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Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his army to suspend combat in Ukraine during the Easter holiday this week.

Putin announced “Easter stop” unilaterally for “humanitarian reasons” on Saturday at a meeting with Valerie Girassemov, his chief military officer, according to the Kremlin. The truce was set to become valid at 6 pm. Moscow time on Saturday and ends in midnight on Sunday.

The stop, which comes a day after the American President Donald Trump threatened To end peace -making efforts in Ukraine if it was not made rapid, the second time that Putin has announced a full comment to fight since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine three years ago.

Putin announced a truce similar to the celebration of the Orthodox Christmas in January 2023, which Ukraine claimed to be a trick to stop its progress against the Russian forces.

Minutes after Putin’s announcement, the air strike alerts were announced in many areas throughout Ukraine as well as in the capital Kiev, where air defenses opened fire on rockets and drones, according to President Voludimir Zelinski and the Ukrainian Air Force.

“As for another attempt by Putin to play with human lives-at this moment, the alerts of the air raid are spread throughout Ukraine. At 17:15, the Russian attack drones were discovered in our sky.”

He added: “Done -sky drones reveal the true position of Putin on Easter and human life.”

While Kiev agreed to Trump’s suggestion of a 30 -day ceasefire, Putin refused to retract his maximum demands to end the war.

“Putin has now made statements about his alleged ceasefire willingness. 30 hours instead of 30 days,” said Foreign Minister Andre Cypee on Saturday after Putin’s announcement. “Unfortunately, we had a long history of his statements that did not match his actions. We know that his words cannot be trusted and we will look at the procedures, not the words.”

He said: “We want to see the Russian forces actually stop in all directions,” while Ukraine and the international community urged “to be awake.”

Both sides accused each other of frequently violating the endowment of the energy strikes in which the United States mediated in March. Russia has also said it will not register a similar agreement on maritime security in the Black Sea unless a number of Western sanctions are canceled.

Putin said Russia expects to “follow our example”, but it told Girassemov that he wanted his forces “ready to repel any violations of the ceasefire, provocations and aggressive actions by the enemy.”

Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Bix Dolars thanked for their efforts to find a settlement in the war in Ukraine and said that the ceasefire would show whether Kiev was serious about “participating in peace negotiations aimed at resolving the initial causes of the Ukrainian crisis.”

Putin’s declared conditions for ending the war include that Ukraine abandons four southeast regions in part for Russia, and in fact, it stops existence as an independent country.

Russia also called for NATO to retreat almost all its deployment, east of the Berlin Wall as part of a deal, which would rewrite the post -Cold War security order.

Meanwhile, Zelinski said that the Ukrainian forces continued their battle to adhere to the grains of shrinking from the ground inside the Russian Kursk region. Quoting a report from Serski, the president said that Kiev’s forces “also advanced and expanded our control area” in the neighboring Russian region of Beljorod.

Shortly before Putin’s announcement, Russia and Ukraine carried out one of the largest exchanges of war prisoners since the beginning of Moscow’s comprehensive invasion in February 2022. Zelinski said 277 Ukrainian soldiers were followed in the wake of the broker of deals by the United Arish.

He added that 4,552 Ukrainian soldiers have been liberated from Russian families since the beginning of the invasion.