Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for an “Eastern truce” with Ukraine, directing the Kremlin’s military to temporarily pause fighting until Sunday night. 

Putin announced the brief ceasefire on Saturday during a meeting with the chief of the general staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov. 

The Russian president said, “guided by humanitarian considerations, today from 18:00 to 00:00 from Sunday to Monday, the Russian side declares an Easter truce. I order that all military actions be stopped for this period.” 

“We assume that the Ukrainian side will follow our example. 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,” Putin said on Saturday. 

Shortly after Putin’s remarks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Russian president of playing with “human lives” and added that the Kremlin’s drones were still flying in Kyiv’s airspace. 

“At this moment, air raid alerts are spreading across Ukraine. At 17:15, Russian attack drones were detected in our skies. Ukrainian air defense and aviation have already begun working to protect us,” Zelensky wrote in a Saturday post on social media platform X. “Shahed drones in our skies reveal Putin’s true attitude toward Easter and toward human life.” 

The air alert in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv stopped at 6 p.m. local time, Agence France-Presse reported. 

On Saturday, the two sides also swapped at least 240 prisoners of war, according to Russia’s Defense Ministry and Zelensky. 

“Our people are home—one of the best pieces of news that can be. Another 277 warriors have returned home from Russian captivity,” Zelensky said in another X post on Saturday. “The warriors of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Guard of Ukraine, the State Special Transport Service, and the border guards. They defended Mariupol and other directions in the Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Luhansk regions.” 

Since Russia’s invasion started in February 2022, Ukraine has been able to retrieve  4,552 individuals — civilians and fighters — from Russia’s imprisonment, according to Zelensky.