KYIV: Russia launched missiles and drones targeting Ukraine early on Monday (Apr 21), waking up Kyiv and the eastern half of the country, hours after the one-day Easter ceasefire declared by Russian President Vladimir Putin came to an end.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or major damages from the attacks, regional Ukrainian officials said on social media.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 96 drones and three missiles in overnight attacks targeting Ukraine, causing damage in the Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Cherkasy regions.
Air defence units shot down 42 Russian drones, and another 47 drones were redirected by electronic warfare.
Both Kyiv and Moscow had accused each other of thousands of attacks that violated the truce that the Kremlin indicated on Sunday would not be extended.
Washington said it would welcome an extension of the truce, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated several times Ukraine’s willingness to pause strikes for 30 days in the war.
But Putin, who launched Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and who ordered on Saturday the halt in all military activity along the front line until midnight Moscow time on Sunday, did not give orders to extend it.
“There were no other commands,” Russia’s TASS state news agency cited Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying when asked whether the ceasefire could be prolonged.
Zelenskyy said early on Monday that his forces were instructed to continue to mirror the Russian army’s actions.
“The nature of Ukraine’s actions will remain symmetrical: ceasefire will be met with ceasefire, and Russian strikes will be met with our own in defense. Actions always speak louder than words,” he said on social network X.
