Moscow is open to holding talks with Ukraine with a view to reaching a conditional cease-fire, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
Putin made the remarks following the expiry of a unilateral 30-hour cease-fire, which he had announced over the weekend to coincide with the Easter holiday.
While Kyiv has accused Russia of violating its own unilateral truce, Moscow says its forces strictly observed the Easter cease-fire, which lasted from 6 p.m. on April 19 to midnight on April 20 (Moscow time).
Moscow also claims that Ukrainian forces attacked Russian positions—both military and civilian—during the cease-fire period.
The Epoch Times could not independently verify battlefield claims made by either side of the conflict, which recently entered its third year.
Despite allegations of cease-fire breaches, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that “there were no air raid alerts [in Ukraine] on Easter, and some sectors of the frontline remained quiet.”
Zelenskyy also repeated proposals for a longer-term truce aimed at banning strikes by either side on civilian facilities.
“Ukraine stands by its offer—at the very least, not to strike civilian infrastructure,” he wrote.
“And we expect a clear answer from Moscow.
“We are ready for any conversation on how to ensure this.”
In his recent remarks to the Russian press, Putin appeared to respond to Zelenskyy’s proposal without mentioning the Ukrainian leader by name.
“We are always positive about a cease-fire, and this is why this [Easter truce] initiative was suggested,” Putin said.
“Regarding the proposal to refrain from striking civilian infrastructure targets—this matter requires thorough examination.”
He said that Ukrainian forces often used civilian facilities “for military purposes.”
“All such cases require meticulous investigation, possibly even on a bilateral basis through dialogue,” Putin said. “We do not rule this out.”
“When the president spoke about the option of negotiating the issue of not striking civilian infrastructure facilities ... he was particularly referring to negotiations and discussions with the Ukrainian side,” Russia’s TASS news agency quoted the spokesman as saying on April 21.
Russia Claims Capture of Kursk Monastery
In a related development, Russia claims to have captured a strategic monastery in Kursk where hard-pressed Ukrainian forces had reportedly been holed up for weeks.“Our servicemen have liberated the St. Nicholas Belogorsky Monastery in Gornal,” TASS quoted a security source as saying on April 22.
“The Ukrainian resistance [in Kursk] has been crushed.”
Located near the Russia–Ukraine border, Gornal is one of the last remaining settlements in Kursk in which Ukrainian forces still maintain an active presence.
“The monastery complex ... was considered by the enemy exclusively as a military facility,” the security source told TASS.
Kyiv has yet to respond to Russian claims regarding the capture of the monastery, which The Epoch Times could not independently verify.
Last summer, Ukrainian forces staged a cross-border offensive into Russia’s Kursk region, where they initially captured several hundred square miles of territory.
Since then, however, they have been forced to retreat from most of the region, where they still reportedly hold a small sliver of territory near the border.
