Ukraine rejects Russia's ceasefire proposal: "We will hit you in the dead of night"

The Ukrainian authorities have received the Christmas ceasefire ordered by Vladimir Putin with suspicion.

No senior political or military official has explicitly stated that hostilities will continue, but they have made it clear that they will not abide by the Russian proposal: “Let's speak clearly, who is this truce for?

To themselves?

Ukraine will not negotiate a Christmas truce with Russia," Oleksii Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, said Thursday in a television interview.

The West shares kyiv's distrust of the truce announced by Moscow.

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, has considered that the announcement is a "trap", a "propaganda gesture" by a Putin who "is trying to find some oxygen", while the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock , has expressed skepticism by stating that if the Russian leader wanted peace, he would withdraw his troops from Ukraine.

The Baltic countries have branded the move as hypocritical, as has the president of the European Council, Charles Michel.

And UN Secretary General António Guterres said a truce would be welcome, but "it will not replace a just peace."

Another senior representative of the Ukrainian administration who has expressed himself forcefully has been the adviser to the presidency Mikhailo Podoliak, who called the Kremlin's initiative “hypocritical”: “Russia must leave the occupied territories.

Only then will there be a 'temporary truce'.

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Last hour of the war in Ukraine

“Who can believe a scum that murders children, bombs maternity hospitals and tortures prisoners?

A ceasefire?

Lies and hypocrisy, ”Danilov stated on his social networks, adding, belligerent and poetic:“ We will beat you in the singing silence of the Ukrainian night ”.

Putin's order "is a trap" to buy time to rearm his positions at the front, according to a spokesman for the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky, to

journalist Simon Shuster: "It is a purely propaganda gesture, nothing more" .

How does a pack of petty kremlin devils relate to a Christian holiday?

Who will believe scum that kills children, bombards maternity hospitals, tortures prisoners?

To ceasefire?

Lies and hypocrisy.

We will bite you in the singing silence of the Ukrainian night.

— Oleksiy Danilov (@OleksiyDanilov) January 5, 2023

Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, has also expressed himself in the same vein as Podoliak: “Any truce or ceasefire is only possible after Russia has completely abandoned Ukrainian soil, including Crimea.

Negotiations are only possible on the issues of reparation and contribution for the damage caused to Ukraine, and on compensation for the tens of thousands of lives lost."

Gerashchenko was referring to the 10-point peace proposal that Zelenski presented last November and which demanded as an essential condition that Russian troops leave Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmitro Kuleba, has precisely mentioned Zelensky's plan to reject the validity of the 36-hour truce decreed by the Kremlin: "Russia has ignored Zelensky's peace formula and, instead, bombarded Kherson in on Christmas Eve and massively bombarded with missiles and drones on New Year's Eve.

His unilateral ceasefire cannot and must not be taken seriously."

kyiv's dilemma

The dilemma is set for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, because not supporting the Russian initiative can generate discontent among international public opinion and the chancelleries of its allied countries, which are kyiv's military and financial support.

This is how Iuliia Mendel, former spokesperson for President Zelensky, implicitly recognized the issue in messages posted on Twitter: “What does this non-credible ceasefire mean for Ukraine?

Do we have to give up our fight, stop trying to drive the Russians out of the Ukraine?

Stand watching how the aggressor army stays and adapts to our country?

On the other hand, it is clear that the world is making efforts to stop Putin's war in Ukraine.

The world wants peace and tries to find ways to achieve it.

Both the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the UN Secretary General,

Igor Novikov, also a former adviser to Zelensky, close to the presidential administration, has admitted in a video shared on his networks that if the Ukrainian army maintains hostilities while Russia silences its weapons, it would be used by Kremlin propaganda to convince public opinion international that peace is not possible because kyiv does not want it.

Novikov is also convinced that this is a trap that Russia can use to fake Ukrainian attacks.

Another reason given by Novikov, but also by opinion makers in the daily

, is that Putin wants to emphasize that the celebration of Christmas should be, according to the Orthodox tradition, on January 7 and not on December 25, a date that more and more Ukrainians they want to celebrate to distance themselves from Russian culture.

These are, according to the digital outlet Euromaidan Press, still a minority of 30%.

Another criticism that Putin's order to temporarily cease military actions has raised is precisely that he did not apply it on December 25 or on New Year's Eve, one of the most important celebrations in the Slavic world.

Between December 31 and January 2, Russia carried out multiple attacks against kyiv with more than 80 drone bombs and a dozen cruise missiles.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces responded with one of the deadliest attacks of the war, razing a Russian military base in the Donetsk province and killing about a hundred, according to Moscow's count, or 400 soldiers. according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.

Gerashchenko has also mentioned that behind the Kremlin order there is a sign that the Russian army is at a low point.

“Putin and his troops are weaker.

They want to take advantage of any lull to stop the destruction of soldiers and equipment."

In recent weeks, Ukrainian forces have managed to stop the siege of Bakhmut, a municipality in the Donetsk province that Russia had set as a priority to conquer.

Mendel recalled that during the war in the eastern region of Donbas, from the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015, ceasefires were agreed upon, which, according to her and other Ukrainian analysts, Russia systematically failed to comply with to gain ground.

Moscow, for its part, also denounced that the Ukrainian Armed Forces violated those pacts to cease violence on the front.

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