Putin declares unilateral Easter ceasefire in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared a unilateral Easter ceasefire in Ukraine, ordering his forces to end hostilities at 6pm Moscow time on Saturday until the end of Sunday.

"Based on humanitarian considerations ... the Russian side announces an Easter truce. I order a stop to all military activities for this period," Putin told Valery Gerasimov, Chief of Russia's General Staff, at a meeting televised on Saturday.

"We assume that Ukraine will follow our example. At the same time, our troops should be prepared to repel possible violations of the truce and provocations by the enemy, any aggressive actions," Putin added.

The ceasefire will therefore cover Easter Sunday, the height of the Christian calendar, which falls on Sunday this year for all Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christians.

But shortly after the announcement, about an hour before it was due to take effect, air raid sirens rang out in Kyiv.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed the proposal as "yet another attempt by Putin to play with human lives".

As of 45 minutes before the truce was meant to start, Ukrainian planes were repelling Russian air strikes, Zelenskiy said in a post on X.

"Shahed drones in our skies reveal Putin's true attitude toward Easter and toward human life," he said, referring to Iranian-made attack drones used widely by Russia in the war to attack Ukrainian cities far from the front.

The Russian defence ministry said its troops had been instructed about the ceasefire and would adhere to it, provided it was "mutually respected" by Ukraine.

"One step closer to peace," senior Kremlin adviser Kirill Dmitriev said in a post on X.

Putin's announcement came after US President Donald Trump on Friday said negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are "coming to a head" in his push to end the grinding three-year war.

Trump spoke shortly after Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the US may "move on" from trying to secure a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there is no progress in the coming days, after months of efforts have failed to bring an end to the fighting.

Putin has proclaimed unilateral pauses in fighting in the past with little effect on the battlefield, including a 36-hour proposed truce for Orthodox Christmas in January, 2023, which Ukraine rejected.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this week that some progress on a peace settlement had already been made but that contacts with the United States were difficult.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides, displaced millions of Ukrainian civilians and reduced frontline Ukrainian cities to rubble.

Putin has said repeatedly that he wants an end to the war but had not retreated from his initial demands that Ukraine cede all territory he claims to have annexed and be permanently barred from joining the NATO military alliance.

Ukraine says those terms would be tantamount to surrender and leave it undefended from future Russian attacks.

Putin told Gerasimov on Saturday that Russia welcomed efforts from the US, China and BRICS countries to find a peaceful settlement to the conflict.

Russia and Ukraine both confirmed a swap of more than 500 prisoners of war on Saturday, mediated by the United Arab Emirates.

Zelenskiy, in a post on Telegram, said 277 Ukrainian service personnel had returned home from Russian captivity.

Russia's Defence Ministry said 246 servicemen had been handed over by Ukraine.

It said a further 31 injured prisoners of war had been handed over to Ukraine and 15 of its own wounded servicemen had also been returned by Ukraine.

All Russian servicemen were now in Belarus, awaiting transfer back home.

Video footage posted by Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's parliament commissioner for human rights, showed a gathering of Ukrainian servicemen, many wrapped in the blue and yellow flag of Ukraine in a wooded area alongside several buses.

The men were then seen seated on the edge of a tarmac shouting patriotic slogans.

The location of the gathering was not disclosed.

Zelenskiy said a total of 4552 Ukrainians - service personnel and civilians - had been returned since the start of Russia's invasion in February 2022.

Both sides thanked the United Arab Emirates for helping arrange the exchange.

with AP and DPA