Vladimir Putin flouted his own 30-hour Easter ceasefire almost 3,000 times, claims Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Russian leader of making a mockery of his own ‘truce’ over the weekend with repeated attacks on his country.
He said FTP drone incursions and firing on Ukrainian territory, including with heavy weapons, amounted to 2,839 incidents.
Russia officially ended its so-called truce shortly after midnight last night with aerial bomb strikes on Sumy and Kharkiv border regions, with explosions also reported in Mykolaiv, Kherson, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Sumy,, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
The attacks come as Ukraine faces pressure from the US to agree major concessions in a Donald Trump peace package.
Footage from the 30-hour ‘ceasefire’ period, which started on Saturday, shows a humanitarian excavation car near Kostyantynivka hit by a Russian drone.
The car was first attacked by a drone with a shrapnel charge, then two FPV drones appear to target people, including a married couple being evacuated.
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‘Such is the Easter truce,’ said humanitarian worker Yevhen Tkachev, who was wounded, according to reports by Radio Liberty.
Shortly before the ‘truce’ started, Russia pounded the city of Dnipro in Ukraine’s Kherson region, killing three people, including a 17-year-old girl, and injuring 30. Among the injured were several children.
Zelensky had pushed for the 30-your supposed pause to be extended into a 30-day ceasefire, but Putin refused and resumed fighting today, casting strong strong doubts the Russian leader is ready for any peace initiative.
Three weeks ago, he said in words he appears to be sticking to: ‘Not long ago I said we’d grind them [Ukraine] down — now it looks like we’ll finish them off.’
The Trump peace plan makes clear the US would recognise Crimea – invaded by Putin in 2014 – as Russian, in a major reversal of American policy, according to The Wall Street Journal.
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(Picture: east2west news)
Ukraine would be barred from joining NATO, raising questions over its security in the event of Russia agreeing a peace deal, which currently seems unlikely.
It would designate territory around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – the largest in Europe and now held by Russia in invaded territory – as neutral, and under US control.
The occupied Ukrainian territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson would not be recognised as Russian by the US.
But nor would these regions be returned to Kyiv, and would remain under Putin’s military hegemony.
The US draft does not propose a cap on Ukrainian military forces, nor ban Western military support for Kyiv.
Nor does it rule out the deployment of European troops in Ukraine – which is likely to face major Moscow objections.
Moscow’s conditions of a ceasefire appear to include the removal of Zelensky and his government and the so-called ‘denazification’ of Ukraine.
Trump said on his Truth Social network: ‘Hope Russia and Ukraine make a deal this week. Both sides will do business with the United States of America, which is prosperous, and make a fortune.’
Kyiv’s response to the US peace draft is expected at a meeting in London this week attended by US, Ukrainian, British and European officials.
If any agreement is reached, true envoy Steve Witkoff could fly to Moscow for another round of talks with Putin.
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