On the eve of the Orthodox Christmas celebrations, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered, Thursday, January 5, a ceasefire in Ukraine for the next day. This first major truce since the beginning of the invasion of the country almost a year ago must come into force on Friday at noon (10 a.m. in Paris) and run until Saturday evening at midnight ( 10 p.m., in Paris).
This announcement comes after a call to this effect from the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, but also a proposal from the Turkish Head of State, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who spoke with Mr. Putin in the morning. “In view of the appeal of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, I instruct the Russian Defense Minister to introduce a ceasefire regime along the entire line of contact between the parties in Ukraine”declared the Russian president, quoted in a statement from the Kremlin.
He also called on the Ukrainian forces to respect this truce in order to give the opportunity to the Orthodox, the majority faith in Ukraine as in Russia, to“to attend services on Christmas Eve [le 6 janvier]as well as the day of the Nativity of Christ [le 7 janvier] ». This ceasefire is the first general truce since the start of the war, only local agreements having been concluded so far, such as for the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal factory in Mariupol (South-East) in April.
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The Ukrainian side did not immediately react officially. Only an adviser to the presidency, Mykhaïlo Podoliak, verbose on Twitter, denounced the“hypocrisy” of the Russian proposal. “Russia must leave the occupied territories, only then will there be a ‘temporary truce’. Keep your hypocrisy”he wrote on the social network. In a separate message to the press, Mr Podoliak called Vladimir Putin’s announcement a “pure act of propaganda”.
“Russia is trying by all means to at least temporarily reduce the intensity of the fighting and the strikes on its logistics centers in order to gain time”, Mr. Podoliak continued. He accused Mr. Putin of not having “the slightest desire to end the war” and try to “convince the Europeans to put pressure” on kyiv with a view to peace negotiations, which Ukraine has refused for months. “There is no need to respond to the deliberately manipulative initiatives of the Russian leadership”he said again.
The first Western nations to react to the Russian president’s statement also question the sincerity of the gesture. German diplomacy thus estimated that the “alleged” ceasefire will only bring “no freedom or security for people who live in daily fear under Russian occupation”. “If Putin wanted peace, he would bring his soldiers home and the war would be over. But apparently he wants to continue the war, after a brief hiatus.”lamented the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, in a message on Twitter. US President Joe Biden has ruled that Mr. Putin “looking for[ait] to give oneself air”.
On the ground, the bombardments continue
During his telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin, the Turkish president had proposed a “unilateral ceasefire” intended to support “calls for peace and negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv”. Mr. Erdogan, who poses as a mediator in the conflict, also spoke Thursday with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, without however mentioning a request for “unilateral ceasefire”. Mr. Putin had initially replied that Russia was ready for a “serious conversation” with Ukraine on condition that the latter comply with Russian demands and accept the “new territorial realities” born from the invasion of this country in February.
Moscow claimed in September the annexation of four regions partially occupied by its army in Ukraine, on the pattern of that of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in March 2014. Volodymyr Zelensky insists, him, for a total withdrawal of Russian forces from his country , Crimea included, before any dialogue with Moscow. Otherwise, he promises to take back the occupied territories by force.
The truce was announced by Mr. Putin less than a week after a Ukrainian strike on New Year’s Eve that left at least 89 dead in Makiivka, eastern Ukraine. A particularly deadly bombardment that the Russian army had to recognize, an extremely rare fact, and which aroused criticism in Russia against the military command.
On the front in Ukraine, the bombardments continued Thursday with in particular the death of a 12-year-old boy and his parents in a Russian bombardment in Beryslav, near Kherson, in the South, according to the deputy head of the presidential administration , Kirill Timoshenko. Two people were also killed and three others injured during a bombardment on a village in Zaporizhia oblast, also in the south, according to Governor Oleksandr Staroukh.