Ukraine’s military has reported Russian drone attacks on several regions overnight, just hours after the end of a 30-hour “Easter truce” declared by Moscow.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said late on Sunday that there was a total of 1,882 cases of Russian shelling, 812 of which involved heavy weaponry, according to a report from Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi.
The president said the heaviest shelling and assaults were in eastern Ukraine near the besieged city of Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region.
Ukraine’s air force issued raid alerts for the Kyiv region, as well as Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkasy, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.
In the southern city of Mykolaiv, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said “explosions were heard”. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties.
Russia’s military has not commented on the reported attacks.
The truce declared by President Vladimir Putin expired at midnight Sunday Moscow time (21:00 GMT). Both sides accused each other of violating the ceasefire.
In the early hours of Monday, residents in several Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv, were urged by local authorities to go immediately to nearby shelters due to the threat of drone strikes.
Ukraine’s air force also reported a “rocket danger” for central regions, and said that Russia’s aviation was “active in the north-eastern and eastern directions”.
Several hours before the truce expired, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had not given an order to extend it, Russia’s state-run news agency Tass reported.
On Saturday, President Putin said there would be an end to all hostilities from 18:00 Moscow time (15:00 GMT) on Saturday until midnight on Sunday. Kyiv said it would also adhere.
“For this period, I order all military actions to cease,” Putin said in his announcement.
