‘Less problems and slyness’: Russia’s Medvedev happy to forego Christmas ceasefire
Joel Gehrke
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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.”
Medvedev, a former president, lauded the ceasefire as an example of Russian President Vladimir Putin offering “a hand of Christian mercy” on the day that Eastern Orthodox Christians observe Christmas. Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill’s involvement in the proposal did nothing to allay suspicion among Ukrainian political and religious communities, while Russian channels either downplayed or opposed the idea of a ceasefire.
“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. “In my opinion, the big mistake of some people is trying to find good intentions of Russia when Russia continues to kill our civilians and to lies to whole world about Ukraine and other countries who help us to protect ourselves from Russia.”
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky surmised that Russia wanted to use a ceasefire to gain a respite from a flurry of recent Ukrainian strikes. One bombardment killed about 90 Russian service members, according to Russian figures, although Ukrainian estimates place the death toll around 400 — and the incident has turned into a scandal within Russian society.
“They want to use Christmas as a cover to at least briefly stop the advance of our guys in Donbas and bring equipment, ammunition, and mobilized men closer to our positions,” Zelensky said Thursday. “Everyone in the world knows how the Kremlin uses respites at war to continue the war with renewed vigor.”
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.
“For obvious reasons, we do not consider the leadership of the rest of Ukraine to be Orthodox,” Putin proxy Denis Pushilin wrote Thursday on social media, according to the War Translated Project. “The decision concerns a ceasefire [of] offensive action on our part. But this does not mean that we will not respond to the provocations of the enemy, or [that] we will give at least some chance to the enemy during these festive hours to improve their positions on the line of contact.”
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.
The ceasefire proposal also fits into a wider diplomatic struggle by both sides to portray the other as an obstacle to ending the conflict. Zelensky has outlined a “peace formula” that would require Russian forces to withdraw, which the Kremlin has rejected while stipulating its willingness to stop the conflict as soon as Ukrainian officials concede the four Ukrainian regions that Putin has declared to be incorporated into the Russian state — even though Russian forces have succeeded in occupying only parts of those territories.
“Dangerous,” a senior European official based in Kyiv said of the ceasefire, “as some in West could push Kyiv to answer that positively. But in reality, it is [a Russian military deception] to buy time to regroup.”
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Berezhnoy agreed. “How it is possible to consider this proposal and think about a sincere call or not if Moscow Patriarchate and its primate is still blessing and supporting [the] Russian invasion in Ukraine?” he said. “I think they (Kremlin and patriarch) have already got some small effects because some people are interested in that does Ukraine support or not the ceasefire even some of them know well that Russian military troops still try to continue the further occupation of Ukraine at the same time.”