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Russian president says he assumes the Ukrainian side will follow its example and stop hostilities
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Vladimir Putin has declared a unilateral Easter ceasefire in Ukraine.
The Russian president said the ceasefire will be active from 6pm on Saturday until midnight 21 April.
The Russian president said he assumes the Ukrainian side will follow its example and stop hostilities.
He added that Russia’s armed forces will be ready to repel possible “violations and provocations” by Ukraine.
“Russia has always been ready for negotiations and welcomes the desire of the United States, China and other countries for a fair settlement on Ukraine,” Mr Putin said, according to Russian news agency RIA.
It comes as US president Donald Trump doubled down on Washington’s threats to abandon talks aimed at brokering a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine if there are no signs of immediate progress.
“Now if for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, ‘you’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people, and we’re going to just take a pass,” Mr Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday.
“But hopefully we won’t have to do that,” he added.
The Russian defence ministry has said the ceasefire is imposed for humanitarian purposes and will be respected by the Russian military group on the condition that Ukraine mutually observes it.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has announced an Easter truce at a meeting with the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov, according to Russian news agency RIA.
“Guided by humanitarian considerations, today from 6 p.m. to 00 a.m. from Sunday to Monday, the Russian side announces an Easter truce. I order to stop all hostilities for this period,” Mr Putin was cited as saying by RIA.
The Russian president said he assumes the Ukrainian side will follow its example and stop hostilities.
He added that Russia’s armed forces will be ready to repel possible “violations and provocations” by Ukraine.
“Russia has always been ready for negotiations and welcomes the desire of the United States, China and other countries for a fair settlement on Ukraine,” Mr Putin said.
The Kremlin has announced a temporary ceasefire from 6pm today until midnight 21 April.
We’ll bring you the latest information as it comes through.
Are the Americans and the Europeans finally converging on a peace plan for Ukraine? Or was this week’s Paris meeting the prelude to an imminent parting of the ways?
The outcome, judging by the sparse statements produced by the two sides, can be read either way – although neither would seem to offer great hope of an early end to the war or of stronger support for Ukraine against Russia.
The first, suggested by the brief statement from the Elysee Palace soon afterwards, was that the Europeans and the Americans had found some common ground. Discussions, it said, had “focused mainly on the peace negotiations aimed at ending the Russian aggression in Ukraine”, and crucially went on: “building on the talks between the President of the Republic and President Trump, as well as on the work of the Coalition of the Willing, co-chaired by France and the United Kingdom…”
Mary Dejevsky writes:
US vice president JD Vance has met the Vatican’s number two official after Cardinal Pietro Parolin urged that no peace deal be “imposed” on Ukraine.
Mr Vance, a Catholic convert, arrived in Vatican City on Saturday for an appointment with secretary of state Mr Parolin and foreign minister Archbishop Paul Gallagher.
The Holy See has responded cautiously to the Trump administration, in keeping with its tradition of diplomatic neutrality, although it has continued to insist on a peaceful resolution to the war in Ukraine.
“It is clear that the approach of the current US administration is very different from what we are used to and, especially in the West, from what we have relied on for many years,” Mr Parolin told La Repubblica on the eve of Mr Vance’s visit.
As the US pushes to end the war in Ukraine, Mr Parolin reaffirmed Kyiv’s right to its territorial integrity and insisted that any peace deal must not be “imposed” on Ukraine but “is built patiently, day by day, with dialogue and mutual respect”.
Mr Vance was spending Easter weekend in Rome with his family and attended Good Friday services in St Peter’s Basilica after meeting with Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni.
Russia’s Defence Ministry on Saturday accused Ukraine of attacking Russian energy facilities 10 times over the past 24 hours.
The US brokered a 30-day moratorium in March between Ukraine and Russia against strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure. Both sides have repeatedly accused the other of violating it.
On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked if the energy moratorium was over, said it had already been a month but that no orders from the president had been received to change Russia’s position.
The US will walk away from talks aimed at brokering a Russia–Ukraine peace deal within days unless there are clear signs that an agreement can be reached, US secretary of state Marco Rubio has warned.
Mr Rubio’s threats came at the start of the Easter weekend, after Russia’s latest attack on Ukraine left one person dead and 98 injured in Kharkiv on Friday morning. US officials said last month that the US president hoped to secure a ceasefire agreement by 20 April, a symbolic date on which Western and Orthodox celebrations of Easter will overlap this year – and one that is fast approaching, with no deal currently in close sight.
Thursday showed signs of some progress in the US talks with Ukraine, after Donald Trump said he expected to sign a minerals deal with Kyiv next week. Negotiations had been delayed after his explosive Oval Office clash with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky in February.
Read the full story here:
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Saturday that its troops had taken control of the village of Shevchenko in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The battlefield report could not be independently verified.
During his campaign, Donald Trump said repeatedly that he would be able to end the war between Russia and Ukraine “in 24 hours” upon taking office. He has changed his tone since becoming president again.
As various US emissaries have held talks looking for an end to the war, both Trump and his top officials have become more reserved about the prospects of a peace deal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday suggested the US might soon back away from negotiations altogether without more progress, adding a comment that sounded like a repudiation of the president’s old comments.
“No one’s saying this can be done in 12 hours,” he told reporters.
The promises made by presidential candidates are often felled by the realities of governing. But Mr Trump’s shift is noteworthy given his prior term as president and his long histories with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
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Ukraine war live: Putin announces Easter ceasefire after Trump threats – The Independent
