Vladimir Putin's unilateral Orthodox Easter truce, decreed on 9 April, expired without extension at the end of 12 April. The Ukrainian General Staff tallied 10,721 Russian breaches over the period, including 119 ground assaults. The Russian Ministry of Defence tallied 1,971 Ukrainian breaches, including 258 artillery firings, 1,329 kamikaze drone strikes, and 375 munitions drops.
The Kremlin had rejected Volodymyr Zelenskyy's earlier Easter proposal targeting energy infrastructure attacks in late March . Putin's eventual decree came without any prior US diplomatic contact, per his published Kremlin calendar showing nine days of domestic engagements and no US meetings ahead of the announcement. Novaya Gazeta Europe, a Russian exile outlet based in Riga, assessed that Russia held back on strategic-strike activity throughout the pause while tactical-range fire carried on. That matches the pattern of asymmetric compliance: a partial halt on rear-area bombardment paired with unchanged close-in operations.
The timing of the window closes is the other analytic point. The decree concluded just as Hungarian polling day entered its final hours , giving Moscow a news cycle of Orthodox Easter imagery during the period the electorate was still voting. The immediate post-expiry barrage is detailed in event 4. The sequence is now a datable pattern: decree, partial compliance, expiry, return to baseline tempo. Any future Russian ceremonial ceasefire can be read against the same test, Russian long-range activity during the window, and the first 24 hours after.
