Moscow (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday announced a surprise Easter truce in Ukraine, set to last until midnight on Sunday in what would be the most significant pause in the fighting throughout the three-year conflict.

The short-term order for Russia’s troops to halt all combat activity – which Ukraine has not said if it will match – comes after months of US President Donald Trump pushing both Moscow and Kyiv to agree a truce.

He has so far failed to extract any major concessions from the Kremlin and the US has threatened to withdraw from talks if no progress is made.

“Today from 1800 (1500 GMT) to midnight Sunday (2100 GMT Sunday), the Russian side announces an Easter truce,” Putin said in televised comments during a meeting with the Russian chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov.

Air raid alerts blasted across Ukraine on Saturday afternoon, including in the capital Kyiv, but ended right as Putin’s order apparently came into force.

Easter, a major holiday for Christians, is celebrated on Sunday.

Putin said the truce was motivated by “humanitarian reasons”.

“We are going on the basis that the Ukrainian side will follow our example, while our troops must be ready to resist possible breaches of the truce and provocations by the enemy,” Putin said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a social media post responded with scepticism, accusing Putin of attempting to “play with human lives”.

He did not say whether Ukraine would halt fighting during the period.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said that Putin’s statements could not be trusted and Ukraine was waiting for “actions, not words” after Putin earlier rejected a proposed 30-day full and unconditional ceasefire.

Andriy Kovalenko, a Ukrainian official tasked with countering disinformation, posted on X that “Russians on all fronts keep firing as they did before. Most of all in the East.”

In the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk close to the front line, soldiers told AFP that any truce would not have a lasting impact.

- ‘Killings will continue’ -

Putin “might do it to give some hope or to show his humanity. But either way, of course, we don’t trust (Russia),” said Dmitry, a 40-year-old soldier.

“These 30 hours will lead to nothing, I don’t see any result. The killings of our people and theirs will 100 percent continue,” he added.

Russia and Ukraine on Saturday also held a large prisoner-of-war exchange, with each side saying they had handed back more than 240 captured fighters.

Russia on Friday abandoned a moratorium on striking Ukrainian energy targets after each side accused the other of breaking a supposed deal without any formal agreement put in place.

The latest truce proposal will show “how sincere is the Kyiv’s regime’s readiness, its desire and ability to observe agreements and participate in a process of peace talks”, Putin said.

Zelensky said that drone attacks were ongoing just before Putin’s order was set to start.

“Yet another attempt by Putin to play with human lives – at this moment, air raid alerts are spreading across Ukraine,” Zelensky wrote on X, some 15 minutes before the order came into force.

“Shahed (attack) drones in our skies reveal Putin’s true attitude toward Easter and toward human life,” the president added, without saying whether Ukraine would observe the proposed truce.

The air alert in Kyiv stopped right at 1500 GMT.

Previous attempts at holding ceasefires for Easter in April 2022 and Orthodox Christmas in January 2023 were not implemented after both sides failed to agree on them.

Ukraine last month agreed to Trump’s proposal for a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire, only for Putin to reject it.

In Kramatorsk, one soldier, Vladislav, 22, recalled a ceasefire agreement soon after the start of armed hostilities in 2014, the year Russia seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.

That truce collapsed days afterwards.

“I feel like it’s going to start again after a while, and it’s going to go on and on,” he said of the conflict.

- Prisoner swap -

Ukraine and Russia said they had each returned 246 soldiers being held as prisoners of war in a swap mediated by the UAE.

Zelensky said the total of returned POWs now stood at 4,552.

Gerasimov also said Russian troops had retaken nearly all of the territory seized by Ukraine in the Kursk region in an incursion launched in August.

“The main part of the territory… is now liberated. That’s 1,260 square kilometres, 99.5 percent,” Gerasimov told Putin.

Russia earlier Saturday said it had retaken the penultimate village still under Ukrainian control in its Kursk frontier region.

Kyiv had hoped to use its hold on the region as a bargaining chip in the talks.

burs/sbk