Russian forces have resumed military operations against Ukraine following the expiration on April 21 of a 30-hour cease-fire, which Moscow unilaterally announced last weekend to mark the Easter holiday.
“With the expiry of the truce, the Russian Armed Forces continued the special military operation,” Moscow’s defense ministry stated, referring to its ongoing invasion of eastern Ukraine.
Hours after the truce expired, the Ukrainian air force said Russia had fired a number of missiles and drones into Ukraine’s Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Cherkasy regions.
According to the Ukrainian air force, most incoming drones were successfully neutralized by air defense batteries.
Ukrainian officials said that no deaths or injuries—or any significant material damage—had so far been reported as a result of the renewed Russian attacks.
Officials in Ukraine’s port city of Mykolaiv said that Russian missiles had struck the city, although there had been no reports of significant material damage.
After the cease-fire expired, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Kyiv’s military had been instructed to respond in kind to fresh Russian attacks.
“The nature of Ukraine’s actions will remain symmetrical: cease-fire will be met with cease-fire and Russian strikes will be met with our own in defense,” he wrote on social media platform X.
“Actions always speak louder than words.”
Writing earlier on a messaging platform, Zelesnkyy said that Ukrainian forces had reported almost 3,000 truce violations by Russia during the 30-hour cease-fire period.
According to the Ukrainian leader, most alleged breaches occurred near the front-line city of Pokrovsk in the form of artillery strikes and infantry assaults.
Moscow, for its part, claimed that Ukrainian forces had repeatedly attacked Russian front-line positions in the eastern Donetsk region, despite the cease-fire, on the evening of April 20.
“As a result, there are civilian casualties and injuries, and civilian objects have been damaged,” the news agency claimed.
The Epoch Times could not independently verify claims by either side of the conflict, which recently entered its third year.
War Could End This Week: Trump
Russian President Vladimir Putin unilaterally announced the Easter truce at a meeting with Valery Gerasimov, chief of staff of the Russian military, on April 19—a day before Easter.It was the second unilateral cease-fire to be announced by Russia since 2022, when Moscow invaded—and effectively annexed—broad swaths of eastern Ukraine.
In 2023, Putin announced a 36-hour unilateral cease-fire to mark the Christmas holiday, which the Russian Orthodox Church observes on Jan. 7.
On April 19, U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the United States could abandon its peacemaking efforts in the absence of any clear signs of progress.
On April 20, the U.S. State Department expressed hope that Russia’s unilateral Easter cease-fire might be extended further.
On the same day, Trump, who was reelected on pledges to end the conflict, said that “hopefully” Russia and Ukraine would reach a peace settlement “this week.”
“Both will then start to do big business with the United States of America, which is thriving, and make a fortune,” he wrote—in all caps—on his Truth Social messaging platform.
