Russia and Ukraine Accuse Each Other of Violating One-Day Easter Cease-Fire

On April 18, Trump and Rubio said the United States will walk away from peace negotiations unless there are definitive signs of progress soon.

A ruined city center in Kostyantynivka, the site of heavy battles with Russian troops, in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, on April 19, 2025. Iryna Rybakova/Ukraine's 93rd Mechanized Brigade via AP

Russia and Ukraine exchanged accusations on April 20 of breaking a one-day Easter cease-fire proposed by Russian 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 April 20.

“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, calling the announcement disingenuous and citing continued Russian attacks.

“At 17:15, Russian attack drones were detected in our skies,” he said in a post on social media, noting 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 on the night of April 19, with more continuing on April 20.

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.

The Russian Defense Ministry is itself accusing Ukraine of breaking the cease-fire more than 1,000 times, destroying infrastructure, and killing civilians.

The ministry stated that 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 the 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 stated.

Earlier on April 20, Ukraine’s military stated that activity on the front line had scaled back. Some Russian military bloggers also noted a substantial decrease in military activity along the front line.

The Trump administration is still working to broker a lasting cease-fire deal between Russia and Ukraine to end the three-year-old war.

On April 18, U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States will walk away from peace negotiations unless there are definitive signs of progress soon.

Tom Ozimek and Reuters contributed to this report.