Russian troops continued fighting along the front lines despite Moscow’s announcement of a 30-hour Easter cease-fire, Ukrainian authorities said Sunday morning, although the war was still relatively quiet overnight.
Russian troops fired artillery almost 450 times between 6 p.m. Saturday, when the cease-fire was supposed to have started, and 6 a.m. Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in a social media post. He also said that the Russians had launched 24 assaults and used drones more than 300 times. Most of the action took place in the first six hours of the truce, on Saturday evening.
In another social media post, Mr. Zelensky said that the cease-fire was not in effect in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions, where Russia is trying to recapture territory taken by Ukraine.
“As of Easter morning, we can say that the Russian Army is trying to create a general impression of a cease-fire, but in some places it does not abandon individual attempts to advance and inflict losses on Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky said.
On Saturday afternoon, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had ordered his forces to “stop all military activity” against Ukraine from Saturday evening through Sunday. The abrupt declaration of an Easter truce appeared primarily aimed at showing an impatient Trump administration that Moscow was still open to peace talks.
Mr. Putin made the announcement less than two hours before the cease-fire was supposed to start. Mr. Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials expressed skepticism about Mr. Putin’s intentions, but eventually Mr. Zelensky said that Ukrainian troops would do whatever Russian troops did. If they were silent, Ukrainian troops would stop fighting. If Russian troops attacked, so would the Ukrainians.
He repeated this on Sunday morning. “Our soldiers are responding everywhere as the enemy deserves,” he said. Mr. Zelensky added: “Ukraine will continue to act in a mirror manner.”
Mr. Putin’s announcement came a day after the Trump administration made clear its exasperation with Russia’s unwillingness to accept a proposal for a 30-day cease-fire that Ukraine had agreed to in March.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that the United States could decide within days to “move on” from trying to end the war, which started when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Mr. Trump said later that “if for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult,” the United States could decide that “we’re just going to take a pass.”
In a move also probably intended to please the Americans, Mr. Zelensky reiterated early Sunday that Ukraine would like to extend the Easter truce for another 30 days.
Kim Barker is a Times reporter writing in-depth stories about the war in Ukraine.
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