{"id":29000,"date":"2023-01-05T21:48:29","date_gmt":"2023-01-05T21:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=29000"},"modified":"2023-01-05T21:48:33","modified_gmt":"2023-01-05T21:48:33","slug":"ukraine-rejects-putins-ceasefire-for-orthodox-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/01\/05\/ukraine-rejects-putins-ceasefire-for-orthodox-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine rejects Putin\u2019s ceasefire for Orthodox Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ukraine has rejected an announcement by Vladimir Putin of a 36-hour ceasefire to mark Orthodox Christmas, saying there will be no truce until Russia removes its invading forces from occupied land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kremlin said Putin had ordered his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, to introduce a temporary ceasefire along the entire line of contact in\u00a0Ukraine\u00a0for Orthodox Christmas from midday on 6 January to midnight on 7 January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTaking 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 from 12.00 on 6 January 2023 to 24.00 on 7 January 2023,\u201d Putin\u2019s order, addressed to Shoigu and published on the Kremlin\u2019s website, stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBased on the fact that a large number of citizens professing Orthodoxy live in the areas of hostilities, we call on the Ukrainian side to declare a ceasefire and allow them to attend services on Christmas Eve, as well as on Christmas Day,\u201d Putin added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many Orthodox Christians, including those living in Russia and Ukraine, celebrate Christmas on 6-7 January. Since the war began, some Ukrainians are choosing to celebrate Christmas according to the Gregorian calendar, rather than the Julian calendar still used by the Russian Orthodox church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed Russia\u2019s ceasefire announcement, saying that Moscow had only made the announcement to halt Ukrainian advances in the eastern Donbas region and mobilise more men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey 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,\u201d Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak called Russia\u2019s declaration a \u201chypocrisy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia \u201cmust leave the occupied territories \u2013 only then will it have a \u2018temporary truce\u2019. Keep hypocrisy to yourself,\u201d Podolyak\u00a0tweeted.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine\u2019s national security and defence council, similarly dismissed Russia\u2019s ceasefire proposal, accusing Moscow of \u201chiding behind a Christian holiday\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is a simple solution: they pick up their suitcases, pick up their trash and go to Russia. That\u2019s it,\u201d Danilov told the Kanal 24 channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Separately, he\u00a0tweeted: \u201cWhat does a bunch of little Kremlin devils have to do with the Christian holiday of Christmas? Who will believe an abomination that kills children, shells maternity homes, and tortures prisoners?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ukraine\u2019s western allies also criticised Russia\u2019s ceasefire proposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talking to reporters at the White House on Thursday, the US president, Joe Biden, said Putin was \u201ctrying to find some oxygen\u201d by floating the idea, while Germany\u2019s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said if Putin really wanted peace \u201che would bring his soldiers home\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA so-called ceasefire brings neither freedom nor security to people living in daily fear under Russian occupation,\u201d Baerbock\u00a0tweeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kirill, a close ally of Putin, has emerged as one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner founder, announced on Thursday morning that the first inmates recruited by his private military group had received their promised pardons after fighting for six months in\u00a0Ukraine. \u201cThey worked off their contract. They worked with honour, with dignity. They were the first ones. Nobody else in this world works as hard as they did,\u201d Prigozhin told the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti, standing alongside former convicts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Addressing the men, Prigozhin instructed them not to end up back in jail. \u201cThe police will treat you with respect now \u2026 Don\u2019t drink a lot, don\u2019t use drugs, and don\u2019t rape women. Only [have sex] for love or money,\u201d he said, a statement that was met with laughter. \u201cDon\u2019t steal, you have enough money for now,\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since last summer Prigozhin, known as \u201cPutin\u2019s chef\u201d because his catering business hosted dinners attended by the Russian president, has recruited tens of thousands of prisoners to compensate for acute shortages of men on the battlefield. Each convict reportedly received up to \u00a33,000 a month for fighting in Wagner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A screengrab shows Yevgeny Prigozhin addressing inmates in a Russian prison offering them freedom for fighting in Ukraine for six months. Photograph: Twitter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In one leaked\u00a0video, Prigozhin is seen visiting one of the prisons, telling inmates they would be freed if they served six months with his group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Olga Romanova, the head of Russia Behind Bars, a prisoners\u2019 rights NGO, about 40,000 convicts have so far been recruited from Russian prisons to fight in Ukraine. She said many had died in the\u00a0attempt to capture the Donbas city of Bakhmut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She and other human rights workers described Prigozhin\u2019s practice of recruiting and pardoning prisoners as \u201ccompletely illegal and unconstitutional\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been reports of Wagner prisoners being executed by their commanders for desertion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November, Prigozhin welcomed the\u00a0brutal murder of Yevgeny Nuzhin, a convicted murderer recruited by Wagner who surrendered to Ukrainian forces but was later allegedly handed over to Russia. Prigozhin issued a statement saying the clip showing Nuzhin killed by a sledgehammer blow to his head should be titled \u201ca dog receives a dog\u2019s death\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ukraine has rejected an announcement by Vladimir Putin of a 36-hour ceasefire to mark Orthodox Christmas, saying there will be no truce until Russia removes its invading forces from occupied land. The Kremlin said Putin had ordered his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, to introduce a temporary ceasefire along the entire line of contact in\u00a0Ukraine\u00a0for Orthodox […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":29001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[9306,7602,5178,11183,9255,12283,11962,287,8927,12849,5110,9103,6537,11555,9331,11284,11282,7234,5241,6190,5995,11180,6144,8057,5345,3545,4028,66,1971,10598,10840,10321,10248,5252,7351,2471,9515,1152,8029,9765,6220,12309,5572,11707,5612,5340,5382,9421,7693,10098,11973,9403,9254,6846,5396,421,3805,11377,9320,8306,11926,71,5762,3457,5217,5655,7584,5618,7333,7931,9178,8429,5350,5180,5555,6348,11331,8033,694,6886,9318,5251,6571,2982,3954,5320,36,594,7986,6874],"class_list":["post-29000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-appeal","tag-bakhmut","tag-biden","tag-boys","tag-ceased-fore","tag-ceasefire","tag-chef","tag-children","tag-christian","tag-christians","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-eve","tag-church","tag-citizens","tag-city","tag-convict","tag-convicted","tag-death","tag-died","tag-dog","tag-donbas","tag-drink","tag-drugs","tag-fear","tag-foreign-minister","tag-founder","tag-freedom","tag-germany","tag-holiday","tag-homes","tag-human-rights","tag-illegal","tag-inmates","tag-invasion","tag-jail","tag-joe-biden","tag-killed","tag-kremlin","tag-land","tag-leaked","tag-love","tag-men","tag-military","tag-minister-of-defence","tag-money","tag-moscow","tag-murder","tag-mykhailo-podolyak","tag-national-security","tag-oleksiy-danilov","tag-one","tag-orthodox","tag-orthodox-christian","tag-orthodox-church","tag-peace","tag-police","tag-president","tag-presidential","tag-prigozhin","tag-prison","tag-prisoners","tag-putin","tag-rape","tag-russia","tag-russian","tag-security","tag-sex","tag-soldiers","tag-summer","tag-territories","tag-troops","tag-truce","tag-twitter","tag-ukraine","tag-ukrainian","tag-us","tag-us-president","tag-video","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy","tag-wagner","tag-war","tag-white","tag-white-house","tag-will","tag-women","tag-world","tag-who","tag-yevgeny-prigozhin","tag-zelenskiy"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}