On April 18, Trump and Rubio said the United States will walk away from peace negotiations unless there are definitive signs of progress soon.
Russia and Ukraine exchanged accusations on April 20 of breaking a one-day Easter cease-fire proposed by President Vladimir Putin, with each side accusing the other of implementing hundreds of attacks.
Putin, who triggered the war after sending thousands of Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022, ordered his forces on April 19 to “stop all military activity” along the front line from 6 p.m. Moscow time until midnight on Sunday.
“Guided by humanitarian considerations, the Russian side is declaring an Easter truce,” Putin said during a meeting at the Kremlin with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, according to a translated statement posted on the Kremlin’s official Telegram channel on April 19.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy immediately responded on Saturday, calling the announcement disingenuous, citing continued Russian attacks.
“At 17:15, Russian attack drones were detected in our skies,” he said in a post on social media, adding that Ukrainian forces remain active in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions.
Later, Zelenksyy suggested that Russia was pretending to observe the Easter cease-fire, accusing it of launching hundreds of artillery strikes Saturday night, with more continuing on Sunday.
In a post on social media platform X, the Ukrainian president said Russia carried out 26 assaults from midnight through 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 wrote.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry is itself accusing Ukraine of breaking the cease-fire more than 1,000 times, destroying infrastructure, and killing civilians.
The ministry said Ukrainian forces had targeted Russian positions 444 times and launched more than 900 drone attacks on regions including 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.
By Jacob Burg
