Ukraine and Russia agree to prisoner swap as Putin announces ceasefire

Saturday 19 April 2025 5:00 pm
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Saturday 19 April 2025 5:01 pm

Russia and Ukraine stated on Saturday that they had swapped tons of of prisoners within the largest change because the Russian full-scale invasion began over three years in the past.

Russia’s ministry of defence stated that 246 Russian service members had been returned from territory managed by Kyiv and that, “as a gesture of goodwill”, 31 wounded Ukrainian prisoners of conflict had been transferred in change for 15 wounded Russian troopers in want of pressing medical care.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that 277 Ukrainian “warriors have returned house from Russian captivity.”

The information got here as Russian President Vladimir Putin introduced a short lived Easter ceasefire in Ukraine, the Kremlin stated on Saturday.

In keeping with the Kremlin, the ceasefire will final from 6pm on Saturday to midnight on Easter Sunday, each Moscow time.

“Guided by humanitarian concerns, at this time from 18.00 to 00.00 from Sunday to Monday, the Russian facet declares an Easter truce.

“I order that each one navy actions be stopped for this era,” Putin stated at a gathering with chief of the overall workers Valery Gerasimov, the Kremlin’s press service quoted him as saying.

“We assume that the Ukrainian facet will observe our instance. On the identical time, our troops should be able to repel doable violations of the truce and provocations from the enemy, any of its aggressive actions,” Putin stated.

Zelensky referred to as the ceasefire “one other try by Putin to play with human lives.”

He wrote on X that “air raid alerts are spreading throughout Ukraine”, and “Shahed drones in our skies reveal Putin’s true angle towards Easter and towards human life.”

Putin’s announcement got here after US President Donald Trump on Friday stated negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are “coming to a head” and insisted that neither facet is “enjoying” him in his push to finish the grinding three-year conflict.

Trump spoke shortly after secretary of state Marco Rubio warned that the US could “transfer on” from making an attempt to safe a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there isn’t any progress within the coming days, after months of efforts have didn’t carry an finish to the preventing.

In January 2023, Putin had ordered his forces in Ukraine to look at a unilateral, 36-hour cease-fire for Orthodox Christmas.

Zelensky had stopped wanting stating his forces would reject Putin’s request, however dismissed the Russian transfer as enjoying for time to regroup its invasion forces and put together extra assaults.

The ceasefire announcement got here on the identical day as Russia’s defence ministry stated its forces pushed Ukrainian forces from one in all their final remaining footholds in Russia’s Kursk area.

Russian forces took management of the village of Oleshnya, on the border with Ukraine, the ministry stated.

“Models of the North navy group have liberated the village of Oleshnya within the Kursk area throughout energetic offensive operations,” the ministry stated in an announcement.

The Related Press was unable to instantly confirm the declare and there was no speedy response from Ukrainian officers.

In keeping with Russian state information company Tass, Russia remains to be preventing to push Ukrainian forces out of the village of Gornal, some seven miles south of Oleshnya.

“The Russian navy has but to push the Ukrainian Armed Forces out of Gornal … to be able to fully liberate the Kursk area.

“Fierce preventing is underway within the settlement,” the company reported, citing Russia safety businesses.

Russian and North Korean troopers have practically disadvantaged Kyiv of a key bargaining chip by retaking many of the area, the place Ukrainian troops staged a shock incursion final yr.

In different developments, the Ukrainian Air Drive reported that Russia fired 87 exploding drones and decoys within the newest wave of assaults in a single day into Saturday.

It stated 33 of them had been intercepted and one other 36 had been misplaced, doubtless having been electronically jammed.

Russian assaults broken farms within the Odesa area and sparked fires within the Sumy area in a single day, Ukraine’s state emergency service stated on Saturday. Fires had been contained, and no casualties had been reported.

Russia’s ministry of defence, in the meantime, stated its air defence programs shot down two Ukrainian drones in a single day into Saturday.

By Related Press Reporters