Putin announces a brief unilateral “truce” in Ukraine until Monday for Orthodox Easter

The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has announced a brief high fire in Ukraine until Monday, April 21 on the occasion of Orthodox Easter.

This has been indicated by the Kremlin this Saturday, which has referred to a “cessation of all military activities” by the Moscow Army that will begin at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday and will last until midnight on Monday, April 21.

Putin, who made this announcement after meeting with the Chief of the General Staff, Valeri Guerásimov, expressed his confidence that Ukraine joins the Easter truce, Kremlin reported on his telegram channel.

In statements collected by Associated Press, the president has added that he hopes that “the Ukrainian part will follow” his “example.” “At the same time our troops must be prepared to repel possible rapes of the truce and provocations of the enemy, as well as any aggressive action,” he added in his message.

In this regard, he said that kyiv violated more than a hundred times the 30 -day energy truce that Moscow declared unilaterally on March 18 and that Ukraine joined a week later through the United States.

“Our decision on a Pascual truce will demonstrate how the will of the kyiv regime and its desire and also the ability to comply with the agreements and participate in the peace negotiation process to eliminate the original causes of the Ukrainian crisis,” he said.

In turn, he stressed that Russia “always” has been willing to participate in the peace negotiations and greeted the attempts of the US president, Donald Trump, but also of the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, and the countries of the BRICS group that “are supporters of a peaceful and fair solution of the Ukrainian crisis.”

Putin, who is expected to go tonight to the Pascual vigil in the Cathedral of Christ Salvador in Moscow, made this announcement after Trump’s ultimatum, who warned that if in “question of days” there were no progress in negotiations with Russians and Ukrainians, Washington could leave the peace process in Ukraine.

“We need to determine now, in a matter of days, if this peace agreement is viable in the short term, because if it is not, then we will continue with something else,” said Secretary of State, Marco Rubio this Friday.