Putin declares 30-hour 'truce' as he orders military to stand down in Ukraine

Vladimir has announced an Easter truce in . The Russian president made the announcement at a meeting with Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov, Russian state media reports.

"Guided by humanitarian considerations, today from 18:00 to 00:00 from Sunday to Monday, the side declares an Easter truce. I order all military actions to cease for this period," he said.

The statement added: "The ceasefire is being introduced for humanitarian purposes and will be observed by the Russian Joint Group of Troops (Forces), provided that it is mutually observed by the Kyiv regime."

Moscow added that it assumes "will follow our example". It said: "At the same time, our troops must be ready to repel possible violations of the truce and provocations from the enemy, any of its aggressive actions."

However, Voldymyr Zelenskyy has since accused Putin of playing "with human lives". It comes after raid alerts were heard across Ukraine at around 5.15pm local time (3.15pm BST).

He said: "Ukrainian air defence and activation have already begun working to protect us. Shahed drone in our skies reveal Putin's true attitude toward Easter and toward human life."

According to Russia's defence ministry, Putin's troops forced Ukrainian soldiers from one of their last footholds in the Kursk region yetserday. They reportedly took control of Oleshnya, a village on the border with Ukraine.

Zelensky strongly criticised missile strikes on Ukraine yesterday. He said on X: "This is how Russia began this Good Friday - with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, Shaheds - maiming our people and cities."

The temporary truce comes after Donald Trump threatened to walk away from trying to negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine if talks failed to materialise. He said: "We're talking about people dying. We're going to get it stopped, ideally.

"Now if, for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we're just going to say, 'You're foolish, you're fools, you're horrible people,' and we're going to just take a pass."

Meanwhile, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said the US would "move on" unless there are clear signs of progress in the peace talks over the coming days. He said: "We're not going to continue with this endeavor for weeks and months on end. So we need to determine very quickly now, and I'm talking about a matter of days whether or not this is doable in the next few weeks.

"If it is we're in. If it's not, then we have other priorities to focus on as well."

An Easter truce was previously issued in 2022 but it never materialised. , who had launched the full-scale invasion of just months earlier, refused the truce "in order not to give the Kyiv nationalists a break".

The temporary truce was proposed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres by 's deputy permanent representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky labelled the proposal as "insincere". He added that it would "give Ukrainian soldiers more time to regroup and receive weapons".