UPDATE: |Vladimir Putin announces Easter ceasefire in Ukraine News

Mr Putin said fighting would be paused until Monday, reports suggest

Vladimir Putin has said there will be an Easter ceasefire in Ukraine.

Mr Putin had said there would be no further attacking movements until Monday, it was reported.

The news came as Russian forces claimed they had pushed Ukrainian forces from one of their last remaining footholds in Russia’s Kursk region, officials said on Saturday.

According to Russia’s defence ministry, its forces took control of the village of Oleshnya, on the border with Ukraine.

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“Units of the North military group have liberated the village of Oleshnya in the Kursk region during active offensive operations,” the ministry said in a statement.

The Associated Press was unable to immediately verify the claim and there was no immediate response from Ukrainian officials.

According to Russian state news agency TASS, Russia is still fighting to push Ukrainian forces out of the village of Gornal, some seven miles (11 kilometers) south of Oleshnya.

“The Russian military has yet to push the Ukrainian Armed Forces out of Gornal … in order to completely liberate the Kursk region.

“Fierce fighting is underway in the settlement,” the agency reported, citing Russia security agencies.

Russian and North Korean soldiers have nearly deprived Kyiv of a key bargaining chip by retaking most of the region, where Ukrainian troops staged a surprise incursion last year.

In other developments, the Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia fired 87 exploding drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks overnight into Saturday.

It said 33 of them were intercepted and another 36 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.

Russian attacks damaged farms in the Odesa region and sparked fires in the Sumy region overnight, Ukraine’s state emergency service said on Saturday. Fires were contained, and no casualties were reported.

Russia’s ministry of defence, meanwhile, said its air defence systems shot down two Ukrainian drones overnight into Saturday.