“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,” Putin said at a meeting with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, the Kremlin’s Press Service quoted him as saying.

Russian and North Korean soldiers have nearly deprived Kyiv of a key bargaining chip by retaking most of the region, where Ukrainian troops staged a surprise incursion last year.

In other developments, the Ukrainian air force reported that Russia fired 87 exploding drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks overnight into Saturday.

It said 33 of them were intercepted and another 36 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.

Russian attacks damaged farms in the Odesa region and sparked fires in the Sumy region overnight, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said on Saturday. Fires were contained, and no casualties were reported.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence, meanwhile, said its air defence systems shot down two Ukrainian drones overnight into Saturday.