Russia and Ukraine have agreed to observe a 32 hour ceasefire over Orthodox Easter this weekend.
The Kremlin said the truce will begin at 4 pm 1300 GMT on Saturday and last until the end of Sunday, describing it as a humanitarian pause. Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov and army chief Valery Gerasimov have been ordered to halt hostilities in all directions during this period.
Moscow said it expects Ukraine to follow its example. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded that Kyiv had repeatedly called for an Easter truce and would act accordingly.
The agreement comes amid stalled diplomatic efforts led by the United States to end the four year war. Washington has been mediating talks between Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi and Geneva, but negotiations have largely been frozen since the US launched its war with Iran.
Russia announced a similar 30 hour Easter ceasefire last year. Both sides accused each other of hundreds of violations, but Ukraine’s air force still reported a brief lull in Russian air strikes during the pause.
A few days after that truce, President Vladimir Putin declared another temporary ceasefire around Russia’s May 9 Victory Day celebrations, when foreign leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, were due to attend a military parade in Moscow. Ukraine rejected that proposal as cynical and refused to help create what it called a pleasant atmosphere for the event.
On the battlefield, Russian advances have slowed in recent months. An analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War found that Russian forces captured only 23 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory in March, the smallest monthly gain in more than two and a half years and even lost ground in some areas.
Russia currently holds just over 19 percent of Ukraine, most of it seized in the first weeks of the 2022 invasion. Around seven percent of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea and parts of Donbas, had already been under Russian or separatist control before the full scale war.
Peace talks remain stuck over the issue of territory. Ukraine has proposed freezing the conflict along current front lines, but Russia wants Kyiv to relinquish all remaining territory it still controls in the Donetsk region, a demand Ukraine rejects as unacceptable.
The two sides have also failed to agree on who should control the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which Russian forces seized early in the war.
Ukraine’s foreign minister Andriy Sybiga said his country sees the Easter ceasefire as the right strategy to support diplomatic efforts, even though many Ukrainians are sceptical that the truce will hold.
Russian analyst Konstantin Kalachev said Moscow does not appear ready to reduce its demands in wider peace talks. Pro Kremlin military blogger Rybar suggested the pause could at least allow both sides to recover the bodies of the dead and possibly evacuate some of the wounded from the front lines.
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