Easter truce collapses
A 32‑hour Orthodox Easter ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine expired after both sides accused the other of widespread violations. The two sides did exchange 175 prisoners during the short pause, but air‑raid sirens sounded in Kharkiv minutes after the truce began and officials logged violations in the thousands as the pause fell apart. (aljazeera.com) (theguardian.com)
Russia’s Easter ceasefire with Ukraine ended on Monday after both sides said the other broke it almost from the start. (france24.com) President Vladimir Putin announced the 32-hour pause on Thursday, saying Russian forces would stop fighting from 4 p.m. Moscow time on Saturday, April 11, until midnight on Sunday, April 12, for Orthodox Easter. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine would mirror the pause if Russia actually observed it. (aljazeera.com) (usnews.com) Within minutes of the truce taking effect, air-raid sirens sounded in Kharkiv, and Ukrainian officials said Russian drones and shelling continued overnight. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Ukrainian forces kept up artillery fire and drone attacks on Russian positions and border regions. (apnews.com 1) (apnews.com 2) By Sunday, the accusations had escalated into counts in the hundreds and then the thousands. Reuters reported that both governments said there had been more than 1,000 drone and shelling attacks, while Le Monde cited Kyiv as recording 469 violations earlier in the day. (yahoo.com) (lemonde.fr) The brief pause still produced one concrete result: Russia and Ukraine exchanged 175 prisoners of war each on Saturday. Prisoner swaps have remained one of the few regular channels of cooperation between Kyiv and Moscow during more than four years of full-scale war. (lemonde.fr) (apnews.com) The collapse also underscored how little trust exists around even short holiday truces. Reuters reported before the ceasefire began that Ukrainian officials wanted the pause extended and talks restarted, while people interviewed in Kyiv and Moscow said they doubted a 32-hour break would lead to durable peace. (usnews.com) The fighting comes as United States-backed efforts to broker a broader settlement have stalled. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on April 10 that the Easter pause was announced while negotiations to end the war were faltering. (rferl.org) By the time the deadline passed, the truce had become another exchange of rival claims instead of a step toward a longer halt in the war. The one measure both sides confirmed was the prisoner swap, not a sustained stop in fighting. (france24.com) (apnews.com)
