Ukraine war: Zelensky declares Putin’s Orthodox Christmas ‘ceasefire’ a failure, while PM says Russia has created 250,000 square km minefield
- Putin had unilaterally ordered a 36-hour ceasefire on Thursday, timed for the Christmas holiday that many Orthodox Christians celebrate on January 7
- But Zelensky claimed Russian shells hit Bakhmut and elsewhere, while Ukraine’s PM Shmyhal says nation now has world’s biggest minefield – roughly size of UK
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has declared the unilateral ceasefire ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Orthodox Christmas holiday a failure.
“The world could see once again how false statements from Moscow are at every level,” Zelensky said in a video message on Saturday night, soon before the 36-hour ceasefire, as proclaimed by Putin and dismissed by the West, was to end.
“They said something about a supposed ceasefire, but the reality is that Russian shells have again hit Bakhmut and other Ukrainian positions,” Zelensky said.
“Once again it has been confirmed: only the expulsion of Russian occupiers from Ukrainian land and the elimination of all opportunities for Russia to exert pressure on Ukraine and all of Europe will mean the restoration of a ceasefire, security and peace.”
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Putin’s ceasefire offer to celebrate Orthodox Christmas rejected by Ukraine
On Sunday, Kyiv said two Ukrainians had been killed and nine had been wounded despite Putin ordering his forces to pause attacks on Orthodox Christmas. As a result of “Russia’s armed aggression”, one person died and eight were injured in the eastern region of Donetsk over the past 24 hours, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office.
She said one person was killed in the northeastern region of Kharkiv and another was wounded in the southern region of Kherson in the same period.
“Despite the so-called ‘ceasefire’ declared by the Russian occupiers, over the past day, the enemy launched nine missile and three air strikes and fired 40 attacks from multiple rocket launchers,” Ukraine’s defence ministry said in a separate statement.
“In particular, civilian infrastructure was hit.”
Putin had unilaterally ordered a 36-hour ceasefire on Thursday, timed for the Christmas holiday that many Orthodox Christians celebrate on January 7.
The leadership in Kyiv had spurned the truce offer, rejecting it as “hypocrisy,” “propaganda” and a tactical ploy.
Russia said Ukraine shelled its front line positions, forcing troops to return fire despite the truce, which officially ended at 2100 GMT on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Ukraine said Russia has created a massive minefield of some 250,000 square km (96,000 square miles), Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. That would be roughly the size of the UK.
“It is currently the largest minefield in the world,” Shmyhal said in an interview published on Sunday. “It’s not only making it difficult for people to travel, but also causing major disruptions in farming, which is one of our main industries.”
In Ukraine’s Donetsk region, two thermal power plants controlled by Russian forces were damaged in a rocket attack by the Ukrainian army, Moscow-installed officials and Russia’s state TASS news agency said on Sunday.
Early information suggested the plants in Zuhres and Novyi Svit had been hit and that some people had been injured, the officials said on their Telegram channels.
TASS reported that one person was killed as a result of the attack on the plant in Novyi Svit.
“The body of one dead woman was extracted from under the rubble at the plant,” the agency said, citing an emergency services representative.
Ukraine praises US military aid as ceasefire said to falter
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine which never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia or on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine
Ukrainian authorities also said Russian shelling killed two civilians in the fiercely contested town of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region.
Fighting occurred in the Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, according to Moscow.
Early on Saturday, Russian air defences again repelled a drone attack on the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014.
The unmanned aerial vehicle was shot down in the early morning near Sevastopol – the naval base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet – the city’s Russian-appointed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev wrote on Telegram, according to TASS.
The port has been the target of Ukrainian drone attacks several times, most recently on January 4 when two drones were shot down.
Razvozhayev complained that even “holy Christmas” could not stop the “inhuman beings” from attacking his “heroic city”.
Russia supplies its occupying forces in southern Ukraine mainly via Crimea, so Ukraine repeatedly targets logistic and military objectives on the peninsula.
Winning back Crimea is one of Kyiv’s declared goals as the Russian war has increasingly faltered in recent months.
In his Saturday night address, Zelensky said he was pleased so many people had attended the morning Christmas service at the Kyiv Cave Monastery. In the church, a Unesco World Heritage site, the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine celebrated a Christmas Mass – and for the first time in decades in Ukrainian instead of Russian.
The service was broadcast live on Ukrainian television.
Also on Saturday, Putin celebrated the first Orthodox Christmas since his army invaded Ukraine on the grounds of the Kremlin.
Photos and footage circulated by Russian state media showed the 70-year-old standing alone, in the presence only of church attendants, in the Cathedral of the Annunciation.
Putin, who ordered the invasion of the neighbouring country more than 10 months ago, said, according to a Kremlin statement: “This bright, beloved holiday inspires people to good deeds and aspirations and serves to reaffirm in society imperishable spiritual values and moral guidelines such as mercy, compassion, kindness and justice.”
The UN refugee body said on Sunday that the invasion of Ukraine has unleashed the largest wave of refugees since World War II.
“More that 7.9 million people have fled the country, and another 5.9 million are internally displaced,” said the UNHCR representative in Germany, Katharina Lumpp.
The total figure of almost 14 million represents more than a third of the country’s total population of around 41 million.
Additional reporting by Reuters, Bloomberg, Agence France-Presse
