Kyiv, Ukraine — Russia continued to strike Ukrainian positions with drones after the Kremlin’s Easter ceasefire took effect Saturday, a Ukrainian military officer told The Associated Press.
“The Russian side is not adhering to the ceasefire,” said Serhiy Kolesnichenko, communications officer of the 148th Separate Artillery Brigade.
He said that while artillery fire stopped in the sector where his brigade was operating, at the intersection of the Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia regions, Russian forces continued to use drones to strike Ukrainian positions.
Kolesnichenko said Ukrainian forces were responding “with silence for silence and fire for fire.”
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a 32-hour ceasefire during the Orthodox Easter holiday, and ordered Russian forces to cease hostilities from 4 p.m. on Saturday until the end of Sunday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky promised to adhere to the ceasefire, describing it as an opportunity to build on peace initiatives. But he warned that there would be a quick military response to any violations.
“Easter should be a time of silence and safety,” Zelensky wrote in an online post on Saturday. “The (on) Easter ceasefire can also become the beginning of a real movement towards peace.”
But he added: “We all understand who we are dealing with. Ukraine will adhere to the ceasefire and will respond in kind.”
Ukraine earlier proposed to Russia to stop attacks on the two countries’ energy infrastructure during the Orthodox Easter holiday.
Previous ceasefire attempts had little effect, with both sides accusing each other of violations.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday called Putin’s move a “humanitarian” gesture, but said Moscow remained focused on a comprehensive settlement based on its long-standing demands — a major sticking point preventing the two sides from reaching an agreement.
Dead in Odessa and Kherson before the ceasefire
Hours before the ceasefire was scheduled to begin, local authorities reported that Russian drone strikes overnight killed at least two people in the Ukrainian city of Odessa.
Two other people were injured in the attack on the coastal city overlooking the Black Sea, when drones struck a residential area, damaging residential buildings, homes and a kindergarten.
The driver of a public trolleybus was killed after being bombed by a drone in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, less than an hour before the start of a ceasefire, Kherson regional head Oleksandr Prokudin wrote on Telegram.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia targeted Ukraine with 160 drones overnight, 133 of which were shot down or intercepted, hours before a proposed Easter ceasefire was due to take effect.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that 99 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight across Russia and the occupied Crimean Peninsula.
Prisoner exchange
The Russian Defense Ministry said that the prisoner exchange on Saturday brought 175 of its soldiers home. Zelensky confirmed the exchange that took place on Saturday, saying that 175 service members and seven civilians had been returned. “Most of them have been detained since 2022. They have finally returned to their homes,” he wrote on X.
Hundreds of soldiers’ relatives, holding photos of missing soldiers, crowded around ambulances and buses carrying returning prisoners of war in northern Ukraine. Many called out names and brigade numbers, hoping to find their loved ones faster.
The crowd, many wearing blue and yellow flags, chanted, “You’re welcome!” As weary returnees in blue jackets reached through the windows to shake hands and embrace well-wishers. Family members also held up photos of others still missing and asked released inmates if they knew anyone.
People carry photos of their missing relatives as Ukrainian soldiers return from captivity during a prisoner-of-war exchange between Russia and Ukraine in the Chernihiv region, Saturday, April 11, 2026.
AFP Photos/Ephrem Lukatsky
Svetlana Bohosyan was waiting for her son to return. When asked about the ceasefire, she said: “I want to believe it. God willing, it may be so. We will believe and hope that everything will be fine, that the ceasefire will come on such a holy day, and that there will be peace, peace in Ukraine and peace in the whole world.”
She added: “My celebration will come when my son returns.” “I will hold him in my arms, and it will be the greatest celebration for me. And for every mother, and every family.”
The periodic exchange of prisoners was one of the few positive outcomes of the fruitless, months-long negotiations brokered by the United States between Moscow and Kiev. The talks have made no progress on key issues preventing an end to the Russian invasion of its neighbour, now in its fifth year.
Separately, Russian state media reported that seven residents of Russia’s Kursk region returned from Ukraine on Saturday after being captured by the Ukrainian army. They were received at the Belarusian-Ukrainian border by the Russian Human Rights Ombudsman, Tatiana Moskalkova.
According to Moskalkova, the returnees are the last to be transferred to Ukraine from the Kursk region after the Ukrainian army took control of parts of the region in 2024.
Ukrainian forces made a surprise incursion into Kursk in August 2024 in one of their biggest battlefield successes of the war. This incursion was the first time that an invader had occupied Russian territory since World War II and dealt a humiliating blow to the Kremlin.
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Zhyhinas reported from northern Ukraine. Morton reported from London.
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