“No other orders were given.” Putin did not prolong the Easter armistice but it showed something important
Vladimir Putin and Volodimir Zelenski. Photo source: Shutterstock
Russian President Vladimir Putin has not issued an order to extend the Easter armistice in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, quoted by the TASS news agency on Sunday.
The cessation of fire expires Sunday at midnight (the same hour in Russia, Ukraine and Romania).
Five hours before the deadline, Peskov said that there was no order from Putin to extend the cessation of fire.
“No other orders were given,” Peskov said when asked if he could be extended.
The reaction came in the context in which the Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski made a 30 -day armistice counterpart on Saturday night after Vladimir Putin announced a cessation of unilateral Easter fire.
Ukraine and Russia were accused of violating fire termination
During Sunday, Russia and Ukraine accused each other of violating the armistice by hundreds of attacks,
Zelenski said that Russia claimed to comply with the cessation of fire, but in fact continued with hundreds of artillery blows on Saturday night to Sunday, with other attacks on Sunday.
Russia has launched 46 attacks from midnight until 4:00 pm, including heavy weapons, Zelenski wrote on the social platform X.
“Either Putin does not have full control over his army, or the situation proves that in the Russians they have no intention to take a real step towards the end of the war and are interested only in favorable presentations in the media,” said the Ukrainian president.
The Russian Ministry of Defense also claimed that Ukraine has violated the armistice more than 1,000 times, causing infrastructure damage and causing the death of civilians.
Moscow said that Ukrainian forces have fired 444 times on Russian positions and has counted over 900 Ukrainian attacks with drones, including Crimea and Russian border areas in the Briansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions.
“As a result, there are dead and injured among the civilian population, as well as damages to civil installations,” the ministry said.
The Ukrainian army, however, transmitted Sunday morning that the activity on the front line has decreased in intensity. Some Russian military bloggers also said that the struggles on the front line have been substantially reduced, Reuters notes, noting that he could not verify the information.
Easter armistice showed something important
The apparent inability to respect even a cessation of Easter fire shows how difficult it will be to US President Donald Trump to achieve his goal to conclude a sustainable agreement to put an end to what he calls the “blood bath” in Ukraine.
Donald Trump and his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said on Friday that the US will withdraw from efforts to negotiate a peace agreement if there will be no clear signs of progress soon.
Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peace maker, has repeatedly warned the risk of escalating the war.
Last month, after Ukraine accepted Trump's proposal for a 30 -day armistice, Putin said that the crucial issue of his verification was not resolved. Both Moscow and Kiev agreed on a moratorium on attacks on energy and sea targets, then accused each other of his violation.
