Putin announces Easter truce – Nova Makedonija

Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced an Easter truce and halt all military operations, the Kremlin said.

– The Russian side, leading for humanitarian reasons, today at 18:00 (Moscow time) to 00:00 between Sunday and Monday, declares an Easter ceasefire. I order to stop all military actions for this period – Putin announced at today’s meeting with Chief of General Staff Valeri Gerasimov.

Putin noted that Russian troops, however, must be prepared for possible violations of the ceasefire by Kiev. They must be ready to refuse any provocation of the enemy, every aggressive action, the Russian president said.

Russia announced yesterday that Putin’s March 18 order has expired for a month -long suspension of attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

– The month (of the moratorium) expired. So far there are no other instructions from the Supreme Commander, President Putin – Russian President Dmitry Peskov spokesman said in his daily briefing for the media in Moscow.

Moscow, however, welcomed the partial ceasefire as « some progress » on the road to resolving the conflict in Ukraine.