Russian drone attacks persist despite Kremlin’s Easter ceasefire, Ukrainian forces say | Ukraine
A Ukrainian military official said that Russia continued to hit Ukrainian positions with unmanned aerial vehicles after the Easter ceasefire declared by the Kremlin came into force on Saturday.
“The Russian side is not abiding by the ceasefire,” said Serhii Kolesnychenko, communications officer of the 148th Separate Artillery Brigade.
Speaking to The Associated Press, he told the Associated Press that Russian forces continued to use drones to hit Ukrainian positions while artillery fire stopped at the junction of the Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, where his brigade operates.
Kolesnychenko said Ukrainian forces responded with “silence for silence, fire for fire.”
Ukrainian military command said there were 469 ceasefire violations on Saturday night.
Russia also accused Ukraine of violating the ceasefire; Alexander Khinshtein, governor of Russia’s Kursk border region, said that after the ceasefire began, a Ukrainian drone hit a gas station in the town of Lgov, injuring three people, including a child.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the adjacent Belgorod region, said two people were injured in Ukrainian drone strikes.
Writing on Telegram, Gladkov said a man and woman were injured in attacks in Shebekino and Grayvoron, two small towns just inside the border. He also said that Ukrainian forces bombed Shebekino, damaging houses and other buildings.
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a 32-hour ceasefire over the Orthodox Easter weekend on Thursday, ordering Russian forces to cease hostilities from 4pm on Saturday until the end of Sunday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed to abide by the ceasefire and called it an opportunity to develop peace initiatives. But he warned of a swift military response to any violations.
“Easter should be a time of silence and security. An Easter ceasefire can also be the beginning of the real movement towards peace,” Zelenskyy wrote in an online post on Saturday.
But he added: “We all understand who we are dealing with. Ukraine will abide by the ceasefire and respond in kind.”
Ukraine had previously offered Russia a pause in attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure due to the Orthodox Easter holiday.
Previous ceasefire attempts had little effect; both sides accused each other of violations.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday called Putin’s move a “humanitarian” gesture but said Moscow remained focused on a comprehensive solution based on its long-standing demands; This is a major sticking point that prevents the two sides from reaching an agreement.
According to local officials, at least two people died in Russian drone attacks overnight in Odesa, Ukraine, hours before the ceasefire was to begin.
Two more people were injured in the attack on the Black Sea port city, when drones hit a residential area, damaging apartments, houses and a kindergarten.
Less than an hour before the ceasefire began, the driver of a public trolleybus in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson died when a drone hit the vehicle, Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the Kherson region, wrote on Telegram.
According to the Ukrainian air force, Russia targeted Ukraine with 160 drones overnight, hours before the proposed Easter ceasefire came into force; 133 of them were shot or stopped.
The Russian defense ministry said 99 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight across Russia and occupying Crimea.
It was stated that the prisoner exchange on Saturday brought 175 soldiers home. Zelenskyy confirmed the exchange, saying that 175 soldiers and seven civilians were returned. “Most of them have been in captivity since 2022. And they are finally home,” he wrote to X.
Hundreds of relatives carrying photographs of missing soldiers gathered around ambulances and buses carrying returning prisoners of war in northern Ukraine. Many called out names and brigade numbers in the hope of finding their loved ones faster.
The crowd, mostly clad in blue and yellow flags, chanted “Welcome!” shouted slogans. Weary returnees in blue jackets reached through windows to shake hands and embrace well-wishers. Family members also held up portraits of others still missing and asked released prisoners if they knew anyone.
Svitlana Pohosyan was waiting for the return of her son. When asked about the ceasefire, he said: “I want to believe. I hope it will happen. We will believe and hope that everything will be fine, that a ceasefire will come on such a sacred day, that there will be peace, peace in Ukraine, peace all over the world.”
“My celebration will come when my son returns,” he added. “I will hold her in my arms and it will be the biggest celebration for me, for every mother and for every family.”
Periodic prisoner exchanges have been one of the few positive outcomes of months of inconclusive US-brokered negotiations between Moscow and Kiev. The talks made no progress on important issues that prevent the end of Russia’s occupation of its neighbor, which is now in its fifth year.
Separately, seven residents of Russia’s Kursk region returned from Ukraine on Saturday after being captured by the Ukrainian military, Russian state media reported. They were met at the Belarus-Ukraine border by Russia’s human rights ombudsman, Tatyana Moskalkova.
According to Moskalkova, the returnees were the last people taken from the Kursk region to Ukraine after the Ukrainian army took control of parts of the region in 2024.
Ukrainian forces carried out one of the greatest combat successes of the war, launching a surprise attack on Kursk in August 2024. This attack was the first occupation of Russian territory by an invader since World War II and dealt a humiliating blow to the Kremlin.
