Russia’s cease-fire has ended: This is where fighting continued

Vladimir Putin’s proposed ceasefire along Ukraine’s front lines failed to stem reports of continued violence across the war-torn country in the first week of the new year.

The Russian leader issued a ceasefire order for Moscow’s troops fighting in Ukraine ahead of Russian Orthodox Christmas celebrations on January 7.

The halting of hostilities was intended to last 36 hours, the Kremlin said, beginning at midday on January 6.

The Kremlin decided to introduce the ceasefire after what Russian state media reported to be an appeal by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill.

A statement from the president’s press office, cited by state news agency TASS, said the Kremlin made the decision “proceeding from the fact that a large number of residents in the combat zone are Orthodox Christians.”

It continued that the Kremlin urged “the Ukrainian side to declare a ceasefire to allow them attend services on Christmas Eve as well as on Christmas Day.”

But the idea of a reprieve from the war was quickly batted away by Kyiv, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggesting the move was a “cover” by the Kremlin to reorganise and regroup its forces.

“Everyone in the world knows how the Kremlin uses respites at war to continue the war with renewed vigor,” Zelensky continued in his nightly address ahead of the ceasefire’s supposed start date.

President Joe Biden commented of the ceasefire that he was “reluctant to respond to anything Putin says,” and the U.K.’s Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, wrote on Twitter that the ceasefire would “do nothing to advance the prospects for peace.”

The U.K. Ministry of Defense also wrote on the platform on January 7 that fighting “continued at a routine level into the Orthodox Christmas period.”

The General Staff of Ukraine claimed Russian forces launched 40 rocket attacks, nine missile strikes and three air strikes during the cease-fire, and at least seven Ukrainian regions reported attacks during the ceasefire.

Luhansk

The U.K.’s defense ministry’s intelligence update on Saturday pinpointed the eastern town of Kreminna in Luhansk as the “most fiercely contested sectors” during the Orthodox Christmas period.

Serhiy Haidai, Luhansk’s regional governor, posted on Twitter on Friday that within the first three hours of the cease-fire period, Moscow’s forces had shelled Ukrainian positions 14 times.

Donetsk

The governor of the Donetsk Oblast, Pavlo Kyrylenko, posted on Twitter on Sunday that one civilian had been killed in the embattled city of Bakhmut on January 7, with eight others reportedly injured. He also claimed another person had been killed in nearby Soledar.

There was “no apparent letup” in hostilities following the noon beginning of the cease-fire in Bakhmut, the New York Times reported.

Speaking in his nightly address on January 7, President Zelensky said that despite the cease-fire, “the reality is that Russian rounds hit Bakhmut and other Ukrainian positions again.”

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of President Zelensky’s office, posted on his Telegram channel that two people had been killed in Donetsk on Friday and one in the Kherson region, but did not specify whether these attacks took place during the cease-fire.

Kherson

Russian forces shelled the southern Kherson region 39 times on Friday, according to the governor of the Kherson Oblast, Yaroslav Yanushevych.

He then posted on his Telegram channel on Sunday that one person had been injured on Saturday, and that the Kherson region had been shelled 19 times on January 7.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko similarly posted on his Telegram page on Sunday that one person was injured in Kherson on Saturday, and another had been killed in Kharkiv.

Crimea

The Kremlin-backed governor of Sevastopol, where Moscow houses its Black Sea fleet, claimed on Saturday that air defences had intercepted a Ukrainian attack on the city.