Olusegun Ariyo
Russia and Ukraine on Sunday blamed each other for breaking a one-day Easter ceasefire announced by President Vladimir Putin.
Both sides accused the other of carrying out hundreds of attacks.
Urban Express News Online reports that Putin had ordered Russian forces to stop all military activity along the front line in the three-year-old war until midnight Moscow time (2100 GMT) on Sunday.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said Russia was pretending to observe the easter ceasefire
, but had continued hundreds of artillery attacks on Saturday night, with more assaults on Sunday.
Writing on the X social media platform, Zelenskyy said that Russia had launched 26 assaults from midnight until midday local time (0900 GMT).
“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 wrote.
He had earlier said that the Russian army was trying to create a general impression of a ceasefire, while continuing to inflict losses on Ukraine’s front line.
According to Russia’s Defence Ministry, 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 while it had counted more than 900 Ukrainian drone attacks, including attacks on Crimea and the Russian border areas of Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions.
“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.
