The brigade said command decided to conduct a trial evacuation of Russian troops to assess whether it would be safe to evacuate their own soldiers. For this purpose, Russian servicemen captured the day before by fighters of the 24th Separate Mechanized Brigade were dressed in neutral clothing.
According to the brigade, the occupants were moving from the line of contact to the rear without weapons, showing signs of having received medical aid and using sticks for support. However, they were detected and attacked by FPV drones.
“All three out of three were killed. The evacuation failed. The enemy did not observe the ceasefire,” the 24th brigade said.
Those killed were identified as senior sergeant Stanislav Zhuravlyov (70th motorized rifle division), private Oleksandr Choshev (6th motorized rifle division), and junior sergeant Andrii Zahrebin (26th motorized rifle regiment).
On April 9, Vladimir Putin announced an “Easter ceasefire” in Ukraine from 4:00 p.m. on April 11 until the end of April 12.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine was ready to respond symmetrically during the ceasefire and that Russia “has a chance not to resume strikes after Easter.”
Ukraine’s General Staff later said that as of 7:00 a.m. on April 12, 2,299 violations of the Easter ceasefire by Russian forces had been recorded, about 500 of them overnight.