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Russia and Ukraine on Sunday accused each other of violating a 32-hour ceasefire declared for the Orthodox Easter holiday, with both sides reporting thousands of alleged breaches within hours of the truce taking effect.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it recorded 1,971 Ukrainian ceasefire violations between the start of the truce and 8:00 a.m. Moscow time (0500 GMT).
In a statement, the ministry said Ukrainian forces launched multiple nighttime attacks on Russian positions in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy and Donetsk regions.
Ukraine’s General Staff, in a separate statement, said it recorded 2,299 Russian violations during the same period.
Kyiv accused Moscow of carrying out 28 front-line assaults, 479 shelling incidents, 747 kamikaze drone strikes, and 1,045 attacks using first-person-view drones.
The ceasefire took effect at 1300 GMT on Saturday, though both sides began accusing each other of violations just hours later.
Independent verification of battlefield claims remains difficult due to the ongoing war.
A similar Easter truce was announced last year, only for both sides to accuse one another of repeated violations.
The Kremlin said Sunday it will not extend the ceasefire unless Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accepts Russia’s terms for ending the war.
“Sustainable peace can come when we secure our interests and achieve the goals we set from the very start. This can be done literally today. But Zelensky must accept these well-known solutions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in comments carried by Russian state media.
“Until Zelensky musters the courage to assume this responsibility, the special military operation will continue after the truce expires,” he added, using Moscow’s term for the war.
Several rounds of U.S.-brokered talks in recent months have failed to move the two sides closer to a settlement in the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The diplomatic process has slowed further since the outbreak of the Middle East war, with Washington shifting greater attention toward Iran.
Even before that, negotiations had remained deadlocked over territorial issues.
Ukraine has proposed freezing the conflict along current front lines, but Russia has rejected the idea and continues to demand control over all of the Donetsk region, including areas still held by Kyiv.
Ukraine has rejected those demands as unacceptable.
The war entered its fifth year in February and has killed hundreds of thousands of people while displacing millions, making it Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
Russia has suffered heavy manpower losses for relatively limited territorial gains.
Kyiv has recently pushed back in parts of southeastern Ukraine, while Russian advances have slowed since late 2025, according to the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War.
Russia currently occupies just over 19% of Ukrainian territory, most of which it seized in the early stages of the war.
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