'People still gather... they believe in something better'

Ukrainians celebrating Easter at a bombed-out church in the country’s north doubt a ceasefire with Russia is possible

- HANNA ARHIROVA TARA COBHAM

Ukrainians gathered together to mark Easter, with little faith in the possibility of a ceasefire with Russia as both sides accused the other of breaking a temporary truce.

Russian president Vladimir Putin announced a unilateral 30hour ceasefire from Saturday evening to midnight on Easter Sunday, citing humanitarian reasons.

But Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky accused Mr Putin of pretending to observe the truce while carrying out hundreds of artillery attacks on Saturday night, followed by more yesterday.

Late yesterday, Mr Zelensky said there had been 1,882 cases of Russian shelling, 812 of which involved heavy weaponry, according to his commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi.

"Either Putin does not have full control 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 interested in favourable PR coverage," Mr Zelensky posted on social media.

"However, there were no air raid alerts today. Hence, this is a format of ceasefire that has been achieved and that is the easiest to extend," he said, proposing that Russia abandon drone and missile strikes on civilian targets for at least 30 days.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, however, said there was no order from Mr Putin to extend the ceasefire.

Also yesterday, Russia’s defence ministry claimed Ukraine had broken the Easter ceasefire more than a thousand times, inflicting damages to infrastructure and causing 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 on Crimea and the Russian border areas of the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions.