Russia and Ukraine exchanged artillery barrages on Friday, despite a ceasefire proposal from the Kremlin that Ukrainian officials panned as a bad-faith offer.
“I think most of our servicemen taking part in the special military operation exhaled when they heard the refusal ... to cease fire on Christmas Day,” Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said Friday, per a state media translation. “Less problems and slyness.”
“In my opinion, [the] Kremlin plays with feelings of civilization [around the] world and all normal people who support and help Ukraine to protect its people and European people from further Russian aggression,” Sergiy Berezhnoy, an Orthodox priest and Ukrainian military chaplain, told the Washington Examiner.
The meaning of the ceasefire proposal also was called into question by one of the “separatist” leaders who works as Putin’s proxy in Donbas, who insisted that Putin intended to offer a ceasefire “precisely to Orthodox people for whom it is important to go to church” at Christmas. Zelensky’s outright rejection of the proposal preempted a suspicion that arose among Ukrainian officials in the hours after Putin and Kirill called for a Christmas break from the violence. “I think Russians will organize anti-orthodox provocation on Christmas on Ukrainian flag,” a senior Ukrainian government adviser told the Washington Examiner.
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