Russian President Vladimir Putin announced an Easter ceasefire, yesterday, during a meeting with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. The truce was to take effect at 6 p.m. Moscow time (GMT+3) April 19 and runs through midnight tonight. “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, reported the Russian Defense Ministry.
As a result, “all group commanders were instructed to cease fire and disengage in the special military operation zone from 18:00 Moscow time on 19 April to 21 April 2025. The ceasefire regime is imposed for humanitarian purposes and is to be observed by the Joint Group of Forces (Troops) on the condition of mutual compliance with it by the Kiev regime.”
Zelenskyy denounced Putin’s announcement even before the ceasefire took effect. He called it “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,” reported AP. In response to the ceasefire announcement, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that Kiev had in March “agreed unconditionally to the U.S. proposal of a full interim ceasefire for 30 days,” which Russia rejected. As usual, the Kiev regime gets the history backwards. The Russian side has been reporting about a half-dozen attacks per day on Russian electrical infrastructure every day since March 18.
