Ukraine, Russia trade Easter truce breach barbs

KYIV - Ukraine and Russia accused each other on April 12 of violating a truce in place for Orthodox Easter thousands of times, as the war dragged on into its fifth year.

Both sides had agreed to observe the halt to hostilities for the religious holiday, after Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on April 9 to a proposal made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky more than a week before.

“As of 7am on 12 April, 2,299 ceasefire violations were recorded. Specifically: 28 enemy assault actions, 479 enemy shellings, 747 strikes by attack drones... and 1,045 strikes by FPV drones,” the Ukrainian military’s general staff said in a post on Facebook.

“There were no missile strikes, guided aerial bomb strikes, or Shahed-type UAV strikes,” it added.

In turn, Russia’s defence ministry accused Kyiv of nearly 2,000 breaches of its own.

“A total of 1,971 ceasefire violations by units of the Ukrainian armed forces were recorded between 4pm Moscow time on April 11 and 8am on April 12,” the ministry said, as reported by the TASS news agency.

The Russian ministry claimed Kyiv had fired 258 times using artillery or tanks, carried out 1,329 FPV drone strikes, and dropped “various types of munitions” on 375 occasions, notably via drones.

Moscow also accused the Ukrainian military of launching “three nighttime attacks” against Russian positions and also “four attempts to advance” along the front line, while claiming to have thwarted each.

The truce had been due to last for 32 hours, from 4pm on April 11 until the end of the day on April 12, according to the Kremlin.

A similar ceasefire was announced in Ukraine for Orthodox Easter in 2025, only for both sides to accuse each other of numerous violations.

Recent months have seen several rounds of US-brokered negotiations fail to bring the warring parties closer to an agreement to stop the fighting, triggered by Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

The process has stalled further since the outbreak of the war in the Middle East, with Washington’s attention having shifted towards Iran. AFP