KYIV, Ukraine – The impact of Russian President Vladimir Putin´s order for his forces in Ukraine to observe a unilateral, 36-hour cease-fire was in doubt Friday after Kyiv officials dismissed the move as a ploy but didn´t clarify whether Ukrainian troops would follow suit.
Moscow also didn´t say whether it would hit back if Ukraine kept fighting, AP reported.
The Russian-declared truce in the nearly 11-month war began at noon Friday and was to continue through midnight Saturday Moscow time (09:00 GMT Friday to 21:00 GMT Saturday; 4 a.m. EST Friday to 4 p.m. EST Saturday). There were no immediate reports of it being broken.
Putin´s announcement Thursday that the Kremlin´s troops would stop fighting along the 1,100-kilometer (684-mile) front line or elsewhere was unexpected. It came after the Russian Orthodox Church head, Patriarch Kirill, proposed a cease-fire for this weekend´s Orthodox Christmas holiday. The Orthodox Church, which uses the Julian calendar, celebrates Christmas on Jan. 7.
But Ukrainian and Western officials suspected an ulterior motive in Putin´s apparent goodwill gesture.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy questioned the Kremlin´s intentions, accusing the Kremlin of planning the fighting pause “to continue the war with renewed vigor.”
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