Russia-Ukraine Orthodox Easter ceasefire begins | Russia-Ukraine war Newsnewsline24

Both sides have agreed to observe the temporary truce, as US-led diplomatic efforts to end the war continue to stall.

A temporary ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine has come into force, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying Kyiv would respect it if Moscow did.

The ceasefire is due to last for 32 hours, from 4:00pm local time (13:00 GMT) on Saturday until midnight on Sunday, according to the Kremlin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the ceasefire on Thursday to coincide with Orthodox Easter celebrations, more than a week after Zelenskyy first made the proposal.

Both sides have agreed to observe it.

“Ukraine will adhere to the ceasefire and respond strictly in kind. The absence of Russian strikes in the air, on land, and at sea will mean no response from our side,” Zelenskyy said in a post on social media.

The Ukrainian army said it was ready to “immediately” respond if Russia violated it.

Hours before the truce started, Russia launched at least 160 drones at Ukraine, killing four people in the country’s east and south and wounding dozens, Ukrainian authorities said.

The southern Odesa region was among the hardest hit, with authorities reporting two dead and damage to civilian infrastructure.

Meanwhile, four people died in Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Kherson regions, according to Russian-installed officials.

Ukrainians have expressed scepticism about whether the truce will hold.

The two sides held a ceasefire for Orthodox Easter last year, but both accused the other of hundreds of violations.

Despite tensions over the truce, the warring sides exchanged 175 prisoners of war each on Saturday, according to officials.

The United Arab Emirates helped mediate the exchange, the Russian Ministry of Defence said.

During more than four years of war, Kyiv and Moscow have carried out regular POW exchanges. They are among the few concrete results to emerge from several rounds of United States-brokered peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, which remain stalled over the issue of territory.

Ukraine has proposed freezing the conflict along the current front lines.

But Russia has rejected this, saying it wants Ukraine to give up all the territory in the Donetsk region that it currently controls – a demand Kyiv says is unacceptable.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia had not discussed the Easter proposal in advance with the US, nor did it signal any immediate revival of three-way peace talks.

Fighting on the front has come to a near standstill.

Russia has made small territorial gains at a high cost. But Kyiv recently managed to push back in the southeast, and Russian advances have been slowing since late 2025, according to the US-based Institute for the Study of War.

Moscow occupies just more than 19 percent of Ukraine, most of which was seized during the first weeks of the conflict.