Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of breaking one-day Easter ceasefire

Russia and Ukraine blamed each other on Sunday for breaking a one-day Easter ceasefire announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin, with each side accusing the other of carrying out hundreds of attacks.

Putin, who ordered thousands of Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022, ordered Russian forces to "stop all military activity" along the front line of the war until midnight Moscow time on Sunday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia was pretending to observe the Easter ceasefire, but had in fact continued hundreds of artillery attacks on Saturday night, with more assaults on Sunday.

Zelenskyy wrote on the X social media platform that Russia had launched 26 assaults from midnight until midday local time.

"Either Putin does not have full control over his army, or the situation proves that in Russia, they have no intention of making a genuine move toward ending the war, and are only interested in favourable PR coverage," Zelenskyy's post said.

Earlier, he said the Russian army "is trying to create a general impression of a ceasefire," while continuing to inflict losses on Ukraine's front line.

Russia's Defence Ministry said Ukraine had broken the ceasefire more than 1,000 times, inflicting damage to infrastructure and causing some civilian deaths.

The ministry said Ukrainian forces had shot at Russian positions 444 times, and it had counted more than 900 Ukrainian drone attacks, including on Crimea and on the Russian border regions of Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod.

"As a result, there are deaths and injuries among the civilian population, as well as damage to civilian facilities," the ministry said.

Ukraine's military said earlier on Sunday that activity on the front line had decreased. Some Russian military bloggers also said military activity along the frontline has substantially decreased.

Reuters was unable to immediately verify the battlefield reports from either side.

The apparent failure to observe an Easter ceasefire shows just how hard it will be for U.S. President Donald Trump to achieve his aim of clinching a lasting deal to end what he calls the "bloodbath" of the war in Ukraine.

The U.S. will walk away from efforts to broker a peace deal unless there are clear signs of progress soon, Trump and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said on Friday.

Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly warned of the escalation risk of the war — which his administration now casts as a proxy conflict between the U.S. and Russia, echoing Moscow's stance.