Putin orders weekend truce in Ukraine; Kyiv won't take part
CTV
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered Moscow's armed forces to hold a 36-hour ceasefire in Ukraine this weekend for the Russian Orthodox Christmas holiday, the Kremlin said.
In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy stopped short of stating his forces would reject Putin's request to suspend fighting, instead questioning the Russian leadership's motives.
"Now they want to use Christmas as a cover to stop the advance of our guys in the Donbas for a while and bring equipment, ammunition and mobilized people closer to our positions," Zelenskyy said. "What will it give? Just another increase in the count of losses."
Zelenskyy claimed that since he unveiled a peace plan in November, almost 110,000 Russian soldiers have been killed, and he accused the Kremlin of planning the fighting pause "to continue the war with renewed vigor."
The most comprehensive recent Western estimate of Russia's military losses was from a senior U.S. military official, who said in November that about 100,000 Russian soldiers had been killed or wounded. Russian authorities haven't provided any recent figure for their military casualties.
Zelenskyy adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted that Russian forces "must leave the occupied territories -- only then will it have a `temporary truce."'
Ukraine's National Security Council chief Oleksiy Danilov told Ukrainian TV: "We will not negotiate any truces with them."
He also tweeted: "What does a bunch of little Kremlin devils have to do with the Christian holiday of Christmas? Who will believe an abomination that kills children, fires at maternity homes and tortures prisoners? A cease-fire? Lies and hypocrisy. We will bite you in the singing silence of the Ukrainian night."
