What is Vladimir Putin playing at? The Russian president ordered his soldiers deployed in Ukraine to respect a ceasefire, this Friday and Saturday, within the framework of Orthodox Christmas. This is the first major truce since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24. So far, only local agreements have been reached, such as the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal factory in Mariupol in April.
The decision, taken unilaterally by Moscow, comes after a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill, a former KGB member and primate of the Russian Orthodox Church.
“In view of the call of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, I order the Russian Defense Minister to introduce a ceasefire regime along the entire line of contact between the parties in Ukraine from 12:00 on the 6th January (10:00 a.m. French time this year, until midnight (10:00 p.m. French time) on January 7,” Vladimir Putin said.
The head of the Kremlin also called on the Ukrainian forces to respect this truce to give the possibility to the Orthodox, the majority confession in Ukraine as in Russia, to “attend Christmas Eve services, as well as the day of the Nativity of Christ”. .
A communication strategy
kyiv quickly broke the ceasefire, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denouncing an “apology with the aim of at least stopping the advance of our troops in the Donbass and bringing in equipment, ammunition and bringing men from our positions.” “Russia must leave the occupied territories, only then will there be a ‘temporary truce’. Maintain your hypocrisy,” an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mykhaïlo Podoliak, tweeted.
“It’s communication,” sweeps BFMTV Sergei Jirnov, a former KGB intelligence officer. “It’s cynicism,” analyzes Ulysse Gosset, our editorial writer specializing in international politics.
“Vladimir Putin knows very well that the Ukrainians cannot accept this unilateral truce”, “he is trying to convince the Russians that he is a man of peace and not a man of war”, says our expert, an “inaudible” speech in Ukraine, Europe and the United States.
international convictions
The international community has already expressed skepticism about Vladimir Putin’s announcement. The US president, Joe Biden, considered that Vladimir Putin was “looking to get some air”, and recalled that “he was ready to bomb hospitals, nurseries and churches (…) on December 25 and on New Year’s Eve “. This ceasefire “will do nothing to advance the prospects for peace,” reacted the British Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, calling for a permanent withdrawal of Russian forces. Such a truce will not bring “neither freedom nor security” in Ukraine, German diplomacy abounded.
The ceasefire, decided after the proposal of the patriarch Kirill, also took place after a call between Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has dreamed of mediating since the beginning of the conflict. The Turkish head of state had thus proposed a “unilateral ceasefire” aimed at supporting “calls for peace and negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv”.
Before announcing the truce, the Russian president thus indicated to Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Moscow was ready for a “serious dialogue” with Ukraine provided that the latter complied with Russian demands and accepted the “new territorial realities” born of the invasion of it country in February.
To buy time to prepare a “counteroffensive”?
A smokescreen for the experts, with the aim of making the man from the Kremlin present himself as “a man of peace”.
“This leaves the right role for Putin, who wants to show that he is not blocking the negotiations. But we know very well that the Ukrainians are not going to accept it, the bases for the negotiations are not sustainable”, analyzes General Jean-Paul. Paloméros, former head of transformation of NATO military capabilities, in the columns of the Parisian.
Because, according to Michel Goya, defense consultant for BFMTV, a 36-hour ceasefire “is not going to change the face of war.”
For the experts, it is especially what will come after the truce that will be decisive in the continuation of the conflict.
“After this supposed truce, will there be a Russian counteroffensive or a new Ukrainian offensive?” asks Ulysse Gosset. Rumors have been multiplying for several weeks about a possible Russian counteroffensive, starting in the spring.
“The more time Vladimir Putin saves himself, the more time he has to reorganize and prepare for the big counter-offensive everyone is talking about in the spring,” adds our editorial writer.
In Moscow, “there are rumours,” says journalist Paul Gogo, a correspondent in the Russian capital. According to him, in private, the Russians “fear a new general mobilization.”
Source: BFM TV
