INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Russia and Ukraine blamed each other on Sunday for breaking a one-day Easter ceasefire declared by President Vladimir Putin, with both sides
accusing the other of hundreds of attacks and the Kremlin saying there was no order for an extension.Putin, who sent thousands of Russian
troops into Ukraine in February 2022, ordered his forces to stop all military activity along the front line in the three-year-old war until
midnight Moscow time (2100 GMT) on Sunday.Five hours before that expiry, TASS news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying
there was no order from Putin to extend the ceasefire
Russia was pretending to observe the Easter ceasefire, but had in fact continued hundreds of artillery attacks on Saturday night, with more
assaults on Sunday.Russia launched 46 assaults from midnight until 4 p.m
over his army, or the situation proves that in Russia, they have no intention of making a genuine move toward ending the war, and are only
times, inflicting damage to infrastructure and causing some civilian deaths.The ministry said Ukrainian forces had shot at Russian positions
444 times while it had counted more than 900 Ukrainian drone attacks, including attacks on Crimea and the Russian border areas of the
Some Russian military bloggers also said frontline activity had declined substantially.Reuters was unable to immediately verify the
battlefield reports from either side.The apparent failure to observe even an Easter ceasefire shows how hard it will be for U.S
will walk away from efforts to broker a peace deal unless there are clear signs of progress soon, Trump and his secretary of state, Marco
Rubio, said on Friday.Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly warned of the escalation risk of the war -
which his administration now casts as a proxy conflict between the U.S
verification had not been sorted out
Both Moscow and Kyiv have agreed to a moratorium on attacks on energy targets and at sea, which each accuses the other of breaking.Zelenskiy
Moscow annexed in 2014, and the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.Putin, when announcing the ceasefire before heading to
an Orthodox Easter service, said the truce would show whether or not Ukraine was ready or able to implement peace
Putin thanked Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and leaders from the BRICS group of emerging economies for attempts to mediate.The
spokesman Stephane Dujarric reiterated U.N
of Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.Source: Reuters--Agencies
