Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported that Russian forces violated their self-declared Easter ceasefire more than 2,000 times on Sunday.
“Since the beginning of the day, the Russian army has violated Putin’s ceasefire more than 2,000 times,” Zelenskyy wrote on Facebook, citing a report from Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi. “There have been 67 Russian assaults on our positions in various directions, with the most intense on the Pokrovsk front. Additionally, 1,355 Russian shellings occurred, including 713 involving heavy weapons, and 673 FPV drone attacks.”
Despite the extensive violations on the ground, Zelenskyy noted there were no air raid alerts across Ukraine on Sunday, prompting a call to build on this limited form of de-escalation.
“This is a format of silence that has been achieved and is easiest to maintain,” he said. “Ukraine proposes to refrain from any long-range drone and missile strikes on civilian infrastructure for at least 30 days, with the possibility of extension.”
Putin declares truce, fighting continues anyway
On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced an Easter ceasefire that would suspend combat operations from the evening of 19 April until midnight on 21 April. Russia’s Defense Ministry stated that its forces would observe the truce only if Kyiv did the same.
In response, Zelenskyy signaled that Ukraine would act in a “mirror-like manner” and expressed readiness to extend the truce—if a full ceasefire genuinely took hold.
However, according to the DeepState monitoring project, Ukrainian forces observed no sign of the promised truce along nearly any sector of the front. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that by 4 PM on 20 April, at least 45 combat clashes had occurred, including 20 on the Pokrovsk front.
The Kremlin later stated that Putin had not ordered any extension of the Easter truce beyond midnight on 21 April.
