**Who Pays for the Ceasefire Theater** Russian drone strikes killed at least two people in the Ukrainian city of Odesa overnight into Saturday, local authorities reported, just ahead of a proposed ceasefire for Orthodox Easter. Two more people were wounded in the attack on the Black Sea port city, where drones hit a residential area and damaged apartment buildings, houses and a kindergarten. For the people living under this machinery of war, the timing is as brutal as the blast radius: the powerful announce pauses, the ordinary bury the dead. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia targeted Ukraine with 160 drones overnight, and 133 were shot down or intercepted, hours before a proposed Easter ceasefire was due to come into force. Russia’s Defense Ministry said 99 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight across Russia and occupied Crimea. The numbers read like a ledger of managed destruction, with civilians left to absorb the consequences of decisions made far above them. **The People at the Bottom** At the exchange site in northern Ukraine, Svitlana Pohosyan waited for her son’s return. Asked about the ceasefire, she said, “I want to believe it. God willing, may it be so. We will believe and hope that everything will be fine, that a ceasefire will come on such a holy day, and that there will be peace — peace in Ukraine and peace in the whole world.” She added, “My celebration will come when my son returns. I will hold him in my arms — and that will be the greatest celebration for me. And for every mother, every family.” That grief and hope sit beneath the official language of “humanitarian” gestures and peace initiatives. The people waiting for sons, the families in damaged homes, and the residents of Odesa are the ones paying for the war’s choreography. **What the Powerful Call Peace** Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday declared a 32-hour ceasefire over the Orthodox Easter weekend, ordering Russian forces to halt hostilities from 4 p.m. Saturday until the end of Sunday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised Saturday to abide by the ceasefire, describing it as an opportunity to build on peace initiatives, but he warned there would be a swift military response to any violations. In an online post on Saturday, Zelenskyy wrote, “Easter should be a time of silence and safety. A ceasefire (at) Easter could also become the beginning of real movement toward peace,” and added, “We all understand who we are dealing with. Ukraine will adhere to the ceasefire and respond strictly in kind.” The language is polished, but the structure remains the same: armed institutions set the terms, and everyone else is told to endure them. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday described Putin’s move as a “humanitarian” gesture, but said Moscow remains focused on a comprehensive settlement based on its longstanding demands. The ceasefire, in other words, comes wrapped in public relations while the underlying demands of power stay intact. **Deals, Exchanges, and the Limits of the Apparatus** Russia’s Defense Ministry said a prisoner swap Saturday brought home 175 of its soldiers. Zelenskyy confirmed Saturday’s exchange, saying that 175 service members and seven civilians were returned. “Most had been held in captivity since 2022. And finally, they are home,” he wrote on X. Periodic prisoner exchanges have been one of the few positive outcomes of otherwise fruitless monthslong U.S.-brokered negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv. The talks have delivered no progress on key issues preventing an end to Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, now in its fifth year. The diplomatic machinery keeps moving, but the war keeps grinding people down. Ukraine earlier proposed to Russia a pause in attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure over the Orthodox Easter holiday. Previous ceasefire attempts have had little impact, with both sides accusing each other of violations. The pattern is familiar: declarations from above, accusations from above, and the same insecurity below. Separately, seven residents of Russia’s Kursk region returned from Ukraine Saturday after they were captured by the Ukrainian army, Russian state media reported. They were greeted at the Belarusian-Ukrainian border by Russia’s human rights ombudswoman, Tatyana Moskalkova. According to Moskalkova, the returnees were the last of those who were taken to Ukraine from the Kursk region after the Ukrainian army took control of parts of the region in 2024. Ukrainian forces made a surprise incursion into Kursk in August 2024 in one of their biggest battlefield successes in the war. The incursion was the first time Russian territory was occupied by an invader since World War II and dealt a humiliating blow to the Kremlin. Meanwhile, the people in Odesa, the families waiting at exchange sites, and the residents caught in the crossfire remain the ones living with the consequences of this war of states.
