In the middle of a successful Russian offensive in Kursk, the 30 -hour Pascual truce announced by the president RussianVladimir Putin, entered into force at 18.00 local time (15.00 GMT) and will last until midnight from Sunday to Monday, the Spanish agency reported EFE.
“I order the cessation of all military actions during this period. I assume that the Ukrainian part will follow our example,” Putin said on Saturday by meeting with the Chief of the General Staff, Valeri Guerásimov, according to Kremlin in his channel in his channel Telegram.
Putin declares fire in Ukraine by Easter
️Putin: Our decision on the Easter truce will show to what extent the disposition of the kyiv regime and its will and ability to fulfill the agreements, to participate in the process of conversations of … pic.twitter.com/gq6M14TNBH
– Russian Embassy in Mexico (@embrusiamexico) April 19, 2025
Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Putin expressed his confidence that Ukraine secounds the high fire and, otherwise, ordered his troops to respond immediately.
The Chief of Kremlin has denied, until now, to declare a truce, sea and air of longer duration, arguing that it will only serve for the enemy to regroup his forces and receive new supplies of Western weapons, he said EFE.
According to Putin, kyiv violated more than a hundred times the 30 -day energy truce that Moscow declared unilaterally on March 18 and that Ukraine joined a week later by mediation of the United States.
Russian control over Oleshnya
The announcement of the Pascual truce coincided with the statement of the Ministry of Defense of Russia that assured that their forces have expelled the Ukraine of one of their last bastions in the Russian region of Kursk.
According to the source, the Russian troops took control of Oleshnya, on the border with Ukraine.
According to the state agency news Tass, Russia continues to fight to get the Ukrainian forces from the village of Gornal, about 11 kilometers south of Oleshnya.
“The Russian army has not yet expelled the Armed Forces of Ukraine of Gornal … to completely release the Kursk region. Intense fighting in the settlement are being carried out,” said the agency, which mentioned the reports of Russian security agencies.
Russian and North Korean soldiers have practically deprived kyiv of a key negotiation asset by recovering control of most of the Kursk region, where the Ukrainian troops launched a surprise raid last year.
Zelenski denies the fire high
For his part, the Ukrainian ruler, Volodimir Zelenski, accused Putin of “playing with human lives” after registering in Ukraine anti -aircraft alarms shortly after Moscow announced a stop the fire on the occasion of the Orthodox Easter at 15.00 GMT.
“As for another attempted Putin to play with human lives, at this time they are spreading throughout Ukraine Air attack alerts. At 17.15 (14.15 GMT) Russian attack drones have been detected in our heavens,” Zelenski wrote in his social network account X.
Russian attacks caused farms damage in the Odessa region, and Fire in Sumy during the night, according to the Ukrainian state emergency service on Saturday. The fires were controlled and victims were reported.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW-b7qa4e7m
Exchange of prisoners
Meanwhile, Russia announced on Saturday that it had exchanged more than 240 prisoners of war with Ukraine, including injured soldiers that required urgent medical attention, an office of the Russian agency said Sputnik.
“At the end of the negotiation process, 246 Russian military were repatriated from the territory controlled by the kyiv regime,” said the Russian Ministry of Defense on the channel Telegram.
“In return, 246 War Prisoners of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were delivered, in addition to 31 wounded Ukrainians and 15 Russians injured,” the statement added.
Washington presses
This week, the United States put on the peace negotiation table in Ukraine a new ultimatum: o This process is possible in a matter of days or Washington retires from the conversations.
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who met on Thursday in Paris with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to evaluate the course of the war, said Friday that the United States has to assess whether peace can be achieved today.
“We are not going to continue with this effort for weeks or months. Therefore, we need to determine quickly, and I am talking about a matter of days, if this is feasible in the coming weeks,” he warned.
“In the next few days we have to determine it and, if not possible, to move on to something else, because the United States has other priorities,” Rubio added.
