Kramatorsk, Donetsk region
In a wooden Greek-Catholic church on the frontline of a warzone, encircled by red tulips and military vehicles, the priest’s sermon is woven through with the war – just like the soldiers’ Easter baskets, packed not only with paska bread, pysanky and sausages, but also with drones, waiting to be blessed. ‘This drone will be at work tonight – enforcing the ceasefire,’ a soldier whispers to me, smiling.
The priest looks over a hundred soldiers in front of him, the church so packed that some must listen from the outside, and says that Ukraine will defeat evil, just as Jesus did. ‘The enemy is killing Him in our men and women, they are torturing Him in captivity, our mothers wash their faces with His tears,’ he says.
This Easter Sunday, for the first time in months, not a single air raid alert sounded in Kramatorsk. Vladimir Putin’s 30-hour ‘truce’, which supposedly meant a halt to all hostilities in Ukraine, held only away from the frontline. But just 30 miles from Kramatorsk, the illusion of peace fell apart quickly, after three Russian FPV drones hunted and bombed the car of a Ukrainian volunteer evacuating civilians.
Here, along the battle lines carved with trenches and blackened craters – so many they blur into the landscape and are easy for Trump’s administration to ignore – Volodymyr Zelensky says the Russian army violated its own ceasefire promise nearly 3,000 times in a single day.
As we stand outside the church, Oleksandr from the 53rd Brigade tells me that Putin’s ceasefire near Pokrovsk lasted exactly three hours. ‘Putin is a liar. Russian soldiers attacked our positions on Easter night,’ says Oleksandr. ‘It was all for show, to impress his supporter Trump, so he could blame Kyiv for breaking the ceasefire when we fire back.’
His comrade, Artem, cuts in: ‘I don’t believe in Putin’s truce. We can’t stop – because if he’s allowed to regroup his army, he’ll come for more. And then we won’t be standing here with you, but somewhere in Dnipro, digging sand on the right bank.’ Artem adds that Zelensky must not surrender Ukrainian land to keep Trump on his side. ‘Tens of thousands of young men didn’t die so he could hand over Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Crimea or any other part of our country.’
The Trump administration expects a response from Kyiv on its peace plan proposals this week, when the parties meet in London. Zelensky is being pressured to grant concessions to Moscow, including recognising Crimea as Russian and pledging never to join Nato. The fighting would be frozen along the current frontline – at least on paper.
‘Trump couldn’t care less about the fate of the Ukrainian nation,’ says Yuriy Syrotyuk, a senior soldier from the 5th Assault Brigade, as he holds Easter bread in his arms. ‘All these political processes should be a lesson for us – a death knell for any political illusions. Some Ukrainians got used to the idea that somewhere there’s a man – whether in Moscow, Washington or Brussels – thinking about us. But everyone only thinks of themselves.’
Syrotyuk says Russian troops used the ‘Easter truce’ to prepare for the next assaults near Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region, where his brigade is stationed. ‘We saw the enemy building up all night. Before, they moved in ones or twos, but last night, they marched in formation.’ He adds that Russia won’t stop until Ukraine ceases to exist.
Ukrainian fighters remain sceptical of the European ‘reassurance force’ that Britain and France plan to station safely away from the frontline. ‘I don’t believe in the strength of our allies. They won’t come. None of them will fight for us,’ says Syrotyuk.
Russia, he says, must be warned that any ceasefire violation will be met with a harsh response, though what that response might be remains unclear, as Ukraine’s allies hesitate to risk getting dragged into the war. ‘This isn’t the time for New Testament principles – turning the other cheek – but for the Old Testament law, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Russians need to know: if they break the rules, they’ll be killed.’
At the church, the talk is not only of war but of peace. Soldiers pray for their killed comrades, for salvation, for victory and for returning home. The priest moves among them, looking into their eyes, and douses them with holy water so much that it streams down their battle-worn uniforms. As they gather their blessed Easter baskets to carry back to the trenches, he blesses them for the road ahead and ends his sermon with a message of hope: ‘You have shown the world that the Russian invader, though larger and stronger, can be stopped. For in the Risen Christ, we are undefeatable.’
When the last rays of the sun disappear behind the church, Putin gives the order to resume his ‘special military operation’. The so-called Easter truce ends – without ever truly beginning.
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