Russia resumed long-range air strikes against Ukraine today after a brief pause on Sunday due to the Kremlin's Easter truce, a Ukrainian military source said.
On the Telegram messaging platform, the Ukrainian Air Force reported sending Russian Shahed kamikaze drones to several regions in central, southern and eastern Ukraine.
The state-run Ukrinform news agency reported explosions in the Mykolayiv and Kherson regions (south) and Cherkasy (center).
According to the Kherson provincial authorities, three people have died in the region in the past few hours as a result of Russian strikes. The source did not specify whether the deaths occurred before or after the truce ended.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has denounced Russia's violation of the 30-hour ceasefire - declared from Saturday afternoon to midnight Sunday into Monday - on almost 3,000 occasions, with artillery strikes, drone strikes and dozens of ground infantry attacks.
Zelensky also acknowledged and welcomed the end of long-range air strikes on Sunday, proposing to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the truce on drone and missile launches against civilian infrastructure in the Ukrainian and Russian rear areas be extended by 30 days.
The Ukrainian head of state had already raised the possibility of extending the full truce - which Kiev claims has not been respected by Russia - to a month.
The Kremlin refused to extend the truce and resumed air strikes.
According to Zelensky, the ceasefire violations occurred mainly on the Pokrovsk front, located in the Donetsk region and one of the priorities in Russia's efforts to continue gaining ground in eastern Ukraine.
The leader also explained that Russian forces did not establish a truce in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops remain present, and the situation did not change during the Easter ceasefire.
The Ukrainian president said immediately after Putin declared the truce that he would act "symmetrically" to Russian forces, laying down his arms where the enemy stopped fighting and responding with fire where it did not.
These new failed attempts at a truce -- which for the first time came from the warring parties and not from US President Donald Trump -- come after the White House warned that it was prepared to abandon mediation efforts if the two sides did not take steps towards peace in the coming days.
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