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Despite Putin's Easter truce

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KRAMATORSK (AFP) — Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday said Russian forces were continuing their shelling and assaults along the front line despite Russian President Vladimir Putin announcing a surprise but brief Easter truce.

The 30-hour truce would be the most significant pause in the fighting throughout the three-year conflict.

But just hours after the order was meant to have come into effect, air-raid sirens sounded in Kyiv and several other Ukrainian regions, with Zelensky accusing Russia of having maintained its attacks.

"Across various frontline directions, there have already been 59 cases of Russian shelling and five assaults by Russian units," Zelensky said on social media, citing a report as of 6 a.m. from Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky.

He said that in the six hours up to midnight on Saturday, there were "387 instances of shelling and 19 assaults by Russian forces," with drones "used by Russians 290 times."