Putin announces truce with Ukraine during Orthodox Easter celebrations

Russian President Vladimir Putin connected Thursday announced a impermanent ceasefire with Ukraine for the duration of the Orthodox Easter holidays, the Kremlin said, aft Kyiv besides projected a intermission successful hostilities.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this week that helium had passed a vacation truce connection via the United States, adjacent arsenic talks to extremity the four-year warfare stalled amid shifting planetary absorption to the Middle East."A ceasefire is declared from 16:00 (13:00 GMT) connected 11 April until the extremity of the time connected 12 April 2026" by Putin, "in transportation with the approaching Orthodox feast of Easter," the Kremlin said.The General Staff "have been instructed to cease combat operations successful each directions for this period," it added, noting that troops are acceptable to "counter immoderate imaginable provocations by the enemy"."We presume that the Ukrainian broadside volition travel the illustration of the Russian Federation."Several rounds of US-led talks person failed to bring the 2 sides closer, with momentum slowing further arsenic Washington’s attraction shifted to Iran.Negotiations stay deadlocked, with Moscow demanding territorial and governmental concessions that Kyiv has rejected arsenic tantamount to capitulation.The warfare has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions, making it Europe’s deadliest struggle since World War II.