protect against this Russian evil—against cruise missiles and ballistic threats—we are asking for the kind of protection every nation deserves. There must never be a situation where one nation is deemed more deserving of assistance than another. Besides, helping is the Christian thing to do."

President Donald Trump to reporters on the Palm Sunday attack by Russia last week: "I think it was terrible and I was told they made a mistake, but I think it's a horrible thing. I think the whole war's a horrible thing."

It remains to be seen if Russia and Ukraine will maintain the truce through the weekend. Negotiations over a potential peace deal will continue, but the Trump administration signaled Friday that it may give up on the effort.

"We are now reaching a point where we need to decide and determine whether this is even possible or not, which is why we're engaging both sides," Rubio told the media before departing from Le Bourget airport in Paris on Friday. "We need to determine very quickly now—and I'm talking about a matter of days—whether or not this is doable."