Ukraine calls for full cease-fire as Russian attacks continue

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Russia to implement a full cease-fire and extend it for 30 days, saying Moscow’s forces had continued attacking after Russian leader Vladimir Putin announced an Easter truce.

Zelensky said early Sunday that the Russian army was still attacking with artillery and drones while “attempting to create the general impression of a cease-fire.” He said that Ukrainian troops were responding defensively.

Putin on Saturday had called for an Easter truce lasting until the end of Sunday, a surprise move that came a day after President Trump threatened to walk away from his efforts to secure a durable cease-fire.

Putin’s announcement appeared to catch the Russian military off guard. Ukrainian officials and soldiers reported no initial change in the intensity of Russian attacks, but by midnight Saturday Zelensky said they were abating somewhat.

Early afternoon local time on Sunday, Zelensky said Russian shelling and drone attacks had intensified.

“Either Putin does not have full control over his army, or the situation proves that Russia has no intention of making a genuine move toward ending the war,” he said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that all of its units had observed Putin’s cease-fire since 6 p.m. Moscow time on Saturday.

Ukrainian officials and analysts said Putin’s announcement looked like an attempt to curry favor with Trump by presenting himself as a leader who wants peace. Ukraine in March agreed to a full, unconditional cease-fire lasting 30 days proposed by the U.S., but Russia declined, saying the “root causes” of the war needed resolving first. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, aiming to overthrow the government in Kyiv and replace it with a puppet administration that would align the country with Moscow rather than the West.

Kyiv has repeatedly warned that Russian cease-fires can’t be trusted, saying Moscow’s forces have made several truce announcements since they first covertly invaded in 2014 that didn’t stop the fighting.

Putin told Trump in March that Russia would halt aerial assaults on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Speaking to the media this week, Zelensky said that air raids had continued, but that Russia diverted some missiles and drones to other targets, resulting in high civilian casualties. Twenty people including nine children were killed when a ballistic missile struck near a playground in the central Ukrainian city of Kryviy Rih, and 35 were killed when two missiles hit the northern city of Sumy, the deadliest aerial attack this year.

Russia had in recent days ramped up a spring offensive, including a mass assault near the eastern city of Pokrovsk involving hundreds of infantry and dozens of armored vehicles and motorbikes. Ukrainian forces have largely halted Russian advances on the key battlefields of eastern Ukraine in recent weeks, primarily by using explosive drones to inflict heavy casualties on Russian infantry.

Ukrainian officials reported attacks and clashes along the front line and in civilian areas early Sunday. In the southern region of Mykolaiv, officials said homes and vehicles were damaged as a result of attacks with explosive drones, but no civilians were wounded. In the eastern region of Luhansk, officials reported bombardments by drones and artillery that accompanied infantry assaults.

Russian officials said that Kyiv had attacked Russian positions in the eastern Donetsk region and launched drone attacks overnight.

Hours after declaring the cease-fire Saturday, Putin attended an Easter service at a Russian Orthodox Church conducted by its head, Patriarch Kirill, a vocal advocate for the war.

In Zelensky’s greeting to Ukrainians Sunday morning, he did not mention the cease-fire but commemorated the victims of Russia’s recent bombings in Kryviy Rih, Sumy and other cities near the front lines.

“We know what we’re defending,” Zelensky said in his greeting. “We know what we are fighting for, for whom and for whose sake. And that is why, every time, no matter how hard it gets, we still do not lose faith.”

The Trump administration has conducted several rounds of negotiations with both sides to try to resolve the conflict, which the U.S. president pledged on the campaign trail to end within 24 hours. But efforts to break the deadlock, including the first direct talks between Washington and Moscow since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, have failed to halt the fighting.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that the U.S. would shift to other diplomatic priorities if it determined that a deal wasn’t “doable in the next few weeks.” Rubio said the U.S. has presented a framework on how the war might be ended, including a cease-fire, but didn’t say what it entails.

Write to James Marson at james.marson@wsj.com