Russia controls 75% of Bakhmut territory, possibility of ceasefire during Easter

The fight for control of Bakhmut has been one of the longest battles in the nearly 14-month conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Denis Pushilin, the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, released a video on Telegram of his visit to the small mining town where fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces has raged since last summer. In the video, Pushilin walks through the rubble wearing body armor as explosions sound in the background.

Ukrainian soldiers fight in Bakhmut. Photo: Reuters

"I can say with certainty that more than 75 percent of the city of Bakhmut is under the control of our units," Pushilin told Russia's Rossiya-24 television channel after the visit, although he cautioned it was too early to say Bakhmut had fallen.

Russia believes that gaining control of Bakhmut would open the door to attacks across Ukraine. However, Kiev and the West say Bakhmut has been destroyed and is of only symbolic importance.

Possible Easter ceasefire

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that so far no one has proposed an initiative for an Easter ceasefire in Ukraine. He also said that such initiatives in the past have not received support from Kiev.

“Holy Week has just begun. So far, no such initiative has been proposed,” RT news agency quoted Peskov as saying on April 10 about Easter, which will take place on April 16 in Ukraine.

“Let's not forget that Moscow proposed and supervised similar initiatives, but the Kiev authorities did not want to follow them,” Peskov added.

In April 2022, Kiev proposed a four-day ceasefire with the support of the United Nations (UN). However, Moscow expressed skepticism about this. Russia's deputy representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, said at the time that Moscow had repeatedly proposed a ceasefire to Kiev in the first months of the conflict, but that the Ukrainian side either ignored it or used it "for bad purposes."

A unilateral ceasefire proposed by Moscow in January this year also failed, with the Russian Defense Ministry reporting a series of violations by Kiev.

At the time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of trying to “use Christmas as a cover, to stop the advance of Ukrainian soldiers in Donbass”.

Exchange of more than 200 prisoners

Russia and Ukraine carried out a large-scale prisoner exchange on April 10, with 106 Russian prisoners released in exchange for 100 Ukrainians.

In a Telegram post, Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak said the released Ukrainians included soldiers who had defended the city of Mariupol and the Azovstal steel plant, and were captured in the early months of the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced that Russian prisoners of war were also released after negotiations.

Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in regular prisoner exchanges since the outbreak of hostilities between the two countries in February 2022. This is also a rare contact activity between the two sides.