Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday declared a 32-hour ceasefire over the Orthodox Easter weekend, ordering Russian forces to halt hostilities from 4 p.m. on Saturday until the end of Sunday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised to abide by the ceasefire but warned of a swift military response to any violations.

KYIV/MOSCOW >> Russia and Ukraine accused each other on Sunday of breaching the 32-hour ceasefire in their four-year war, reporting more than a thousand drone and shelling attacks just hours after the truce began on Saturday to mark Orthodox Easter. The Russian defense ministry said it recorded 1,971 ceasefire violations overnight into Sunday.

The Russian defence ministry on Sunday accused Ukraine of “16,071 ceasefire violations” over a 24-hour period, including thousands of drone strikes. Since Russia’s invasion in 2022, the war in Ukraine has killed hundreds of thousands of people and spiralled into Europe’s deadliest since World War II.

Russia and Ukraine yesterday traded accusations of violating a three-day US-brokered ceasefire but no major strikes were reported by the warring sites so

They accused each other of violating a truce in place for Orthodox Easter thousands of times. Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.