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Vladimir Putin announced the truce, which will last from Saturday afternoon on 11 April through Easter Sunday.
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The declaration from Moscow came after Volodymyr Zelensky issued repeated calls for a ceasefire, all ignored by the Kremlin.
Now Putin has announced a truce from 16:00 local time (13:00 GMT) on Saturday 11 April through Easter Sunday, adding that he expected Ukraine to "follow the example" of Russia. He ordered his forces to be ready to intercept "possible enemy provocations" and any "aggressive actions".
Russia's tone, and the attempt to steal the initiative, will make Ukrainians bristle.
But Zelensky soon posted on X that Ukraine was "ready for symmetrical steps".
"People need an Easter free from threats and real movement toward peace," he wrote. "Russia has a chance not to return to strikes after Easter as well."
Earlier this week, Zelensky said he had asked the United States to pass on a proposal for a holiday weekend truce to Moscow, as a first step.
Any respite from the fighting would be welcome for the soldiers along the long front line in eastern Ukraine, where they're hounded relentlessly by attack drones.
It would also allow people to relax across the country, where air raid sirens are part of the everyday and Russian missiles and drones continue to kill and injure civilians.
Just recently, several people were killed when a drone targeted their bus in Nikopol in the south-east. In Zhytomyr, just west of Kyiv, a woman died when a missile landed next to her home in the middle of the morning.
The sirens went off again in Kyiv shortly after the weekend truce was announced.
Ukraine has also increased its drone attacks on Russia, targeting its energy exports in particular in a
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