US President Donald Trump has said that he hopes that a deal on settling the Ukrainian crisis will be made in this week.
“Hopefully Russia and Ukraine will make a deal this week. Both will then start to do big business with the United States of America,” he wrote on his Truth Social network.
At a meeting with Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff, on April 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced an Easter truce until 12:00 a.m. Moscow time (9:00 p.m. GMT) on April 21.
He also urged Kiev to follow suit. Gerasimov issued a corresponding order to Russian troops engaged in the special military operation.
The truce came into effect from 6:00 p.m. Moscow time (3:00 p.m. GMT) on April 19.
Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday that the Easter truce will expire this night and there had been no orders from Putin to extend it.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has been accused of using US-made HIMARS MLRS systems to deliver strikes during Easter effectively violating the truce.
“Thus, during the moratorium on strikes on energy facilities, [Vladimir] Zelensky, who had agreed on it, targeted civilian energy infrastructure,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
