Putin and Zelensky accuse each other of violating the Easter truce.

MoscowRussia and Ukraine have become the 30-hour truce declared unilaterally by Vladimir Putin, coinciding with Orthodox Easter, in a propaganda war. Both sides have accused each other, without evidence, of violating the ceasefire, in a struggle to point to the other as the real obstacle to peace. However, the judge of this competition, the true target of Russian President Donald Trump's move, is for the moment pretending to feel it's raining.

Both the Russian and Ukrainian governments have reported numerous enemy attacks since 6 p.m. on Saturday (5 a.m. in Catalonia), the time the truce began. The Russian Ministry of Defense had reported, after 18 hours, 444 shots fired at Russian positions and 900 drone attacks, an implausible figure given that each night, on average, Moscow reports no more than 50 Ukrainian drones shot down at most. In contrast, the Russian army boasted of "strictly respecting" the ceasefire.

For his part, Volodymyr Zelensky has warned of at least 901 Russian airstrikes, 448 of which were carried out with heavy weapons, and 46 assault operations by Moscow's troops. "Either Putin does not fully control his army, or the situation shows that he is not aiming for a real movement to end the war and only needs profitable PR in the media," said Zelensky, who made it clear that his army would continue to respond symmetrically to each Russian attack.

In the battle to win the narrative in the eyes of the United States, the Ukrainian president has put the ball back in Putin's court with a counterproposal to extend the 30-hour truce for 30 days, but the Russian president has rejected it. His spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, confirmed that the ceasefire expires at midnight on Sunday. The Kremlin's rhetoric thus seeks to amplify any Ukrainian violation of the proposal and portray Zelensky as someone opposed to ending the conflict. "The Ukrainian side, by violating the Easter truce, demonstrates that it is incapable of holding fire even for 30 hours," said Rodion Miroixnik, Russian ambassador plenipotentiary and one of the harshest voices on Ukraine.

It is the same strategy that Russia has followed Since he declared—also unilaterally—a month-long truce on energy infrastructure, which expired on Friday. Day after day, the Russian Defense Ministry has been at pains to denounce alleged Ukrainian attacks on energy facilities, which independent analysts have been unable to confirm.

Trump offers no clues

In any case, the White House remains silent and avoids giving any clues about how it interprets this 30-hour ceasefire. So far The American president had expressed a certain exhaustion with the lack of progress in the negotiations, and for that reason, he had threatened to withdraw from the mediation. Halting hostilities for a day and a half falls far short of the expectations of the United States, which aspires to a sustained ceasefire preceding peace talks. Likewise, Trump always applauded any gesture from Putin, no matter how small, trusted his word, and chose not to pressure Russia beyond words for its rejection of Kiev and Washington's offer of a 30-day truce.

Russian analyst Stanislav Kutzer considers Putin's initiative an almost "humiliating" move for the Americans, but that the Russian leader calculates that Trump "will be content with this" because he can present it as a show of respect for him. In contrast, the Rybar channel, close to the Russian Ministry of Defense, celebrates the success of Putin's move, arguing that "it will not have given the enemy a significant military advantage, but will become an important element in strengthening Russia's diplomatic position."