According to Reuters, the Russian authorities declare a ceasefire in Ukraine from 12.00 on Friday 6 January until midnight on 7 January on the occasion of the Orthodox Christmas.
The Kremlin has also allegedly asked Ukraine to declare a ceasefire on the same days, so that the population has the opportunity to go to church on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day.
Orthodox holiday
The Russians are demanding that Ukraine also declare a ceasefire during the Orthodox holiday.
The statement came shortly after Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, called for a ceasefire.
The Russian Orthodox Church has great political power in Russia and Patriarch Kirill is a close ally of President Vladimir Putin.
Rejected
The Ukrainian authorities categorically reject the proposal, calling it a cynical trap.
The adviser to the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyj, Mykhailo Podoljak, calls the Russian Orthodox Church a war propagandist.
– The Russian Orthodox Church has called for genocide against Ukrainians, has called for mass murder and has insisted on even greater mobilization in Russia, he writes in a message on Twitter.
He refers to it as hypocrisy and points out that it is the Russians, not the Ukrainians, who have attacked another country.
– Only when Russia leaves the occupied territories can they start talking about a temporary ceasefire. They can keep their hypocrisy to themselves.
Reject Putin’s requests
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke by phone with both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday.
Both have made clear it is out of the question to talk together in the foreseeable future, according to Reuters.
Putin said in the conversation that Russia was ready for peace talks, but only if Ukraine was ready to “accept the new territorial realities”, implicitly the country’s occupation of large parts of the Donbass region.
Ukraine considers the question completely unacceptable.
