The 36-hour truce call by Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Orthodox Christmas period on the request from Russia’s spiritual leader Patriarch Kirill was rejected by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The call for ceasefire is seen as a trick to halt the Ukraine army’s progress in Eastern Donbas region and was termed to be a “tactical ploy”.
The truce call ordered by Putin will start from Friday until the end of Saturday. “Taking into account the appeal of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, I instruct the Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation to introduce a ceasefire regime along the entire line of contact of the parties in Ukraine…” Kremlin made a statement citing Putin.
The order however lacked clarity about the specifics. Is it the offensive and defensive operations by Russia that will be halted and would Russia retaliate if Ukraine kept fighting. To this truce order Zelenskyy in an address on Thursday night accused Russia for continuously ignoring Kyiv’s peace plan.
Zelenskyy in his address said,“They now want to use Christmas as a cover, albeit briefly, to stop the advances of our boys in Donbas and bring equipment, ammunition and mobilised troops closer to our positions,”. He further added that war would only end when Russian troops left Ukraine or were driven out by Ukrainian Army.
Charles Michel the European Council President while commenting on the36- hour truce said that “…Unilateral ceasefire is as bogus & hypocritical as the illegal & grotesque annexations…” in his tweet.
In his address Zelenskyy called on Russian people to oppose Putin in an attempt to end war, “In order to end the war more quickly, we need something completely different. We need Russian citizens to find the courage in themselves, albeit for 36 hours, albeit during Christmas, to free themselves of the shameful fear of one man in the Kremlin.” Ukraine has claimed as many as 400 Russian soldiers were killed in the Makiivka attack whereas Russia has stated the number to be 89 in the New Year attack.