Summarize and humanize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in English MOSCOW — Russia and Ukraine said Saturday that they each swapped hundreds of prisoners in the largest exchange since Russia’s full-scale invasion started more than three years ago.Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that 246 Russian service members were returned from territory controlled by Kyiv and that “as a gesture of goodwill” 31 wounded Ukrainian prisoners of war were transferred in exchange for 15 wounded Russian soldiers in need of urgent medical care.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that 277 Ukrainian “warriors have returned home from Russian captivity.”Earlier Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a temporary Easter ceasefire in Ukraine, citing humanitarian reasons.The announcement came on the same day as Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces had pushed Ukrainian troops from one of their last remaining footholds in Russia’s Kursk region where the Ukrainians staged a surprise incursion last year.According to the Kremlin, the ceasefire will last from 6 p.m. Moscow time Saturday to midnight following Easter Sunday.“We assume that the Ukrainian side will follow our example. At the same time, our troops must be ready to repel possible violations of the truce and provocations from the enemy, any of its aggressive actions,” Putin said at a meeting with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov in a video shared by the Kremlin’s Press Service.Zelensky called the ceasefire “another attempt by Putin to play with human lives.” He wrote on X that “air raid alerts are spreading across Ukraine,” and “Shahed drones in our skies reveal Putin’s true attitude toward Easter and toward human life.”Putin’s announcement came after President Trump on Friday said that negotiations between Ukraine and Russia were “coming to a head” and that neither side is “playing” him in his push to end the grinding three-year war.Trump spoke shortly after Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the U.S. may “move on” from trying to secure a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there is no progress in the coming days, after months of efforts have failed to bring an end to the fighting.In January 2023, Putin ordered his forces in Ukraine to observe a unilateral, 36-hour ceasefire for Orthodox Christmas. Zelensky had stopped short of saying his forces would reject Putin’s request but dismissed the Russian move as playing for time to regroup its invading forces and prepare additional attacks.Russia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that its forces took control of the village of Oleshnya, in the Kursk region on the border with Ukraine. 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 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 36 were lost, probably 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 Saturday. Fires were contained and no casualties were reported.Russia’s Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, said its air defense systems shot down two Ukrainian drones overnight into Saturday.
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