Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a unilateral ceasefire by Russian forces in Ukraine during Orthodox Christmas on January 6-7, a move Kyiv called hypocritical and a propaganda effort.
The ceasefire, which followed an appeal by Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, will be in effect from noon on January 6 and until midnight the following day, and will apply along the contact line, the Kremlin said on Thursday. .
“We called the Ukrainian side to announce a ceasefire and give it [people] the opportunity to attend services on Christmas Eve, as well as on the day of Christ’s birth,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
Ukraine rejects Russian ceasefire. Russia “must leave the occupied territories – only then will there be a ‘temporary ceasefire’. Stay hypocritical to yourself,” Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser in the office of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Twitter.
Earlier, Podoliak described Kirill’s appeal as “a cynical trap and an element of propaganda”.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address on Thursday that Russia’s proposed ceasefire was a tactic. “They now want to use Christmas as a cover, even for a moment, to stop the progress of the children in Donbas, and bring equipment, ammunition and mobilized troops closer to our positions,” he said.
Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of the Security Council of Ukraine, speaking on television, said that Kyiv will not participate in any negotiations with Russia regarding the Christmas ceasefire.
The defense ministry in Moscow said it had received the president’s order and directed troops to begin a 36-hour ceasefire starting at noon on January 6.
Asked about Putin’s call for a ceasefire, US president Joe Biden said: “I think it’s interesting. They’re ready to bomb hospitals and nurseries and churches on the 25th and New Year. I think they’re trying to find oxygen.
The order came days after Russia was dealt a major blow on New Year’s Eve when Ukraine attacked a home-soldier barracks in the town of Makiivka in the Russian-controlled eastern province of Donetsk.
The official death toll, according to Russia’s defense ministry, was 89 on Wednesday, while Kyiv claimed it was in the hundreds. Some Russian pro-war military bloggers accused the commanders of “criminal negligence” and called for individuals to be punished for allowing so many soldiers to be stationed together and in unprotected buildings.
Russia has yet to make significant gains since recruiting 300,000 men following a mobilization order at the end of September. After being pushed out of the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine at the end of the summer, Russian forces also withdrew from the capital of the southern region of Kherson in November. A push to win control over the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk has become a grinding war.
The Russian Orthodox Patriarch who proposed the ceasefire has been a supporter of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
It has deepened the existing rift between the religious communities of the two countries, with the Ukrainian churches and churches breaking relations with Moscow through the Kremlin’s invasion and the Patriarch’s pro-war. Many Orthodox church buildings have also been damaged by airstrikes in Ukraine.
Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the political consultancy R. Politik, said Putin’s decision to call a ceasefire was part of the Kremlin’s “publicity game”.
“In this war, Putin feels like a ‘good man’, doing a good deed not only for himself and his ‘brothers’ in Russia and Ukraine, but also for the world, freeing it from American ‘hegemony,'” Stanovaya wrote in her . social media pages. Putin will recognize and offer a ceasefire as a case of Russia acting on the “good side of history”.
But it could be seen as a response to the recent attack on the army barracks in Makiivka, he said.
“Putin really doesn’t want it to happen again [Orthodox] Christmas Day,” he said.
Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Washington