Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of violating a symbolic ceasefire

Moscow“One swallow does not make spring” would be the Russian equivalent of our “One flower does not make summer”. In this wintry Orthodox Easter Week, with temperatures near 0 degrees and snow in Moscow, the Easter truce will have passed like a fleeting mirage of 32 hours. Faced with Vladimir Putin's refusal to extend the ceasefire beyond midnight on Sunday, as Volodymyr Zelensky had requested, both sides have accused each other of repeatedly violating the combat pause in the hope that Donald Trump will see that the other is the main obstacle to peace.

Since the beginning of the truce, at three in the afternoon on Saturday (Catalan time), Russians and Ukrainians have reported hundreds of violations of the agreement. According to Kyiv, the Russian army has committed 2,299, while Moscow claims that Ukrainian troops have committed 1,971. These are, above all, drone attacks on the front line. Military observers point out that, at first, the ceasefire was largely respected, but that, little by little, activity returned to the front. Be that as it may, there have been no long-range bombings of energy infrastructures or residential areas: no missiles or large drones have been fired, such as Shahed. 

Analysts point out that it is common for violations to occur during truces, especially if the pause is not intended to facilitate a negotiation process, as is the case. A year ago, during the first Easter ceasefire, the pattern of accusations was identical, and both sides blamed the enemy. Highlighting and publicly magnifying the other side's “provocations” – the term used by the Kremlin – is a political decision aimed at influencing Trump's position. For this reason, Putin wanted to score a point with the initiative. He unilaterally decreed the ceasefire on Thursday night for “humanitarian” reasons and forced Zelensky to comply, even though the Ukrainian president had been requesting it for a week.

Putin rejects a ceasefire

Putin has systematically refused to accept a temporary ceasefirePeskov has implied that there will be no substantive negotiations beyond territories as long as Ukraine does not comply with this condition. The Kremlin supports the United States' viewpoint, which holds that the peace agreement is fundamentally stalled in a dispute over the sovereignty of the occupied provinces, and thus trusts that the White House will increase pressure on Zelensky to eventually yield. According to the spokesman, the discrepancy is reduced to “a few kilometers” and, once “18% of Donetsk under Ukrainian control is liberated,” a “complex” negotiation process will begin.

Since Trump's return to the presidency, Putin has systematically refused to accept a temporary ceasefire. The official argument is that he fears the Ukrainian army will take advantage of it to rearm and rotate its soldiers. This is why all the ceasefires he has proposed have been brief and cosmetic, such as the two during Easter and the Orthodox Christmas of 2023, or self-serving, such as the 72-hour one during last year's Victory Day celebrations, when dozens of world leaders were in Moscow.

A one-and-a-half-day ceasefire offers no great advantages to either army, and Putin is counting on it. It has allowed Russians and Ukrainians to improve their positions and carry out logistics and supply tasks that would have been impossible in a context of continuous attacks on the front line, but the balance of power at the front will not change. The Kremlin will resume its slow offensive against the last Ukrainian strongholds in Donbas on Monday, and Kyiv will again bomb Russian oil facilities, while peace talks remain stalled. Both Putin and Zelensky know that the war will continue its course of attrition, death, and resistance until Trump abandons the conflict in the Middle East. A scenario for which Russia has no hurry and which Ukraine awaits as a miracle.