Russian President Vladimir Putin unilaterally announced this Thursday a short-lived truce of a day and a half for next weekend on the occasion of Orthodox Easter. The Kremlin announced that the ceasefire will take effect from 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 11, one hour less in the Iberian Peninsula, at the end of Sunday, April 12. “We assume that the Ukrainian side will follow the example of the Russian Federation,” the Kremlin has stated in what is at least the fourth ceasefire of this type that it has unilaterally proclaimed since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine. .
The Russian presidency states that Defense Minister Andrei Belousov has instructed Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov that his troops “stop all military actions in all directions during this period.” He also ordered that at the same time “they be prepared to neutralize all possible provocations from the enemy, as well as any aggressive action.”
Putin, who has rejected an unconditional and indefinite truce in negotiations with Ukraine and the United States, has declared other failed temporary ceasefires in the past. on the occasion of Orthodox Christmas, and twice more in 2025, with the approach to Donald Trump in the background, justified and in the Great Patriotic War, a holiday renamed by the Ukrainian Government as the day of victory over Nazism.
With the mediation of the United States, both sides also committed to a truce in attacks on energy infrastructure in March of last year. despite .
kyiv has not initially responded to the Kremlin’s announcement. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has insisted in recent weeks on celebrating a ceasefire for Easter that includes not only the front, but also the suspension of Russian bombings against their cities.
“If Russia stops attacks on Ukraine’s energy sector, we will respond in the same way,” Zelensky added in one of his latest proposals on April 6.
However, the Kremlin had reviled these proposals until now. “Zelensky desperately needs a truce,” Putin spokesman Dmitri Peskov responded on March 31. “Zelensky must assume his responsibility and make the appropriate decision so that we achieve peace, not a ceasefire,” he added then. Days later he stated that Moscow “did not see any clear initiative in the Ukrainian president’s statements.”
However, the Russian president’s spokesman was more restrained this Thursday. “The Supreme Commander-in-Chief has not made any decisions today,” Peskov said in his daily press conference.
