Artillery duels continued this Friday in Bakhmut, the epicenter of fighting in eastern Ukraine, with bombardments in other parts of the country despite Moscow’s announcement of a 36-hour unilateral ceasefire, which Kiev described as a ” maneuver” was labeled.
Several shots from the two conflicting parties were noticeable after the start of the ceasefire in this city of devastated and almost deserted streets, but their intensity was less compared to the previous days, AFP news agency reported.
Pavlo Diatchenko, a Bakhmut police officer, claimed the ceasefire was a Russian “provocation” that would not help civilians still in the city. “They are bombed day and night and there are deaths almost every day,” he said, quoted by AFP.
The Russian army promised to respect the ceasefire, but accused Ukrainian troops of “continuing to bomb cities and Russian positions”.
The deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, Kyrylo Tymochenko, recorded two Russian attacks in Kramatorsk (east), which would have hit a residential building if they had caused casualties. Before the armistice he had reported a Russian bombing of Kherson (south).
In the Lugansk region (east), according to Ukrainian officials, 14 artillery shots and three Russian attacks were reported, leaving civilians in shelters.
For their part, Russian-speaking separatist authorities in eastern Ukraine have revealed that Ukrainian troops have returned to bombarding their stronghold of Donetsk, before and after the theoretical entry into force of the ceasefire announced Thursday by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Russian presidency (Kremlin) said on Thursday that Putin responded to a call from the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church for a truce during Christmas celebrations and ordered a ceasefire along the entire line of contact in Ukraine from noon (from Moscow, Russia). 09:00 from Lisbon) from January 6 this year until midnight on January 7 (21:00 from Lisbon).
Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the Ukrainian president, called Putin’s announcement “hypocritical” and said “only if Russia leaves the occupied territories will a ‘temporary ceasefire’ be possible”.
US President Joe Biden said Putin was trying to “take a breather” with the ceasefire announcement, having been “on December 25 and into the new year.”
The head of German diplomacy also downplayed the Russian ceasefire, stating that “if Putin wanted peace, he would withdraw his soldiers home”. “Evidently, [Putin] wants to continue the war, after a short hiatus,” Annalena Baerbock considered.
The military offensive launched by Russia in Ukraine on February 24 has so far led to the flight of more than 14 million people – 6.5 million internally displaced people and more than 7.9 million to European countries -, according to the latest data from the UN, which classifies this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
Currently, 17.7 million Ukrainians need humanitarian aid and 9.3 million need food aid and shelter.
The Russian invasion – justified by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, with the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russian security – was condemned by the international community at large, which responded by sending arms to Ukraine and impose political and economic sanctions on Russia.
The UN presented 6,919 dead civilians and 11,075 wounded as confirmed since the start of the war, underlining that these numbers are well below the actual ones.
Source: DN
