CNN
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The timing, the brevity, the sudden, unilateral nature of it all. If Ukraine’s allies needed proof of Moscow’s wild cynicism when it comes to peace, the announcement of an immediate truce for Easter provided just that.

It came mere hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and his boss president Donald Trump said they would need in the coming days an urgent sign that the Kremlin was serious about peace.

For Russia’s proponents, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement on Saturday looked like a nod to Trump – but the sudden declaration is so riddled with practical flaws, before it even gets out of the box, that it is likely to be simply used by Putin to support his false notion Kyiv does not want his war to stop.

It will be a logistical nightmare for Ukraine‘s forces to suddenly, immediately stop fighting at Putin’s behest. Some front line positions may be in the middle of fierce clashes when this order comes through, and a cessation of this nature likely requires days of preparation and readiness.

Misinformation is bound to confuse troops about the truce’s implementation, how to report or respond to violations, and even what to do when it comes to an end.

It is possible this moment will prove a rare sign that both sides can stop violence for short period. But it is significantly more likely they will both use violations and confusion to show their opponent cannot be trusted. As of Saturday evening local time, Ukrainian officials said Russian strikes had continued in frontline areas.

The ongoing 30-day truce limited to energy infrastructure was born in conditions of complete chaos. The White House announced that “energy and infrastructure” were covered, the Kremlin said they’d immediately stopped attacks on “energy infrastructure”, and Ukraine said the truce started a week later than the Kremlin did. Its execution has been equally mired in mistrust and accusations of breaches.

Moscow made a similar unilateral declaration in January 2023, calling for a day of peace to allow Orthodox Christians to observe Christmas – a move that Kyiv and Western leaders dismissed at the time as a strategic pause for military purposes.

A genuine truce requires negotiation with your opponent, and preparations for it to take hold. The sudden rush of this seems designed entirely to placate the White House demands for some sign that Russia is willing to stop fighting. It will likely feed Trump’s at times pro-Moscow framing of the conflict. It may also cause complexities for Ukraine when they are inevitably accused of violating what Washington may consider to be a goodwill gesture by Moscow.

Ultimately, this brief, likely theoretical, probably rhetorical and entirely unilateral stop to a three-year war, is likely to do more damage to the role of diplomacy in the coming months than it does to support it.

Delegations from the United States and Iran are holding their second round of high-stakes nuclear talks today.

Officials from both countries met in Oman last weekend for talks mediated by the Gulf Arab nation. This round is being held in Rome, with Oman once again serving as mediator between the US team — led by special envoy Steve Witkoff — and the Iranian one, headed by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

How we got here: A nuclear deal was reached in 2015 between Iran and world powers, including the US. Under the deal, Iran had agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.

Trump abandoned that deal in 2018, during his first presidential term. Iran retaliated by resuming its nuclear activities and has so far advanced its program of uranium enrichment up to 60% purity, closer to the roughly 90% level that is weapons grade.

Back in the White House, Trump has given Tehran a two-month deadline to reach a new agreement.

What the US is saying: Trump has vowed a “stronger” deal than the original struck in 2015, and has threatened to bomb Iran if it does not come to an agreement with the US.

Since reporting that last weekend’s initial talks were “constructive,” Trump administration officials oscilated this week between a conciliatory approach and more hawkish demands to fully dismantle Tehran’s nuclear capabilities.

What Iran is saying: Iran this week doubled down on its right to enrich uranium and accused the Trump administration of sending mixed signals.

Iranian media has reported that Tehran had set strict terms ahead of the talks with the US, saying that “red lines” include “threatening language” by the Trump administration and “excessive demands regarding Iran’s nuclear program.”

CNN
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A St Petersburg court has sentenced a 19-year-old woman to nearly three years in a penal colony after she was accused of repeatedly “discrediting” the Russian army, including by gluing a quotation on a statue of a Ukrainian poet.

Darya Kozyreva was sentenced to two years and eight months, the Joint Press Service of Courts in St. Petersburg said in statement Friday.

Kozyreva was arrested on February 24, 2024, after she glued a verse by Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko onto his monument in St Petersburg, according to OVD-Info, an independent Russian human rights group.

The verse from Shevchenko’s My Testament read, “Oh bury me, then rise ye up / And break your heavy chains / And water with the tyrants’ blood / The freedom you have gained,” OVD-Info said.

A second case was brought against her in August 2024, following an interview with Radio Free Europe in which she called Russia’s war in Ukraine “monstrous” and “criminal,” OVD-Info said.

During one of her hearings, the teenager maintained that she had merely recited a poem, and pasted a quote in Ukrainian, “nothing more,” the court press service said.

The anti-war activist has had previous run-ins with the law, having been detained in December 2022 while still at high school for writing, “Murderers, you bombed it. Judases,” on an installation dedicated to the twinning of the Russian city of St Petersburg and Ukraine’s Mariupol, the rights group said.

She was then fined for “discreditation” a year later and expelled from university for a post she made on a Russian social media platform discussing the “imperialist nature of the war,” according to Memorial, one of the country’s most respected human rights organizations.

Describing Kozyreva as a political prisoner, Memorial condemned the charges against her as “absurd” in a statement last year, saying they were aimed at suppressing dissent.

Prosecutors had been seeking a six-year sentence for Kozyreva, Russian independent media channel, SOTA Vision, reported from inside the courtroom. Video footage by Reuters showed Kozyreva smiling and waving to supporters as she left the court.

Kozyreva’s lawyer told Reuters they would likely appeal.

The verdict was condemned by Amnesty International’s Russia Director Natalia Zviagina as “another chilling reminder of how far the Russian authorities will go to silence peaceful opposition to their war in Ukraine.”

“Daria Kozyreva is being punished for quoting a classic of 19th-century Ukrainian poetry, for speaking out against an unjust war and for refusing to stay silent. We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Daria Kozyreva and everyone imprisoned under ‘war censorship laws,’” Zviagina said in a statement.

Russia has a history of attempting to stifle anti-war dissent among its younger generation. Last year, CNN reported that at least 35 minors have faced politically motivated criminal charges in Russia since 2009, according to OVD-Info. Of those, 23 cases have been initiated since Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Currently, more than 1,500 people are imprisoned on political grounds in Russia, according to a tally by OVD-Info, with Moscow’s crackdown on dissent escalating since the war began. Between then and December 2024, at least 20,070 people were detained for anti-war views, and there were 9,369 cases of “discrediting the army,” relating to actions including social media posts or wearing clothes with Ukrainian flag symbols, according to OVD-Info.