Ukraine has issued air raid alerts for Kyiv and the country's eastern half as blasts shook the city of Mykolaiv early on Monday a few hours after the one-day Easter ceasefire declared by Russian President Vladimir Putin came to an end.
DAILY POST reports that both Kyiv and Moscow had accused each other of thousands of attacks that
Washington said it would welcome an extension of the truce, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated several times Ukraine's willingness to pause strikes for 30 days in the war.
However, Putin, who ordered on Saturday the halt in all military activity along the front line until midnight Moscow time (2100 GMT) on Sunday, did not give orders to extend it.
While citing Kremlin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Russia's TASS state news agency, when asked whether the ceasefire could be prolonged, said there were no other commands.
According to data from the Ukrainian air force, some regions in eastern Ukraine were under air raid alerts starting minutes after midnight on Monday, with the alerts gradually extending towards the central regions of the country.
“We urge city residents to immediately go to the nearest shelters and remain there until the alert is over,” Kyiv's military administration said in a social media post at 04:41 a.m. local time (0141 GMT).
Mayor Oleksandr Senkevich said on Telegram that blasts shook the Ukrainian port city of Mykolaiv, but did not say whether it was air defence systems in operation or whether the Russian air weapons hit a target.
Zelenskyy said earlier on Monday that while there were no air raid alerts in Ukraine on Sunday, Ukrainian forces reported nearly 3,000 violations of Russia's own ceasefire with the heaviest attacks and shelling seen along the Pokrovsk part of the frontline.
The Voronezh regional governor said on Telegram that Russia's side that borders Ukraine was also under air raid alerts for two hours overnight.
Meanwhile, Russia's defence ministry said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had shot at Russian positions 444 times and said it had counted more than 900 Ukrainian drone attacks, adding that there were deaths and injuries among the civilian population.
