Saturday, 19 April 2025

Easter ceasefire in Ukraine announced by Putin

It was only last month that Vladimir Putin announced that he had instructed his military commanders to stop targeting Ukraine's energy installations as part of an agreement for a 30-day ceasefire. Neither the ceasefire itself nor the end to bombing power plants actually materialised. No ceasefire and the bombs and missiles kept on hitting these infrastructure sites. So what was the purpose behind Putin's promise? Now we have an Easter ceasefire announced by Putin, to last 30 hours. One can only look at this latest gesture with a degree of cynicism. Even if it worked and there was no shooting or bombing for 30 hours, it would presumably start all over again as soon as the 30 hours are up. But in reality the Easter ceasefire will probably not work out because no one in Ukraine trusts Putin to keep his word. In fact Zelensky claimed there were Iran-supplied Shahed armed drones even at that moment in the sky over Ukraine to hit targets. So what sort of ceasefire exactly is being offered? It's a clever move by Putin who claimed it was a humanitarian gesture. But humanitarian gestures are pretty meaningless in a war which has lasted more than three years and shows no sign of ending.

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