Will the ceasefire hold in Ukraine?

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a 36-hour unilateral ceasefire in Ukraine, timed for the Orthodox Christmas, a move that at least one Ukrainian official derided as a “propaganda gesture” that will likely do little to foster real negotiations or otherwise change the trajectory of the war.

Putin ordered the Russian military to obey a temporary ceasefire “along the entire line of contact between the parties in Ukraine,” according to a statement from the Kremlin. The halt in Russian fighting is supposed to last from noon on Friday, January 6, until midnight on Saturday, January 7, in observance of the Orthodox Christmas holiday. The Kremlin cited a speech from Patriarch Kirill, the firebrand head of the Russian Orthodox Church who has been a full-throated supporter of both Putin and the invasion of Ukraine, as the reason for the decision. “As a large number of Orthodox Christians reside in the area of hostilities, we call on the Ukrainian side to declare a ceasefire to allow them to attend church services on Christmas Eve as well as on Christmas Day,” said the Kremlin’s statement.

A pause in the fighting after months of an increasingly bloody conflict would typically be a welcome development, but this announcement has largely been dismissed by Ukraine and some of its Western partners as an obvious political ploy. A top Ukrainian official, Mykhailo Podolyak, wrote on Twitter that the “Russian Federation must leave the occupied territories - only then will it have a ‘temporary truce’. Keep hypocrisy to yourself.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was also cynical, accusing Russia of trying to use the ceasefire to regroup in eastern Donbas. “They now want to use Christmas as a cover, albeit briefly, to stop the advances of our boys in Donbas and bring equipment, ammunition, and mobilized troops closer to our positions,” Zelenskyy said.

Both Ukraine and Western officials have good reason to be skeptical of Putin’s announcement. Beyond Russia’s spotty record of committing to ceasefires, this truce is more a propaganda move for a domestic audience than a genuine gesture of goodwill toward Ukraine.