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The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has rejected out of hand a Russian order for a truce over Orthodox Christmas, saying it was a trick to halt the progress of Ukraine’s forces in the eastern Donbas region and bring in more of their own. Speaking pointedly in Russian and addressing both the Kremlin and Russians as a whole on Thursday, Zelenskiy said Moscow had repeatedly ignored Kyiv’s own peace plan.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, instructed his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, to introduce a 36-hour ceasefire along the entire line of contact in Ukraine from noon on Friday to midnight on 7 January, the Kremlin said. Russian troops must hold fire for 36 hours in order to allow people “in the areas of hostilities” to mark Orthodox Christmas, Putin said.
The war would end, Zelenskiy said, when Russian troops left Ukraine or were thrown out. “They now want to use Christmas as a cover, albeit briefly, to stop the advances of our boys in Donbas and bring equipment, ammunitions and mobilised troops closer to our positions,” the Ukrainian leader said in his nightly video address.
